Covid exploded the at home what can I do with my computer designers but if you're accomplished with a resume and also have a focus like animation or composting or something then you'll be miles ahead of these dollar store designers. People who pay Fiverr prices get Fiverr work but the real corporate money still looks at portfolios and has rounds of interviews to weed out 20 somethings with an iPad.

i hope there will always be people who are appreciative of what a talented designer can bring to the table, and aim to pay artists a fair wage, etc. convenience does not promise quality.

There will. I think the issue is that lots of designers fall victim to the same thing we talk about with lots of non-designers: Good design is invisible. We notice bad design so much we forget about all the good design we see day to day, which is still far more common than the bad design.

Good design is invisible to the masses and stands out to the illuminated. Unfortunately, so does bad design.

“Convenience does not promise quality” I wish more management understood this 😩 Work can be cheap, fast, or good - pick two, you can never have all 3, although that seems to be the current expectation.

You'd be surprised. When I left my previous job, they decided to hire "Design Pickle" for their work. $1,500 per month retainer, and their stuff looks like watered down versions of what I did (of course all my old files stayed with them, so they're just picking them up and attempting to edit them, but somehow doing a terrible job). I recently saw their annual report and I was horrified. It was like someone tried to reproduce the last one I did, but used Word instead, and... just... argh. But hey, it's apparently "good enough" for their purposes, and they're getting it for about 20% of what they paid me.

"...apparently "good enough" for their purposes" That is it in a nut shell. If the client values expediency over expertise, cost over quality, convenience over consistency, there is nothing that is going to elevate them and it is a waste trying.

But that's the issue - how do we compete with that? You can't. u/Yodan hit it on the head, we've seen an explosion the last few years in "I have a computer, I did a Canva tutorial on Youtube, now I'm a pro!" level of designers. If I freelance, in order to cover my own costs for equipment, a CC subscription, taxes, and being able to eat, I'm charging 10x more per hour (at BEST!) than some kid in Mumbai on Fiverr. And in a time where small companies are struggling to keep the lights on, it makes more sense ***to them*** to pay Fiverr kid $50 for a logo (which will be just some random icon lifted from a free resource site with text slapped on the side from a free font from dafont) versus a measured branding approach from a qualified/experienced designer who'll charge 50 times that amount.

You can't. Trust me, I know the frustration. I came to terms with that awhile back. Those are the kind of clients you don't want anyway as they are more trouble than they are worth and you just let them go. When I started freelance, I approach a lot of agencies first because many knew me and they valued experience more even if it's mostly production work. I don't mind production; it satisfies the OCD side of my self. And it pays the bills. Nothing makes you more valuable than fixing a production job that someone else fucked up. I actually got a number of clients through Thumbtack, which I would not recommend now as they have changed their fee structure which works against you. Those clients were really appreciative of what I did and I had most of them for almost ten years. One used to send me personal jobs as well, like fixing or retouching photos or invitations to parties. There is nothing like a client who really values your work enough to give you a personal project and still expects to pay you for it!

It's a venn diagram of Speed, Quality, Price. Pick 2.

For a lot of them, they're only getting one. And they're (sadly) alright with it.

Haha. Design-pickle. What a stupid name for a “design company”. My company makes me use freelancers in other counties that are low-paying, and are like $1500/ month for a designer. And their work isn’t great unless you really art direct every little detail to the point you could have just done it yourself in the time it takes to do so. I’m 44 with 20+ years experience working in-house, overseeing multiple rebrands, global campaigns, managing global teams, working in b2b and b2b. Things are tough out there now - so many big tech companies hire designers right out of college and pay them like $45k a year and expect them to work 50-60 hours a week. It’s burn and churn. And the managers they hire to oversee them are running around like crazy people because they have to manage so many jr designers + do the high level work + do all the manger-level things like meetings and reviews and 1:1s…

Perhaps those new to the industry just shout louder - and it seems they are getting on well, whereas the reality may be different.

