Creative Design, Fashion and Art Businesses: At Home in Miami-Dade

Leading Change in the Hemisphere

Miami’s creative community is at the forefront of fashion, art, music, design and other creative industries. It includes a talented multilingual pool of creative professionals who connect with consumers in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and other languages. Thanks to that diversity and a solid infrastructure for producing and distributing creative work, Miami attracts leading-edge film, fashion, architecture, engineering, advertising, public relations and marketing firms from all over the world.

To help sustain and grow the industry, Miami is home to dozens of art, film, animation, fashion, digital marketing and other creative educational opportunities at local schools, colleges, universities and less traditional training opportunities such as coding camps.

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Industry Overview

Number of Companies	3,926
Number of Employees	37,032
Average Annual Salary	$76,050

Industry Subsectors & Data

Description	2017 Establishments	2018 Jobs	Avg. Earnings Per Job
Textile Furnishings Mills	22	281	$29,598
Other Textile Product Mills	41	560	$40,035
Cut and Sew Apparel Manufacturing	80	1,001	$43,758
Apparel Accessories and Other Apparel Manufacturing	15	248	$41,785
Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers	149	1,494	$80,884
Motion Picture and Video Industries	312	3,262	$68,589
Sound Recording Industries	73	477	$102,778
Radio and Television Broadcasting	114	4,060	$103,176
Cable and Other Subscription Programming	29	1,943	$174,812
Architectural, Engineering, and Related Services	1,249	11,489	$79,936
Specialized Design Services	762	3,713	$40,523
Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services	697	5,523	$78,071
Agents and Managers for Artists, Athletes, Entertainers, and Other Public Figures	103	475	$47,810
Independent Artists, Writers, and Performers	282	2,505	$25,594
Total	3,926	37,032	$76,050

The Creative Industries sector includes essential skill sets in five areas:

• Fashion design
• Media production and entertainment development
• Evolution, production and distribution of digital communications
• Graphic art and design
• Architecture

Miami is a magnet for the arts and creative expression due to three main drivers:

1. Its ambiance as an international city with a forward-looking business climate;
2. Its unique and open culture which embraces different ways of thinking and combining ideas into new and original creations; and
3. Its rich supply of creative talent from area colleges, universities and art and design schools and its ability to attract creative talent from around the world.

Miami is the home for a growing number of world renowned art collections. Rubell Family Collection, De La Cruz Collection, Lavagnolli Art Collection, the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation and the Norman Braman Collection are just a few of the many private art collections housed in Miami-Dade.
So, there was little surprise among those in the art industry when Art Basel decided to make Miami Beach its winter home. These premier international art fairs stage three shows annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; and Hong Kong. Organizers knew serious collectors and investors lived in Miami and would act as a foundation for the potential sales that would take place here. During Art Basel, numerous business programs, workshops, and events are held county-wide embracing the spirit of Miami-Dade County’s Creative Industry.

Miami-Dade County’s Creative Design Industry is on full display throughout the year with internationally acclaimed events. Art Basel Miami Beach attracts leading galleries from all over the world that show historical work from the masters of Modern and contemporary art, as well as newly created pieces by emerging stars. Similarly, the music industry gathers in Miami every Spring for Winter Music Conference, Ultra Music Festival, and Miami Music Week. And the fashion industry is in Miami over the summer for the annual Miami Swim Week.

Examples of Miami’s role as a growing Media Hub:

NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises established its global headquarters in Miami bringing together its entertainment, news, digital operations and studios operations together under one roof in Northwest Miami-Dade County.

Cisneros Studios is the largest independent producer of Spanish-language television programming in the United States and is the third largest in the world. From its state-of-the-art facilities—six sound stages spanning 120,000 sq. ft. in Miami and 11 sound stages spanning 112,000 sq. ft. in Caracas—the company produces over 6,000 hours of programming a year, which includes our widely acclaimed telenovelas, variety and talk shows, game shows, documentaries, children’s programming and sports.

Major Employers

Telemundo
Perry Ellis
Univision
HBO Latin America
Cisneros Group
Tiffany & Co
Latin America

Industry-Focused Talent Development Programs

Miami-Dade College

-School of Entertainment & Design Technology http://www.mdc.edu/sedt/

-Arts, Humanities, Communications, Design http://www.mdc.edu/academics/programs/meta-arts.aspx

-Miami Fashion Institute http://www.mdc.edu/academics/programs/meta-arts.aspx

Miami-Dade County Public Schools

-Visual Arts http://vpa.dadeschools.net/visualarts.html

Florida International University

-The FIU School of Communication, Architecture + The Arts http://carta.fiu.edu/

University of Miami

-College of Arts & Sciences http://www.as.miami.edu/art/areas-of-concentration/undergraduate-programs/graphic-design–multimedia/

Barry University

-Graphic Design https://www.barry.edu/fine-arts/art/about-the-program/graphic-design.html

-Studio Art https://www.barry.edu/fine-arts/art/about-the-program/studio-art.html

St. Thomas University

-School of Arta and Education https://www.stu.edu/arts/about

Florida Memorial University

-School of Arts and Sciences http://www.fmuniv.edu/academics/school-of-arts-and-sciences/

-The FIU School of Communication + Journalism https://communication.fiu.edu/gsc-creative/

What Industry Leaders Are Saying

Perry Ellis International

“Today, every industry has a design component, including apparel, technology, film and retail Miami-Dade has diversified to meet the needs of all these different industries. This is a melting pot with talent from many countries which creates an environment that is richly conducive to creativity”