Cuando Me Enamoro - What I love about design and working within a creative industry the most is that it is constantly changing. From trends, software, clients to working practices, the design world in which we, as designers, live is a great place to be. But is everything really that peachy? Or are we at the peak, waiting to fall?
Competition (literally)
Graphic design is an over-saturated market, no doubt about it. The lure of what seems (from the outside at least), an attractive lifestyle, along with a misconceived acclaim to fame, means that more students are enrolling in design-related courses than ever. Eventually, a percentage will graduate and seek design-related jobs. Also, don’t forget the uneducated hobbyists who claim to be ‘Graphic Designers’ & then, of course, there’s those already established within the industry. With service providers multiplying at a rapid rate & the current economic climate limiting the number of new start-up businesses, is there enough work to go around? I asked 4 top designers for their opinions:
Nathan Sarlow of www.cobaltcow.com thinks design is going down-hill:
I think overall, the design industry is in a state of decline, and the difference between the high and low end of the industry is widening. The industry is flooded with incompetent designers, and businesses cashing in on the ‘tough economic times’ by facilitating the ability for a company to see hundreds of custom designs for only a few hundred bucks.
The businesses/websites that Nathan refers to, I’m not going to link to them as you probably have already visited if you’re reading this, are also multiplying. By offering “design competitions” for measly prize amounts, you would think that this would harm our beloved profession. Well, in a sense, it does, but let’s look a little deeper. I believe there are two types of “clients” that use these design competition sites, 1) those which have a very limited budget & 2) those looking to save money by taking the cheapest option available. If a business only had $250 dollars to spend on a logo or website design before these sites existed then chances are they would have acquired the service by another means for the same price. For example, via a local printers, a friend who knows a little photoshop or illustrator, or maybe they would have had a crack at the design themselves. Of course, this still happens today, and let’s remember that there will ALWAYS be someone out there willing to work for next to nothing.
Mike Rock also known as @kaimere on Twitter, stays optimistic:
Ultimately the design industry has followed the trends of recession, feeling the impact as business’ decline or prosper. It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon and say we are in decline when in effect we should counter the effects and re look/ rebrand ourselves to make ourselves viable propositions. Some may say crowdsourcing hurts the industry however in actual fact it caters for a CERTAIN market who’s brand is moulded around a logo rather than having a logo crafted to their needs, so one may hope as their product grows – as do their aspirations as they try to gain more of your market share and they look for credible sources.
Some have said that the recent influx of crowdsourcing increases workflow and helps designers improve their skills.
Sean O’Grady also known as Fogra on Logopond said:
The design industry is now reduced to which designer can offer the lowest price for design work. In fact, I have seen some prospective clients offering only $10 to anyone who can design a logo for their company or even NOTHING in some cases to gain a portfolio piece. I have set-up a search on my Tweetdeck with the keywords, ‘looking for logo’ and it brings up results from people looking for logo design to other people promoting CrowdSpring, Elance, etc. It really is a buyer’s market right now but ‘if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys’.
Realistically, these crowdsourcing sites only directly affect you if you charge similar prices to the prizes on offer in the competitions. The problem comes when clients instantly believe the best way to get ‘good’ design is by seeking as many concepts as possible. The key is to educate the client that quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality.
Educate.
The biggest stumbling block a business faces when seeking design work, is where to look? There are thousands of designers online, all with similar strategies, looks & styles, but most portfolios do not include a set price list for fear of exposing themselves to peers. Fair enough. A designer shouldn’t have to public display their going rate, but by setting up a design competition a client can decide how much they want to pay THEMSELVES. Why should a client go with the more expensive option anyway?
We all get frustrated when we don’t hear back from an enquiry. Was the price too high? Did they go with someone else? Wasn’t my work good enough? Nine times out of ten, if a company has taken the time to get in touch then that means they like your work, if they don’t reply then we could be to blame for not justifying the price of services.
Mike Rock thinks designers need to adopt new strategies:
The role of the designer amidst the plethora of home dtp solutions is becoming more cloudy and itself is in decline for those who choose not to adapt. The process and strategy is being lost among the other resources available so much so the title/role of designer is viewed as an unnecessary expense in relation. I could rant on and on but the main point is we need to adapt, educate and be dependable and as credible as the logos/ brands which we create.
I said at the start of this article that the designer industry is constantly changing, so why aren’t designers? Why are we waiting for the phone to ring and getting disgruntled when we don’t land a job? Never before has a designer had to be so dynamic:
Trish Scheafer-Montgomery of www.contemporary-native.com backs this view
Graphic designers not only have to know their own business, industry and market, but they have to learn and understand their clients’ in order to create the right design for them. Not just a great design, but a design that works.
Graphic designers also have to be personable and educators. An educated client makes for a more loyal and appreciative client.