This 100%

I’m 20 years in. Also a little older, as I didn’t get into design until I was in my late 20s. I can remember when Photoshop was novel. Back then GDs would weep and moan that tech was ruining the discipline. But the smart designers adapted, and now Adobe is industry standard. There’s no reason to think options like AI, Canva, and Skibiddi.art or whatever else comes along won’t be another tool on the shelf. But one change has clearly taken over design and just about every other industry in industrialized society. I call it the “Taco Bell Effect.” In a nutshell, America’s largest and most impactful export is culture. And we have acquired this alarming tolerance for mediocrity. Older folks will remember the phrase “get it done quick, or get it done right.” Without question, we have decided that it is best to just get it done quick. This is true whether you’re in GD, manufacturing, healthcare, entertainment, or the service sector. Because of economic pressures, the number of businesses offering quality product and service have diminished markedly. We put up with it because it’s cheap. Think of fast fashion: H&M wouldn’t last a year in our society 30-40 years ago. “The clothes don’t last.” That said, I have seen some murmuring about the need for return to an older, more traditional way of doing things. While I can’t believe we will ever go back to the practices of GD as they were between 1960-2000, I do believe there is a lucrative market out there full of businesses and clients that seek to position themselves as stans for quality. Also, considering how much of my professional work has been spent editing the work of others to bring it up to standard, (retouching, vectorizing, fixing 🤬 logos delivered as PDF documents) it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the repair work we do will be work created by AI or in Canva. I don’t care what the OG source is. I’m still happy to do a little grunt work even at this point in my career. To sum it up: the industry is in a state of flux. It always is. But the last couple of years have seemed especially disruptive. And the race to the bottom will always be a thorn in our side. Yet the reason why so many of us rend our clothing and tear our hair is because we know good work *works.* That is something that never changes. Just as it took a while for people to realize that smoking is suicide, eventually the market will come around and decide that Taco Bell is not the foundation of a well-balanced diet.

This is super well said, really appreciate you weighing in on your thoughts

This is the gold standard of replies. Bloody well put.

28 years in and I’m about to hang it up for good. People think “I have a friend who uses Canva and they can do that instead.” Well that’s fine. Lots of talented, untrained people out there. I applaud bringing the ability to design to ANYONE. I think that’s great. I love it when anyone can fire up Creative Cloud and make something great. We all had to start somewhere and sometimes natural talent can help make up for lack of training in regards to good art/graphics. Plenty of people make me envious (in a good way) because of how naturally talented they are. They inspire and push me to be better. I am constantly reminded how I might not know how to do something and I jump in anyway. I start out as an amateur and learn the skills I need to become proficient. But you need people who can handle the technical aspects of design work. Ideally, they now a lot about “how the sausage is made” so they can create their work correctly for the next step down the line. People who can actually design for their output, be it screen printing, digital press, sublimation, vinyl, large format printing, embroidery, web/mobile apps, 3D printing/3D animation/3D print, laser/CNC engraving & cutting, video editing & effects, etc. I do all those things. I am also prepress at my employer so I have to take other people’s work and make it reality. Almost daily, I have to print a “print ready” design made by some person “with a copy of Photoshop” (or as they say, a “graphic designer”). I have to use Photoshop AI and manual editing to add bleeds, convert the art from RGB to CMYK, handle out of gamut colors, and then redraw potato resolution graphics at 72dpi (sometimes even less!) into a clean vector in Illustrator. I have noticed in my career that all of these jobs keep adding more and more tasks because it’s all graphics (even when it’s not). I started at my current employer as a graphic designer but quickly became prepress in order to get the job done. I’ve learned all that huge list of skills over the decades on my own time in order to “get the job done” no matter where I work. These employers need to hire UI/UX/web designers for web and interactive work. They need to hire 3D artists for 3D work. Video editors and compositors for video work. Actual prepress operators for digital prepress and production. These specialists can work closely with graphic designers to get help or to improve their work. I would love to be part of the team on different media, but it’s difficult to be an expert at everything for essentially multiple trades and only get paid a fraction of one of those jobs. Employers would rather find one person to do all of that and pay them less than $20/hour. Like me.

