A progressively colapsing design industry

I think the most meaningful saying I can come up with to sum up any software ever made or that will be made is:

"Anyone can learn to use a software given enough time, however creativity comes from within, without creativity you just have a software taking up hard drive space.

In a nut shell, creativity can NOT be taught, we are born with it. because of this it baffles me at the extent of all the people fighting to try & get into the graphics design fields. I'm sure allot of you have noticed how overly saturated the market is already & the impact it has on design standards.

$500.00 designs are now being done for $10.00 with crappy quality, & the sad thing is the consumer is buying it because of the fast turn around & minimal investment (UNBELIEVABLE) ~ Why? because there are too many people trying to make fast cash today thinking that design is easy.

I think that 75% of the fast cashers end up learning within the first 6 months that they won't get rich off it, Learn within the first 12 months (1 yr.) that it's not the right career path, & the ones who actually had some creativity / muti-tasking ability / software skill that make it to the 2nd year end up realizing how much the industry is truly messed up & what kind of money they could be making now if it wasn't for the new set of 13 MILLION people wanting to be a designer thinking it's easy money now.

All-n-all I would go as far as to say that maybe 1% out of the 13 Million each year trying to make fast cash in design actually stick it all out & become a genuine designer (And that number may be high).

I suppose the bottom line is that the design industry is getting worse, not better, especially now that outsourcing has become popular. Seriously though, how many in some of the large technologically advanced societies can afford to make $5.00 - $100.00 per week to live off of (The amount most make in India & can live comfortable according to their standards of living)? Of course India is just one of many countries venturing onto the world wide web & striving to base a career off anything they can muster.

There are still those companies that choose Quality over quantity & cheap prices, they are the ones keeping the design industry from totally collapsing on itself.

A good rule of thumb is, If one needs to infringe copyrights by taking others work without permission or using pre-made clipart & implementing it into their design proposal, then they are NOT DESIGNERS!!!!!!!!

A true designer creates everything them self from scratch & has the creative ability to make their own UNIQUE clipart if needed.

Not to sound too harsh, but if you find yourself lacking creativity & are unable to create designs 100% from scratch, you might just be in the wrong industry & should seek a different line of work.

This post was meant to be an eye opener & reminder of how messed up the design industry is today (NOT as a personal attack). If you find yourself feeling offended or upset, You may be in the wrong industry as well

I just want to reach out & pat all the designers on the back that have made it past the 2nd year out there, I, Myself am coming up on my 3rd year (Still a newbie). Though I'm sure, those of you that have been around a while can concur on my above comments & may even have more you would like to vent in this thread to let the rest of the world know how you feel.

Keep up the good work designers!!!! I wish you all the best of success!!

 

At last some thing to hear in the favor of designers. I couldnt agree more with you mate. The design industry is truely collapsing on itself because of the amount of CLIPART USERS increasing day by day. The other day in a competition at DP, i encountered a similar guy, the competition was for a bike shop, and the contest holder intended to put that logo on t-shirts, stickers etc, means it must be in vector format (the contest holder didnt knew this fact either). That guy offered just 10$ for the logo and people were like having a bash a their photoshop canvas.. i saw an entry with a beautiful classic bike on it.. and i said, WOW.. i asked the designer " is it vector ? " and his reply was " sorry, i dont understand what u said, im not good english, im from india " then i asked in simple words " you drew that motorcycle ?".. and i didnt got a reply since then.. there you go.. the guy didnt even knew whats a vector format. Such people are spoiling the design industry.

It really hurts you when you see your career/work/hobby/source of earning is having a dark future. Hope we get some changes in our systems or else you will find GRAPHIC DESIGNERS using MSPAINT in the near future.

two thumbs up for the creative creatures. cheers

d3sign3r

 

Now a designer not knowing what a vector format is totally wrong. He should just go away from the industry now.

But these people who don't really know anything are just a bunch of kids, trying to get easy money for a new gadget or something. And those fools who buy their stuff will eventually ask for another better design anyway.

People don't know the value of a really good design yet.

 

I wholeheartedly agree that the design industry is a hard one to get into and even harder to stay in. It is also extremely painful to see someone using clipart or stealing a site design and passing it off as their own. However, like you said, these 'designers' will eventually tire of making $2 for a logo and getting caught for using copyrighted material or sued or whatever happens to them... Don't get me wrong, I fully support someone learning how to use a piece of software and expressing themselves creatively. If they are able to do it, more power to them (us). You have to start somewhere and as long as they fully create their own work, I welcome them.

