What do they do?

Design clothing and accessories. Create original designs or adapt fashion trends.

Also known as:

Apparel Fashion Designer, Clothing Designer, Costume Designer, Dance Costume Designer, Designer, Fashion Designer, Historic Clothing and Costume Maker, Latex Fashions Designer, Product Developer, Shoe Designer, Sweater Designer

Typical Wages

Projected Growth Rate

Employment of Fashion Designers is projected to show little or no change from 2020 to 2030.

Projected Employment in OH

No Data Available
  • 0%

    Change

    Ranks #28 in job growth rate
    30

    Job Openings

    Ranks #14 in net job growth

Best colleges for Fashion Designers

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Colleges with the most graduates that become Fashion Designers

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Education Level

Percent of workers in this field with these degrees:

  • Doctorate or Professional Degree  (2%)
  • Master's degree  (10%)
  • Bachelor's degree  (56%)
  • Associate's degree  (11%)
  • Some college, no degree  (12%)
  • High school diploma equivalent  (8%)
  • Less than high school diploma  (2%)

Typical College Majors

Most Popular Majors that prepare Fashion Designers

Select Type of Degree:

  • #1
    • Degrees Granted

      1,850
    • Female Students

      1,617
    • Male Students

      233
    • Median Starting Salary

      $45,300
  • #2
    • Degrees Granted

      153
    • Female Students

      105
    • Male Students

      48
    • Median Starting Salary

      $35,825
  • #3
    • Degrees Granted

      29
    • Female Students

      23
    • Male Students

      6
    • Median Starting Salary

      $37,200
  • #4
    • Degrees Granted

      10
    • Female Students

      10
    • Male Students

      0
    • Median Starting Salary

      $35,825
  • #5
    • Degrees Granted

      2
    • Female Students

      2
    • Male Students

      0
    • Median Starting Salary

      $35,825

People in this career often have these skills:

  • Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
  • Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
  • Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
  • Active Learning - Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
  • Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
  • Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
  • Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
  • Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
  • Complex Problem Solving - Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
  • Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.
  • Management of Personnel Resources - Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
  • Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
  • Persuasion - Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
  • Negotiation - Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
  • Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
  • Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
  • Instructing - Teaching others how to do something.
  • Operations Analysis - Analyzing needs and product requirements to create a design.

People in this career often know a lot about:

  • Design - Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.

People in this career often have talent in:

  • Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Visualization - The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Visual Color Discrimination - The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).

People in this career often do these activities:

  • Coordinate design activities.
  • Develop artistic or design concepts for decoration, exhibition, or commercial purposes.
  • Draw detailed or technical illustrations.
  • Write informational material.
  • Collaborate with others to develop or refine designs.
  • Conduct market research.
  • Monitor current trends.
  • Select materials or props.
  • Promote products, activities, or organizations.
  • Build models, patterns, or templates.
  • Maintain inventories of materials, equipment, or products.
  • Study scripts to determine project requirements.
  • Conduct research to inform art, designs, or other work.

This page includes data from:

O*NET OnLine Career data: O*NET 28.1 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (“USDOL/ETA”). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Logo Occupation statistics: USDOL U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics

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