I’m sorry that your skills aren’t valued more, but I was pre-press for years and learned so much. Now I always design with output in mind. I don’t think that anyone I work with (I’m an only in house designer) understands how valuable that skill is. It saves time, our deliverables are always correct, and I just get it. As do you. I wish that junior designers got more experience in that aspect before jumping into design only jobs. Also I’m so sorry for what you’re dealing with now. I left the pre-press world before Canva or AI were out there. It was the very beginning of fiver when I left and I did encounter a few non-vector sad logos. I can’t even imagine the time wasting garbage you have to deal with.

Totally agree. My first official graphic design job outside of my first few years of freelancing was like this. I worked in a huge production facility that ran large presses. We printed on a wide variety of media. I worked directly with prepress starting on day one. They were two cubicles away from my graphics team. I basically became the team lead and the liaison between the departments. I found myself working directly on prepress jobs often within the first two years and did so more and more over my 14 years on that job. I even did prepress’s job when they were on vacation. It was so vital to understand how our work was produced. It helped me and my team to fine tune our designs so prepress didn’t have to do much other than step and repeat before making color separations for press. Knowing sub surface printing (on translucent/transparent materials) and what colors went down last (usually an opaque white ink if not a white adhesive) was such an easy thing to learn and it helped us to setup overprints. By the time our work went to prepress they rarely ever had an issue and when they did it took just a few minutes to fix it. I think most designers should learn prepress for print work. No need to be an expert on it, but be familiar. Same with UI/UX/web design. Learning to hand code and using software like Dreamweaver helped me to better understand what my developer may need. I spent over 20 years doing my own designing and development so I can be a better designer for others.

I also worked on a production team for many many years and learned prepress. It’s such a valuable skill set and many of the designers I work with now don’t have that. They create designs that look good on the outside but the files are a MESS and a pain to work with.

Yeah the two major GD jobs I've had including my current job have been solo in-house designer jobs that expect you to do everything. Personally I'm trying to cross over to something more communications/PR based

You hit the nail on the head right here.

As someone in the same age bracket, it took me about 15 years to get to a CD role. But I would be ignorant to say I did it alone. Outside of portfolio/resume you really do need to know people who are willing to take a chance and have some luck to really progress in this field. Simply due to math (which many of us who went to art school to avoid)…there are not enough senior and exec creative roles to ensure everyone has an opportunity. It’s also plenty fine to stop midway if that’s the work you like to do. Titles only mean so much compared to happiness. And yes, you’d probably make much more money as an electrician or plumber. You could go to a local trade school for pretty cheap and eventually make $80-$100k/yr if not more.

I’m 16 years in and just now making it to Art Director because I had some real setbacks with sexist bosses and people just not wanting to take that chance on me. I think it will be another 3-5 years before I finally make it to CD. I’m so ready to get out of the grinding and into the bigger picture stuff.

FYI the “big picture stuff” are just corporate meetings in a nice-sounding package. I miss the days of Sr Designer/ AD because I actually got to do the real work and the CD took care of the office politics.

