The Art of Business: The State of the Creative Biz
Your phone’s not ringing, the emails are slowing to a crawl, current clients seem distant, past clients won’t return calls, and you’re thinking seriously about taking a job — if you can find one. Are things that bad out there? According to a new study by TrendWatch Graphics Arts, the answer is, unfortunately, yes.
The firm’s “Creative Forecast 2003” is a comprehensive look at the state of the business for designers, publishers, and Web developers.
The findings are not pretty.
Forty-four percent of graphic design shop owners reported that business is “poor,” or “not as good as the last 12 months,” according to the report. Another 36 percent report that business has remained “about the same as the last 12 months.” Only one in five designers say that business has improved over the last year.
“We’re happy to report that conditions are starting to ease, although they’re still far from what business conditions had been in 1999,” said Vince Naselli, director of TrendWatch Graphic Arts.
The numbers are similarly depressing for advertising agencies, corporate design departments, and commercial photographers. Of these groups, 86 percent, 84 percent and 73, respectively, say business is “poor” or “about the same as the last 12 months.”
These same respondents are even more pessimistic when predicting business conditions for the next six months. Ninety-seven percent of graphic designers expect business to be “very bad,” “poor” or “about the same” as now.
“We’ve never seen these firms so down,” said the report.
What’s Going On?
There are a number of reasons for the bum business, starting with the most obvious: the anemic economy.
“Firms’ clients have slashed marketing, advertising, and promotional budgets. Unless the purse strings get loosened don’t expect major rebounds in these markets,” said the report.
Not surprsingly, 68 percent of graphic design firms (and 79 percent of ad agencies) cited poor economic conditions as the biggest business challenge they face in the coming year.
But creative professionals face other serious business concerns, including one that may outlive the effects of the recession: 57 percent of designers said one of their top business challenges was “understanding where our business should go.”
It’s not much of surprise. Web design has screeched to a near halt now that the build-out phase is over. As a result, creatives are increasingly returning to the world of print. But there’s trouble in these woods as well. Print work is decreasing thanks to newer methods of document distribution — most notably PDF and the Web — that don’t necessarily require the services of designers.
“Why go through the expense of hiring a designer to lay out a document in Quark [sic] or InDesign, when a document can just as easily be prepared in-house in Word and exported to a PDF with a click of the button,” the report suggested.
As a result, design firms are hard pressed to find new services that can fill the vacuum left by these two developments.
Respondents to the survey also cited the following additional challenges: keeping up with technology (58 percent); pricing (48 percent); getting paid (42 percent): equipment going out of date (34 percent); billing for electronic services (34 percent); managing production (25 percent); using the Internet more effectively (26 percent); and the need for employee training (17 percent).
Notice the complete absence of two challenges that topped the list a few years ago, “finding qualified employees,” and “finding qualified freelancers.”
Best Bests For Drumming Up Business
So where exactly are the business opportunities? According to the TrendWatch survey, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Seventy-one percent of graphic design firms expect most of their work to come from collateral print projects, a flip-flop with Web-page design, mentioned by a distant 46 percent.
Rounding out the top ten: corporate identity projects (41 percent); direct mail (34 percent); digital photography (27 percent); catalog design (25 percent); annual reports (24 percent); cross media campaigns (17 percent); electronic services (15 percent); and posters and displays (14 percent).
There are a few new opportunities worth investigating. Variable data printing and data asset management are showing signs, albeit weak signs, of life. And design firms with heavy Internet-emphasis are pinning their hopes on e-commerce, streaming video, and wireless Internet delivery, according to the survey.
The upshot? With the exception of a few new technologies, business opportunities for designers are essentially the same as they’ve been historically — print, print and more print, with some Web jobs thrown in. But because opportunities are fewer than ever, graphic designers must work harder to find a niche, or market a unique skill or subset of services. It doesn’t hurt to hone a message that differentiates you from the competition.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the current conditions aren’t your fault, so you can stop beating yourself up for lack of work. But there’s no use in licking your wounds either. The jobs will go to those who get proactive, redouble their marketing efforts, and make the best of a bad situation.
And if it’s any solace, as any industry veteran will tell you, this too shall pass.
This article was last modified on December 14, 2022
This article was first published on October 14, 2002
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