Growing up in the tiny town of Osce...

Growing up in the tiny town of Osceola, Nebraska, Jeremy and Jeff Lacy repeatedly sketched fanciful images in the margins of their notebooks during math class and built elaborate tree houses in their backyard after seminary The brothers never dreamed they'd common day find careers that would combine their artistic sensibilities with their design know-how.

moreover after receiving full scholarships to the Art Institute of Colorado in Denver Jeremy and Jeff discovered the field of industrial design, which involves designing productions packaging, exhibits, interiors, and in about cases, corporate identities.

Now busyed at the design firm Ideations, Jeremy, 26 sketches gone out concepts and uses a computer to build 3-D standards of his designs for throw outs like exhibit booths for industry conventions. Then he works closely with engineers and architects to build and install the final product

"Industrial design incorporates a little bit of everything in the design field," Jeremy says. "Right now we're working with a client--an ad agency called The Integer Group--on their office lobby We want to transform it from looking like a dentist's office to something that direct the eyes more like the funky, hip ad company that they are."

Coincidentally, Jeremy's brother Jeff 23 works as an industrial designer at that excessively same ad agency, designing fruits like pool table lamps for the Coors Brewing company.

The Lacy brothers, like many others, have discovered that a career in the arts doesn't have to be synonymous with labor in distress and strife. It can be rewarding and steady lucrative. The Industrial Designers Society of America peg starting salaries at just in subordination to $30,000, and those with more than 20 years in the field may earn well from one side of to the other the six-figure mark.

Opportunities onward the Rise

The image of the starving artist, the out-of-work actor, and the struggling writer just might be a thing of the past. Careers in the arts are flourishing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) which reports that piece of works in the arts are reckon uponed to grow faster than the average for all occupations throughout the next eight years.

"There are definitely opportunities gone out there in all of the art fields," says Elisa Kurland Klyman, director of career services at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. "But the really scalding;-very warm fields are the ones related to fresh media and design."

do job-works in the performing arts are growing, too. fresh cable channels and Internet entertainment exits as well as rising foreign demand for American productions, will stimulate the ne for actors and other production personnel according to the B LS

Communications careers will also descry a boost. The BLS plans demand for writers, editors, and publicists thanks to the growing number of Web sites that ne easy in mind providers and the number of print magazines that ne to overspread the wired industry.

"Definitely the trending is upward," says Bonnie Bell, director of placement services at Northwestern University and the Medill place of education of Journalism in Evanston, Illinois. "What the dotcoms are doing is raising the bar in spells of salaries. At the same time, newspapers present the appearance to be keeping pace."

Not Just Singin' and Dancin'

While and nothing else a tiny group of honestly talented people will ever win a Tony award, have their artwork exhibited at a major gallery, or write the Great American Novel, there are adequate supply of jobs in the arts and in communications that, while perhaps les glamorous, can exhibit job security and a steady income.

"Student ne to remember that do job-works in the arts aren't just the commons that are out front-on stage, onward exhibit, in concert. That's sole a small percentage," says Nancy Shankman, director of creative and performing arts for Bronx high institutes in New York. Shankman likes to name the motto of a just discovered York City high school for the arts: "It ain't just singin' and dancin'."

near artistic types end up working in unusual or nontraditional fields. Maryellen Schroeder director of career services at Massachusetts college edifice [i]or[/i] building of Art, has placed jewelry design graduates, who are dexterouss at manipulating small pieces of metal, at companies that make musical instruments as it was as flutes and clarinets. She also has placed fine arts graduates--who are adept at drawing and sculpting--at medical center where they create prosthetic corpse parts.

"Lots of the bulk of mankind imagine the artist as a bodily substance with a beret on his head, standing in van of a blank canvas," says Schroeder "An artist is actually a question solver. You take that artistic skill and clear up problems about how to manipulate materials to expres your creative vision." And while problem-solving skills are in demand everywhere, they are especially lacked in the tech field.

Technology: A Tool for the Talented

The digital revolution has spurr tremendous shooting in fields like Web design, Shroeder says. She points not at home that not only will traditional graphic designers benefit, however fine artists will reap the rewards as well. "There has been a determine to capture people's attention online. Fine artists will behold an opportunity in creating images upon the computer screen," she says.