Catch 22 or predictions for creative industries for 2009, if you dont have any speckles of dust in your shoulders
Happy Hogmanay !!!
There is a lot of presumptions for this year, with the crisis hitting Europe, and recession setting in most of the European Union, its not surprising at all for people that deal with edge funds, or even for the more modest investor that deals by etrader, to put simple, it is true, and it is here.
Job losses are intense in Great Britain, and several small enterprises are falling like a castle of cards. Christmas is over, and if its true that the creative industries were blessed with fierce competition between retailers, it is true that its over now, and with savings to be put in place by companies, if its true that firms took the unpopular step of issuing redundancies, cutting costs in staff, they also cut costs in everything considered unnecessary, the adage:
"All art is useless."
Might not be true, but nevertheless seems to be popular like one of those pieces of popular wisdom that preys at the background of a thought, well you guessed:
Costs are being cut in advertising, and with that all related industries, this is dreadful news for printing businesses and similar specialities, I am not proud to predict that many of those businesses will go bust this year.
Things will be on the edge to traditional graphic designers, and all the art related disciplines, I believe it will be difficult to thrive this year for most professionals and graduates.
Things will be less bad for established advertisers, that have history with the same clients, but they can count on money owed to them and/or late payments.
Gaining of this will be IT or IT related designers, such as interface designers, and technology "problem solving" related variants, I dare to guess if web designers ( The PHP/ASP programmer type, not the "arty" ) will benefit from the crisis, E-business depends greatly on the price of fuel (delivery costs).
Closing this year my latest project, and finding it hard to part with working with the best team I have worked till today, really great people to work with (C D and G). Until the next project, I am taking a couple of nights to put my feet up, and do basic tidy-up tasks, where strangely I am finding a sort of meditative peace, yes, my servers are my bonsai.
I am also amazed to find myself programming again, taking a very light approach to Flex, which I was curious about for a year or so, until the end of the month I will be back to ASP, PHP, and since I have no Flash to do, I will be re-installing SUSE in my test box.
Programming took in the past a great deal of my time for image creation, I would like to do that, but all the non-profit "arty-farty" type of work, is not a priority, in reality, it is not good business at all for these times, the increased popularity and ease of use of industry leading software packages, makes any wannabe into a graphic designer with a couple of tutorials, since I never worked for a couple of £100, I tend to sub-contract while busy with the Tech side, editing myself everything I don't approve in the end, and sometimes reinventing the concept if necessary well ahead of time for the deadline of the brief. Times change, and so must designers, it is not easy to accept this for the more purists, but understand that capital always has the last word, and unless one wants to work for less and less as time passes, skills must be improved, some of us decide to follow computer science as the ultimate leap of faith in self challenging, others get a job in print business for whatever they pay, or get into sign making.
The days of image generation are over, I always suspected these times would come, with Home Pc peripherals taking all the photocopying retail business away, and also the digital photography defeating the photographic film development and photo print shops, it is not hard to see that with better computer spec at lower prices, the advances in processing power and the decrease of the price of RAM and several other devices, it is fair to say that digitalisation is not only changing things and making graphic services and even related businesses obsolete (such as electronic repairs, image editing, airbrush retouching...you get the picture...), it is even more true that digitalization is here to stay.
Now, this does not intend to be an attack against traditional designers and photographers, that is simply not my style, and I do respect those professions greatly, and believe me, few people consume and appreciate design like me and my close friends, but I think its safe to say that anyone working in those industries must have felt a decrease in demand and in the price the client is wiling to pay. Nor do I intend to insinuate that the current industry circumstances are a sort of proof to separate the best from the mundane, I cant stress enough my respect by professionals of the most classic forms of design, in which I work sporadically and even have very good credentials on, please note that I often rely on these professionals myself when I manage a project, so I couldn't have any lack of consideration for them.
Not wanting to be bad news to anyone, and wishing anyone reading this a very good year, yes I too hope that I am wrong.