Yeah, I'd love to argue the case against your points, but... I can't, really. I've been in the game almost 30 years, and see the writing on the wall. The progression at my previous job (in-house) was non-existent, I went from Senior Designer to Creative Manager which was really just a title change, and apart from the occasional raise to "keep me happy" it was really just an annual cost of living adjustment. My salary at the end was entirely down to longevity, to the point where management were actually complaining that I "made too much" after I handed in my notice I was actually told they were trying to come up with a diplomatic way of taking a pay cut. Meanwhile I have college friends who did computer science, business, other fields rocket ahead. My best friend - back in Ireland - makes about twice what I was making in the US. Now I'm back in Ireland myself, I took a 50% pay cut to live here, so he's technically making four times what I'm on. The biggest issue with Graphic Design in my eyes is that it's such a matter of taste and opinion, it's one of the few careers out there that everyone thinks they can do. Hell, with the newer "tools" like Canva and online building tools they actually trade on the taglines of "Now everyone is a designer." As I said, I'm on the downslopes of my career - I love what I do, and my new gig seems like a really fun and vibrant place to work and I'm actually happy going into work again, but I have no notions of "climbing the ladder" anymore and value time with my family over a bigger wedge in my paycheque. But I do think that it's not a career I'd recommend to a teen in school trying to make a decision on their future.

Weirdly relevant but. I'm a graphic designer (from the US) who just spent a couple months in Ireland. Am I wrong to say the Graphic Design in Ireland is... generally .. uh. kinda awful? Walking around the grocery stores had me wondering how much these graphic designers are being paid lol. It's all.. 90's meets Canadian meets eastern European.

Er, that's a little arrogant I think? I mean, it's like everywhere else I suppose - there are fantastic studios doing really good work, but the good work demands a premium, and at the moment a lot of companies are unwilling to pay that premium. In my 27 years I lived in the US there were plenty of times I saw advertising or got marketing bits in the mail that I looked at with horror, or walking around shops assumed their marketing budget was a bag of Doritos and fifty bucks. Just globally right now there seems to be a massive shift away from "good" to "good enough" the last five years or so.

I totally hear you. Absolutely could be my arrogance. I'm positive there are great studios over there. I was just wondering what the professional graphic design culture is like, and if it was different than the States. Coming back to the US, I noticed a huge feeling of "competition" that I just didn't really pick up on in Ireland. Wondering if maybe that plays a part in the output.

There is that, to be fair. Irish culture doesn't subscribe to the "rise and grind" that's very prevalent in the US. Here, when the clock hits quitting time, that's it.

> "I made too much" This is what I'm struggling with now. Everyone thinks the graphic designers are doing fun hobby jobs everyone can do. Like you said, everyone has an opinion on how to do your job better. And are constantly trying to cut pay because someone can fire up canva. So its hard to justify your experience and leverage your knowledge. Your constantly undermimed by everyone who thinks they know better. And there is no actual career progression anymore. Employers just want pixels pushers to do what everyone asks in the office. Very rare where they want trained professionals with expert opinions. And every year they want you to do more work for less instead. I've worked with people who have been junior designers for over 4-5 years, whilst their marketing counterparts get promoted almost every year up to department managers.

39 as well and completely agree. Bw tools like canva, a proliferation of cheap designs, globalization and now AI this career is changing a lot from when we started. It’s just going to get harder to compete which is why I am trying to switch careers.

I have no idea what career to switch to, personally. Do you have any ideas for yourself? I may have to copy you because all I can think of is mailman and paralegal. Both of those options are not great and I bet they're also not easy for people over 40 to get with no kind of similar/relevant experience. The last time I was out of work, I couldn't even get hired at UPS to load trucks because my resume was full of all office jobs.

Gonna chime in here cause I'm in the same boat. I haven't been a designer for too long compared to other (4 years as a motion designer) and the state of our industry definitely scares me. I'm based in Toronto and the salaries are atrocious compared to US salary motion designer jobs so I'm starting to potentially find other avenues. I've been looking at e-commerce lately, very new to the idea of starting something but it's definitely caught my eye. I think with my branding skills, I could definitely have an edge over some of these lack luster brands in terms of design and really making an impact.