I offer a lot of “Free” support services to clients. None of which are a hindrance to me, but are a good value to the client. I provide the logo in various formats and sizes for almost any media and I a logo guide. The formats and guide are both emailed and burned to disc to be snail mailed to them. For the first six months from the full purchase of the final logo I offer free production support and minor updating of the logo (such as changing the slogan). Part of my job as a graphic designer is to educate, design and provide enough upfront support to help the client become successful. This minor investment is a large investment in myself as well as the client. Happy clients mean they’ll come back and they’ll probably bring friends.
Sean O’Grady believes good communication is more important than ever:
There is no value put on good quality, professional design services. The trick is to work with the client closely on discussing their business, getting involved in it and informing them of all aspects of media available to them. After a meeting you should know as much as they do about their product or service. This will not only help your client appreciate their position but more importantly it will help you the designer create a more effective and meaningful brand identity. I just feel that clients don’t get a meaningful brand identity when they approach the likes of these spec work sites for example. There is also a bigger danger of a client being sued for using a logo which may conflict with an already existing logo all because it either wasn’t researched properly or the designer plagiarised the design. This seems to be more and more prevalent lately, in my opinion.
It’s not just clients that need guiding; it’s budding students too. Some leave education thinking that the only way to make a living through design is to enter competitions and progress from there. That may be the case for a lucky few but not all.
Nathan Sarlow thinks the education system could help:
It seems that the majority of people that graduate from design school come out with the same knowledge and a similar style. I personally feel that the education part of the design industry needs to be guided more by active designers and less by teachers (that used to be designers). This way, the students would be learning more about current ‘real world’ design and not theoretical design that will only aid to give them a false sense of their worth to the industry. With hundreds of competitions running every week across dozens of spec-work sites, more and more companies are re-inforcing the spec stye of sourcing work is acceptable. Regardless of the quality of the end result, very few of these companies will ever be convinced that paying a designer for their time is of any inherant value.
Unfortunately, I believe spec work will always exist within the design industry, as long as there are people willing to take it on. It doesn’t effect me directly though, and it shouldn’t effect you either, but that doesn’t mean I am saying what these crowd-sourcing sites are doing is right. Fortunately, there are still clients out there wise enough to know that they have to pay for quality, we just need to justify our own positions in the market & our services. As has been said above, being a designer is more than just drawing a pretty picture and sending an invoice, it’s about sellling yourself too. Theres a big difference between selling yourself and selling your soul though.
We could all take the easy option & light our stakes, pick up our pitchforks and run to the crowd-sourcers to point the finger of blame or we could just take a look at ourselves, and look at how we can be improved. After all isn’t that the role of a designer anyway?
Competition (literally)
Graphic design is an over-saturated market, no doubt about it. The lure of what seems (from the outside at least), an attractive lifestyle, along with a misconceived acclaim to fame, means that more students are enrolling in design-related courses than ever. Eventually, a percentage will graduate and seek design-related jobs. Also, don’t forget the uneducated hobbyists who claim to be ‘Graphic Designers’ & then, of course, there’s those already established within the industry. With service providers multiplying at a rapid rate & the current economic climate limiting the number of new start-up businesses, is there enough work to go around? I asked 4 top designers for their opinions:
Nathan Sarlow of www.cobaltcow.com thinks design is going down-hill:
I think overall, the design industry is in a state of decline, and the difference between the high and low end of the industry is widening. The industry is flooded with incompetent designers, and businesses cashing in on the ‘tough economic times’ by facilitating the ability for a company to see hundreds of custom designs for only a few hundred bucks.
The businesses/websites that Nathan refers to, I’m not going to link to them as you probably have already visited if you’re reading this, are also multiplying. By offering “design competitions” for measly prize amounts, you would think that this would harm our beloved profession. Well, in a sense, it does, but let’s look a little deeper. I believe there are two types of “clients” that use these design competition sites, 1) those which have a very limited budget & 2) those looking to save money by taking the cheapest option available. If a business only had $250 dollars to spend on a logo or website design before these sites existed then chances are they would have acquired the service by another means for the same price. For example, via a local printers, a friend who knows a little photoshop or illustrator, or maybe they would have had a crack at the design themselves. Of course, this still happens today, and let’s remember that there will ALWAYS be someone out there willing to work for next to nothing.
Mike Rock also known as @kaimere on Twitter, stays optimistic:
Ultimately the design industry has followed the trends of recession, feeling the impact as business’ decline or prosper. It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon and say we are in decline when in effect we should counter the effects and re look/ rebrand ourselves to make ourselves viable propositions. Some may say crowdsourcing hurts the industry however in actual fact it caters for a CERTAIN market who’s brand is moulded around a logo rather than having a logo crafted to their needs, so one may hope as their product grows – as do their aspirations as they try to gain more of your market share and they look for credible sources.
Some have said that the recent influx of crowdsourcing increases workflow and helps designers improve their skills.