However, I would not go as far as you do and imply that the design world is imploding on itself. There are some beautiful things being created all around the world and I am constantly being inspired by my contemporary designers. The thing that you have to keep in mind is that the people/ companies asking for a logo to be designed for $10 will not last much longer than the design that steals other designs. These people don't realize the importance of a strong and well thought out design and the positive impact that it can have on their company/ site etc. After all, you get what you pay for.

This type of overall trend with half-hearted designs flooding the market has been seen before and will be seen again. I had a teacher a few years ago who was one of the first people in his city to buy a computer with graphic design software and started a design company based only on that fact. Obviously he was able to work faster and make changes faster than the other designers in town that still did all of their work by hand. Needless to say, in a year or two when all of the others got computers of their own his business went bankrupt. Why? Because he is a crappy designer. His clients realized that they were only paying for the convenience and novelty of something designed on the computer. He is now a disgruntled part time teacher that oversees a writing lab at the school.

I see this new trend of people that think because they own some software this will enable them to design. Maybe they can, maybe they can't. It's only a tool and they will find that out soon enough. I personally see this as an opportunity to do better work.

I also might be crazy but I think this might be good for the design industry in the long run. Perhaps it will push designers to do even better work than they might have because the competition is so strong. You might also find the client's more informed about design and how it can affect them and designer's might get a little more respect and acknowledgement because maybe the client once tried to use photoshop and realized it wasn't as easy as it looks.

 

Nice input Eruct, You have obviously given this area some thought before.

While I do still have firm beliefs that the design world is imploding, mainly because I feel the designer sets the pace for the work / quality / price & the small businesses follow.

However, I do have to agree with you that some of the small / fly by night businesses are to blame as well. These are the ones asking for 50 concepts & only one will be chosen for $5.00 (or some other ridiculously low price for the amount of work). I just can't help to think to myself that they had to learn that they could get away with asking that from somewhere though.

The positive side I see there is for the new striving designers that are trying to build a portfolio & get into the field it allows them to get hands on experience. The sad reality is that the make fast money type will also try & take advantage & eventually discourage the real talent from even trying anymore.

All in all I still feel that the designer sets their own standards & rates.

 

Greetings all,

A very interesting thread...and similar to the problems that I face in my profession.

You see, my background is NOT in graphics design (I know my limitations) but rather in software and systems development. As you know, this was one of the first fields to really feel the crunch of "offshoring" and being opened up to the "world market."

I think the trends are similar.

It starts with a "mad rush" by the bean counters who know nothing except that they can get work done for "ten cents on the dollar," and then seek to outsouce absolutely everything that they can without giving it any more thought.

Of course, in some instances, such outsourcing DOES work out well. But in MANY instances it does not...for reasons that are not that hard to quantify. Businesses are slowly starting to catch onto this fact that "ten cents on the dollar" followed by endless fixes, patches, and reworks of the system due to misunderstood requirements, incomprehensible coding, lack of domain knowledge by the developers, etc. is not really all its cracked up to be.

I agree that what you are seeing now in the graphics design world is the "gold rush" phase...where everyone and their brother wants to get in on it. It will eventually have the big "fall out" where lots of people are going to leave when they realize it is actually a lot of work and takes some talent and experience as well (though some will discover they DO belong in the field).

My wife is a graphic designer by education and experience. She began life doing graphical layout for printing companies (she is old enough to have done this "b.c." - before computers) and continues as best she can now on the computer (she has a lot of health problems). However, nothing frosts her more than to see someone go out and buy a copy of paint shop or adobe photoshop, turn out a bunch of crummy graphics, and then call themselves a desktop publisher/graphic design artist.

It always amuses us both to see someone introduce themselves as a graphic designer and then hand you the most God-awful designed business card known to mankind!

Anyway, please forgive the pontification...I agree with the sentiments that it is diluting the field. However, I do believe there will come the balancing "shake out" and what you will be left with is something that makes more sense.

Real industries will only tolerate the garbage work for so long before they "adjust."