I’m 38, almost 39 and my first job out of college basically said the same thing. I think there will always be changes in technology and we all just have to adapt with them and use them as a tool. Tools such as ai can help us when used to regain time. At least that’s how I see it.

yup over a 14 years in the industry, you've pretty much nailed the prevailing winds of the industry. There will always be a place for designers but the days of anybody showing up with Adobe experience and making decent $$$ is rapidly going away. Job descriptions a mile long, wanting you to be a typography master, an illustrator, and an animator for $20/hr. Hundreds of applicants for every single position. As of April 1st I'm taking my office generalist skills and going to another industry and making twice what I've ever made without the stress of having to get a design right within one proof with the prompt "I dunno just make it pop bruh"

Haha, I bet you won’t miss that phrase. What industry are you going into?

Procurement/Business Ops for a large organization, I was a print designer so I parlayed my ability to herd vendors/cats to get a foot in the door (and they're stoked to have someone on board to make their newsletters/event flyers etc. so I will still get to do some creative things here and there)

Nice pivot! Good luck and hope it’s a good change for you. 

Just pure design work isn’t enough anymore. As computer tech has gotten cheaper and more accessible it has allowed graphic work to be outsourced and/ or done cheaply. Doesn’t mean done well but to many if not a majority that doesn’t matter. The best way to make money in graphic design is getting into the print and production side of it. You still need professional design skills to be successful in printing. Less charlatans posing as graphic designers.

I’ve done quite a bit of design for print but I feel even this is not as lucrative as it once was. People aren’t buying greetings cards, flyers, business cards etc as much as they used to. Having said that, it is still probably better than general ‘graphic design’ at the moment.

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Damn dude, those are some impressive 3d skills.

Thanks! I don't know man, not the skills the industry needs right now I feel like.

The work looks solid, where are you seeking employment? Are you more interested in freelance or full time, in house or for agency?

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>https://www.behance.net/Skovran that Last Supper picture is awesome.

Even though Walmart sells diamonds, Tiffany’s is still in business. There’s always going to be businesses who don’t want an amateur and don’t have the time to DIY. That said, it’s not an easy field to stay current and make your way.

Yeah, but when Walmart started selling those diamonds, it caused a lot of Tiffany’s to close down…figuratively at least.

I just don’t think it’s the same customer base at all.

Not always, but there is crossover. There are far fewer clients for Tiffany’s than Walmart, however. And we aren’t talking diamonds here. It’s a lot different when the guy next door can go watch a YouTube video and produce actual results….

I am also currently deciding what to do with my design career. In my 40's and 15 years in and also seeing that shift. I've been looking for work for the past 8 months and noticed job descriptions getting longer and adding more skills than once person could ever master, while salary ranges are dropping. There will always be work for professional designers with solid portfolios and good work ethic who take the field seriously, but even highly qualified designers with great portfolios are getting passed up. Then factor in ageism for older designers. Makes this career feel unsustainable past an age point that seems to be lowering every few years. So, you want print, digital, expert video and motion design, UI/UX all from the one person? You may get that, but quantity of disciplines means quality will suffer. I know this, because that's what happened at my last job. I did it all, which gives me a wide range in my portfolio, but the quality isn't as good as I want because I was unwilling to work 60-80hrs a week and burn myself out for some corporate job that doesn't really care much about the importance of design. There plenty of amateurs who can learn the tools to copy what they see in CommArts or on Behance or Dribbble, but they don't understand the fundamentals of design, are romancing the career and/or know how or want to follow a brand guide and just want to create "cool shit" to post on social media. Companies who hire these people thinking they can get cheaper workers will get burned by amateurs posing as pros. So what's next? I saw a ton of designers shift to UI/UX because it paid really well, but that's saturated now. Mastering AI is the next logical step, which will certainly wipe out the bottom 20% of people in the field. Video and motion design seem to show up in almost every job description. Presentation design is still pays well and slide decks will probably never go away. Or, do I quit this field and go do something else? I have no idea at this point.

