Making a living as a graphic designer is a tricky business. The ground keeps shifting, people want more for less, the competition is greater now than ever, and you need to be able to do more things. Graphic Design is becoming a hybrid industry where you need to be able to do multiple things, and do them well. The info graphic below was produced at the end of 2013 with data from 2012. Even though the data is a year old, the facts shown hit home. The information presented was gathered by smartpress.com from a group of industry professionals and shows everything from, how to learn the field to salaries, tools, and self promotion. The saddest thing shown here; in 2011 the average salary for a graphic designer in the USA was just $44,000 a year. Pretty pathetic when you think about the skills required to do the job well.