Sean O’Grady also known as Fogra on Logopond said:
The design industry is now reduced to which designer can offer the lowest price for design work. In fact, I have seen some prospective clients offering only $10 to anyone who can design a logo for their company or even NOTHING in some cases to gain a portfolio piece. I have set-up a search on my Tweetdeck with the keywords, ‘looking for logo’ and it brings up results from people looking for logo design to other people promoting CrowdSpring, Elance, etc. It really is a buyer’s market right now but ‘if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys’.
Realistically, these crowdsourcing sites only directly affect you if you charge similar prices to the prizes on offer in the competitions. The problem comes when clients instantly believe the best way to get ‘good’ design is by seeking as many concepts as possible. The key is to educate the client that quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality.
Educate.
The biggest stumbling block a business faces when seeking design work, is where to look? There are thousands of designers online, all with similar strategies, looks & styles, but most portfolios do not include a set price list for fear of exposing themselves to peers. Fair enough. A designer shouldn’t have to public display their going rate, but by setting up a design competition a client can decide how much they want to pay THEMSELVES. Why should a client go with the more expensive option anyway?
We all get frustrated when we don’t hear back from an enquiry. Was the price too high? Did they go with someone else? Wasn’t my work good enough? Nine times out of ten, if a company has taken the time to get in touch then that means they like your work, if they don’t reply then we could be to blame for not justifying the price of services.
Mike Rock thinks designers need to adopt new strategies:
The role of the designer amidst the plethora of home dtp solutions is becoming more cloudy and itself is in decline for those who choose not to adapt. The process and strategy is being lost among the other resources available so much so the title/role of designer is viewed as an unnecessary expense in relation. I could rant on and on but the main point is we need to adapt, educate and be dependable and as credible as the logos/ brands which we create.
I said at the start of this article that the designer industry is constantly changing, so why aren’t designers? Why are we waiting for the phone to ring and getting disgruntled when we don’t land a job? Never before has a designer had to be so dynamic:
Trish Scheafer-Montgomery of www.contemporary-native.com backs this view
Graphic designers not only have to know their own business, industry and market, but they have to learn and understand their clients’ in order to create the right design for them. Not just a great design, but a design that works.
Graphic designers also have to be personable and educators. An educated client makes for a more loyal and appreciative client.
I offer a lot of “Free” support services to clients. None of which are a hindrance to me, but are a good value to the client. I provide the logo in various formats and sizes for almost any media and I a logo guide. The formats and guide are both emailed and burned to disc to be snail mailed to them. For the first six months from the full purchase of the final logo I offer free production support and minor updating of the logo (such as changing the slogan). Part of my job as a graphic designer is to educate, design and provide enough upfront support to help the client become successful. This minor investment is a large investment in myself as well as the client. Happy clients mean they’ll come back and they’ll probably bring friends.
Sean O’Grady believes good communication is more important than ever:
There is no value put on good quality, professional design services. The trick is to work with the client closely on discussing their business, getting involved in it and informing them of all aspects of media available to them. After a meeting you should know as much as they do about their product or service. This will not only help your client appreciate their position but more importantly it will help you the designer create a more effective and meaningful brand identity. I just feel that clients don’t get a meaningful brand identity when they approach the likes of these spec work sites for example. There is also a bigger danger of a client being sued for using a logo which may conflict with an already existing logo all because it either wasn’t researched properly or the designer plagiarised the design. This seems to be more and more prevalent lately, in my opinion.
It’s not just clients that need guiding; it’s budding students too. Some leave education thinking that the only way to make a living through design is to enter competitions and progress from there. That may be the case for a lucky few but not all.
Nathan Sarlow thinks the education system could help:
It seems that the majority of people that graduate from design school come out with the same knowledge and a similar style. I personally feel that the education part of the design industry needs to be guided more by active designers and less by teachers (that used to be designers). This way, the students would be learning more about current ‘real world’ design and not theoretical design that will only aid to give them a false sense of their worth to the industry. With hundreds of competitions running every week across dozens of spec-work sites, more and more companies are re-inforcing the spec stye of sourcing work is acceptable. Regardless of the quality of the end result, very few of these companies will ever be convinced that paying a designer for their time is of any inherant value.
Unfortunately, I believe spec work will always exist within the design industry, as long as there are people willing to take it on. It doesn’t effect me directly though, and it shouldn’t effect you either, but that doesn’t mean I am saying what these crowd-sourcing sites are doing is right. Fortunately, there are still clients out there wise enough to know that they have to pay for quality, we just need to justify our own positions in the market & our services. As has been said above, being a designer is more than just drawing a pretty picture and sending an invoice, it’s about sellling yourself too. Theres a big difference between selling yourself and selling your soul though.
We could all take the easy option & light our stakes, pick up our pitchforks and run to the crowd-sourcers to point the finger of blame or we could just take a look at ourselves, and look at how we can be improved. After all isn’t that the role of a designer anyway?
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