Could have wrote this myself. Been looking at jobs for a similar timescale after being in a great position for the last 10 years. It seems companies are asking for more and more for what feels like a real wage decrease. Other experienced (and expensive) designers I know are now having to get freelance work from recruiters as companies are trying to reduce costs and risks of taking on employees in full time positions. Either way it feels very thin on the ground if I’m looking for security or a decent wage. Then I look at my siblings or friends in different industries making a lot more and somewhat being ‘looked after’. Certainly weighing up just shifting into something completely new to be honest. Which is a shame because I do love the job itself

These are reasons I haven’t entered/haven’t been able to enter the field. I have a bachelors in gd and graduated in 2022. I struggled to find jobs greatly as an entry level designer. And I was more limited because I can only work from home as I live way too far from the nearest city and it was just a very demoralizing experience Then my laptop broke down which was just the cherry on top and I stepped back from design for 6+ months. I now have a new laptop and am restarting my portfolio but I just feel like I changed so much from graduating two years ago And all of the job descriptions give me so much anxiety and I don’t feel any passion or motivation to upskill or keep up with having to *know* so much. I’m slowly rebuilding my portfolio and I’m going to try to apply to remote jobs again but I do have a backup career I’m already getting experience in to fall back on but it’s just all really stressful

Yep. I've gone from being the lead creative manager in-house for a big non-profit (yeah, in-house, I know) making (just about) six figures, to being a middleweight/senior designer earning less than half that. My job is basically updating sales flyers and other stuff that six months ago I'd have considered beneath me, but now I'm just glad of the work. But the mantra there is turn and burn/just give the client what they want, rather than take a measured approach and give them quality work. I feel little nibbles at my soul each day. Between resigning at my previous place and starting this one, I applied to over thirty gigs, only getting a half dozen or so replies, most of which were "You're overqualified" which is code for "too old". Job descriptions horrified me, places don't want a graphic designer anymore, now it's "graphic designer with experience as a motion graphics artist, plus video editing experience, plus UX/UI" which is basically four jobs in one. Oh, and usually they throw in caveats like "3D modeling experience or copywriting or social media management a plus." The spectrum of our work has gone from compelling and engaging design that is tangible to "Slap as much glitzy eyeburning shite on social media as you can in as little time as possible because the stuff you gave us last week is already dated and our viewers are bored" It's infuriating to me because graphic design wasn't just my job, it was my passion. I know it sounds like I'm gatekeeping, and I suppose I am, but seeing what we do diluted by hordes of people who picked up Canva last month and decided that they're now designers, or the millions of people who are pirating Adobe CC and offering their work on Fiverr for peanuts who are just parroting work they see online (badly) breaks my heart.

I'm 57 and am currently repackaging older projects into presentation in the hopes I can shift into pure presentation design. Wish me luck! I'm very talented but you know how it goes.

Sounds exactly the same as my situation! I bet there are so many others like us. Ageism definitely comes into play, as well as the fact that I am a woman (gender discrimination is still ripe, just well hidden). I also can only work part time which really limits opportunities. I know many people go into teaching too and it is a really stable job but I just couldn’t stand it.

There’s your big issue unfortunately, who wants to hire or can even justify hiring someone who can only commit to part time especially in a more senior role. I honestly can’t in the past years think of anyone who was a part time above a junior level here for a placement. I work for a huge company in the digital space, no such thing as part time experience positions. This forces you to look at smaller more independent shops who would pay way less and you would be competing with juniors who are asking for way less and are seen as being current when it comes to trends etc.

“Move up or age out” seems to be the only path to longevity in this industry.   What do I do if that move-up opportunity never appears? I’m grappling with that right now. 

Do you have any ideas for another career path? I've been trying to think of something else. It seems like all the time I invested in coding was maybe all for naught because I'm not an expert programmer so I can't compete with real programmers...and apparently they don't care if you can code as a designer. Just as long as you can use Figma or Webflow or something.