 

there is this website/service called NO ! SPEC

check out the link http://www.no-spec.com/

cheers
d3sign3r

 

Well, I'm just starting up doing some graphic designing, and I feel kinda bad reading all this cause I've been using google images alot, but I haven't been selling the banners =p. Im mainly trying to learn photoshop. However I do know how bad this must be for real designers, as I've been having some problems lately trying to buy wed design. At first I thought it was ridiculous to pay something like 500 dollars when I could get it for 50 bucks. Then I realized I was paying 50 bucks for something I could've easily done myself, probably in less time. People treat photoshop like a home bussiness tool, buy it and start making money, but Its not that simple. Anyway, best of luck to you all =D

 

Please keep in mind that the majority of ALL Google images are copyright protected by the DMCA / Country of origins copyright law / & International treaties. The images in the Google image search are dynamically collected from copyright protected websites. If you are caught using a copyright protected image you risk:

1.) Being sued
2.) Heavy Fines
3.) hosting terminated
4.) Imprisonment
5.) or All the above

The photographers & designers worked Hard on the work found in Google images & stealing / scraping their work to use as your own is Very unprofessional & Illegal!

Since you are new, please take this reply as constructive & stop using Google images. One of these days your luck may run out. All it takes is one client to get sued or questioned & it all comes back to you, the person that sold it to them.

 

I agree with you scorpion.. people dont realize the risk involved in scraping stuff from google images.. but, there are countries like Pakistan, where people dont even know the meaning of copyright infringement, they just dont have this concept, just because of government's lack of interest in the cyber world.. there are many other such countries.. so people are un-aware of the dangers they'r playing with. I hope they realize before anything negative happens to them.

cheers
d3sign3r

 

Not saying I sell the banners, just that I make em.

 

There has never been a better time to be in web design if you are an established company. Many many companies need to stand out from the clutter and require custom designed websites.

Sure it takes a while to build up the portfolio but if you provide value to companies then it's not hard finding customers

 

I disagree (to a point). The industry isn't collapsing - there will always be a need for world-class superstar designers, and they will continue to get paid big money for what they do. There have always been mediocre designers, but the internet has brought them out of the woodwork.

I work for a Fortune 100 company, and there is no way we would hire a mediocre designer $20/hr for mediocre work. We look past that, and only hire established designers and design firms to work on our public graphics (web/print/etc). There is big money in the graphics industry, and if you are a rockstar designer, you'll get your share.

Mediocre designers are not (in any way) tapping into that market.

 

While I do partially agree with the way you look at the industry, I have to also look at the latter side of the coin.

So you don't think that the Human race looks at price at all? Doesn't gravitate to a service labeled (ON SALE)? Doesn't seek the most cost effective investment? Doesn't look for more Bang for the Buck?

Because of the Above & the mediocre designers flooding the markets today with ludicrously low pricing is the main reason of infection.

While I fully understand that on could hire a Indian designer for a project priced at $5,000.00 for $500.00 due to the economical differences in living standards. One must also look at the High majority of scraps / fakes / low quality / infringements / etc.. coming from some of the countries outsourced to. As d3sign3r stated before, allot of these countries don't fully understand what the legal boundaries are. In addition, in todays world people are downloading hacked software (Illegal) from Torrents to start there new business in design.

Heck, I don't know about you, but to me, just the thought of someone starting out with an illegal software sounds like they aren't ready for this industry yet. And if they are willing to cut corners on there software with no regard to the programmers that made it & have families to feed (hinse the reason for selling it), then it would indicate the possibility of further corners being cut.

I'm not saying there is a Lack of work, heck there is Plenty. Even in a time of recession there will always be design work coming from the companies looking for that new edge to survive it & stay in business.

I'm just saying that we have an influx in this day & age of mediocrity & criminality in the industry. And no matter how I look at it, it's hurting more than it's helping.

Just my 2 cents

 

scorpionagency, you do have some good points. The industry is constantly evolving - I'll give you that.

When it comes to visual design, you get what you pay for. I've been in the industry for a while, and I've worked with designers from all spectrum's - it's rare to find a superstar (award winning) designer who uses cheap clip-art and pirated software. Designers who can create everything from scratch (logo, 2d/3d illustrations, flash animation, etc) are truly rare. Sure, many say they can do it, but one look at their portfolio shows otherwise.

Mediocre and cheap designers have their place - they are great resources for the guy who is building a hobby website out of his home. Unless they are using pirated software with no intention of ever purchasing a full version...

 

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