The biggest challenges facing those who produce and distribute content are not necessarily production or workflow issues, but rather involve navigating the seas of new and newer media. The key is to strategize successfully and understand how each medium-whether it’s old media like print, new media like the Internet, or newer media like podcasting and mobile media-fits into a given marketing or advertising campaign. For publishers, the situation is even more crucial, as they need to understand and adapt to changes in the ways that people obtain content.
TrendWatch Graphic Arts today released its special report titled "Creative Forecast 2006: The TrendWatch Graphic Arts Perspective on the Challenges and Opportunities for Creative Firms in the Next 12 Months and Beyond," TWGA’s fifth annual forecast of graphic communications content creators. The past two years have seen a resurgence of business for these markets, and at the same time a veritable explosion of new ways to disseminate content. Cultural changes in the way people access media are having profound effects on traditional advertising and publishing models. Easy-to-use desktop publishing software has made it easy for business and individuals to do their own graphic deign work. How have these societal and technological changes affected the creative markets-and what will 2006 bring?
This special report provides complete snapshots of the TrendWatch Graphic Arts creative markets-graphic designers, ad agencies, corporate Internet departments, publishing companies, and Web design and development firms-and details how they fared in 2005. How was business for these companies? What did they identify as their biggest challenges? What did they identify as their biggest opportunities? And what hardware and software do they plan to buy to pursue those opportunities?
The report also looks at the current state of the creative markets against the backdrop of technological changes, both in terms of the culture at large (how do people get information?) and the graphic arts in particular (how are digital and variable-data printing changing the graphic arts workflow?).
Highlights
Business conditions for design and production firms were strong in 2005, although they were slightly below what they had been a year earlier-although TWGA expects business to continue to be strong through 2006.
In Summer 2005, 37% of publishers said that e-mail promotions and e-newsletters will become more important for them in the next 12 months, while 27% said Web advertising will.
In Summer 2005, 51% of graphic designers cited "clients doing their own desktop publishing work" as a business challenge.
Researcher’s Comment
"2005 has been an exciting year for media development and deployment, and we expect that 2006 will be even more so, and will provide creative firms across all markets with new business, new opportunities, and, naturally, new challenges. We expect 2006 to be the year that many new media technologies-and some old ones, too-finally come to a head."
According to the Report
In Summer 2005, 36% of design and production firms expected business in the next 12 months to be "excellent, better than the last 12 months," up from the 33% who said this six months earlier.
In Summer 2005, 64% of publishers cited "printing costs" as a business challenge, the highest this challenge has ever charted in the 10 years we have been surveying the publishing markets.
In Summer 2005, 56% of Web design and production firms cited "database development projects" as a sales opportunity, the highest this opportunity has charted in the six years we have been surveying the Web design markets.
In Spring 2005, 28% of printers cited "design/creative capabilities" as a sales opportunity, an all-time high and a sign that print clients may be increasingly competing with their printers.
In Summer 2005, 42% of design and production firms said that "jobs designed for color digital printing" were increasing, while 27% said that "jobs designed for traditional offset printing" were decreasing.
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For more information please read the Table of Contents.
This article was last modified on January 6, 2023
This article was first published on November 1, 2005
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