Cheers
There is a lot of presumptions for this year, with the crisis hitting Europe, and recession setting in most of the European Union, its not surprising at all for people that deal with edge funds, or even for the more modest investor that deals by etrader, to put simple, it is true, and it is here.
Job losses are intense in Great Britain, and several small enterprises are falling like a castle of cards. Christmas is over, and if its true that the creative industries were blessed with fierce competition between retailers, it is true that its over now, and with savings to be put in place by companies, if its true that firms took the unpopular step of issuing redundancies, cutting costs in staff, they also cut costs in everything considered unnecessary, the adage:
"All art is useless."
Might not be true, but nevertheless seems to be popular like one of those pieces of popular wisdom that preys at the background of a thought, well you guessed:
Costs are being cut in advertising, and with that all related industries, this is dreadful news for printing businesses and similar specialities, I am not proud to predict that many of those businesses will go bust this year.
Things will be on the edge to traditional graphic designers, and all the art related disciplines, I believe it will be difficult to thrive this year for most professionals and graduates.
Things will be less bad for established advertisers, that have history with the same clients, but they can count on money owed to them and/or late payments.
Gaining of this will be IT or IT related designers, such as interface designers, and technology "problem solving" related variants, I dare to guess if web designers ( The PHP/ASP programmer type, not the "arty" ) will benefit from the crisis, E-business depends greatly on the price of fuel (delivery costs).
Closing this year my latest project, and finding it hard to part with working with the best team I have worked till today, really great people to work with (C D and G). Until the next project, I am taking a couple of nights to put my feet up, and do basic tidy-up tasks, where strangely I am finding a sort of meditative peace, yes, my servers are my bonsai.
I am also amazed to find myself programming again, taking a very light approach to Flex, which I was curious about for a year or so, until the end of the month I will be back to ASP, PHP, and since I have no Flash to do, I will be re-installing SUSE in my test box.
Programming took in the past a great deal of my time for image creation, I would like to do that, but all the non-profit "arty-farty" type of work, is not a priority, in reality, it is not good business at all for these times, the increased popularity and ease of use of industry leading software packages, makes any wannabe into a graphic designer with a couple of tutorials, since I never worked for a couple of £100, I tend to sub-contract while busy with the Tech side, editing myself everything I don't approve in the end, and sometimes reinventing the concept if necessary well ahead of time for the deadline of the brief. Times change, and so must designers, it is not easy to accept this for the more purists, but understand that capital always has the last word, and unless one wants to work for less and less as time passes, skills must be improved, some of us decide to follow computer science as the ultimate leap of faith in self challenging, others get a job in print business for whatever they pay, or get into sign making.
The days of image generation are over, I always suspected these times would come, with Home Pc peripherals taking all the photocopying retail business away, and also the digital photography defeating the photographic film development and photo print shops, it is not hard to see that with better computer spec at lower prices, the advances in processing power and the decrease of the price of RAM and several other devices, it is fair to say that digitalisation is not only changing things and making graphic services and even related businesses obsolete (such as electronic repairs, image editing, airbrush retouching...you get the picture...), it is even more true that digitalization is here to stay.
Now, this does not intend to be an attack against traditional designers and photographers, that is simply not my style, and I do respect those professions greatly, and believe me, few people consume and appreciate design like me and my close friends, but I think its safe to say that anyone working in those industries must have felt a decrease in demand and in the price the client is wiling to pay. Nor do I intend to insinuate that the current industry circumstances are a sort of proof to separate the best from the mundane, I cant stress enough my respect by professionals of the most classic forms of design, in which I work sporadically and even have very good credentials on, please note that I often rely on these professionals myself when I manage a project, so I couldn't have any lack of consideration for them.
Not wanting to be bad news to anyone, and wishing anyone reading this a very good year, yes I too hope that I am wrong.
Cheers
posted by N at
4:33 PM
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