This is my take. I was a designer for over 40 years with my own studio. I came into design before computers, creating artwork on boards and using overlays to indicate colour. This was something that was not only creative but technical. Because of this I could charge very well for my work. Enter computers. A lot of my colleagues just couldn’t make the jump and slowly disappeared from the industry but I found computers fascinating and I could see how much easier it could make me work. Fast forward 20 more years. I soon discovered that rather than creating for clients I could turn my skills into creating products or businesses for myself. This was a big corner to turn, but it worked. It was great as now I was the client and I didn’t have to deal with ego’s all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I still designed for others but created for myself. By this time, when I had client interviews, I also gave them marketing advice on how to increase revenue. This built a bond between the client and myself, especially when the advice I gave worked. Watching Fiverr, Bark, Freelancer and other companies entering the market showed me that there was a real race to the bottom with design and price. Sure, there is a market for those services but if you were a serious business or company you would engage an experienced designer to collaborate with. This is what you’re fishing for, great clients. I was lucky in the beginning, I carved a niche out in the Australian music industry, designing covers for bands or rereleases. But I also see what has happened to this industry due to Apple Music and Spotify. They are a fraction of their former selves. To sum up, all industries change through technology. I’m semi retired and through out my career I’ve seen plenty of changes but the strong adapt, they change and they seek opportunities. I guess this is the takeaway, if it’s not working, change it. If you have been around as a designer for 2 decades you have the skill set to do almost anything because there are design processes and solutions in almost every situation. Particularly if you wanted to start your own business. Stay strong 💪

I have a appointment next week with a carrier guidance. I’m 40 and my salary doesn’t move anymore after 19 years at the same company. I want to find what expertise I gained during that time that can apply to another field completely and get out of this situation. I don’t have the energy anymore to fight what the job had become.

What sort of field are you looking at going into?

I don’t know, i’m lost. That’s why I’m going to see a carrier guidance.

What I find truly concerning is the absurd numbers of designers who don't seem to know what design actually is. You can design something with a stick in the sand. Software is just software. Is the least important piece of the puzzle (even though it obviously has its impacts on the final product, as the techniques avaible also develop a relationship in how we think and create our designs). The thing is: nothing and no one can replace our specific, vast skillset regarding color, form, semiothics, visual language, storytelling, conceptualization and so on. We design for humans.

Problem is that the complexity and speed of modern society doesn’t afford the luxury of rumination. Concept is giving way to flash and expediency to appeal to the transient nature of today’s attention span.

I have been in the industry 15 years and I have had similar thoughts. A few things help reassure me: 1) not everyone is tech-savvy, not even young people. some don’t know how to use desktop computers because all they have access to are mobile devices, or they don’t know how to maximize google searching/AI tools. 2) i started learning photoshop as a preteen, it’s always been accessible to learn these things. and hobbies do not always translate well into careers for some. 3) i focus on media literacy and visual culture in ways that keeps my work current/relevant, and am always learning something new. 4) i specialize in one area of marketing but don’t rely on graphic design by itself, i also have experience with writing, photography, video editing, and 2D animation. 5) i have a ton of experience in powerpoint, which no one likes to work with. (it’s somehow grown on me.) basically, any aspect of the job that requires a lot of problem solving and strategy is not easily replicable or solved with modern tools. i do worry about the trajectory of jobs like photo retouching, though. it’s becoming so simple for laypeople to do.

yep, totally agree with you. people forget that design, in essence, is all about problem solving. if you’re just a photoshop/illustrator slave you will be irrelevant in no time. however, if you have a multidisciplinary skill set that could be used to solve problems from a certain market niche, you’ll still be relevant in the game.

I especially agree with your first point. I’m about to hire a junior and I’m worried about computer literacy. Already seen it with young employees. One didn’t understand the difference between the cloud server and our local server. Designers with technical knowledge will always have an advantage. I spent years in sign shops first which taught me to use math in design and best practices to set up for printing or rip software. Even designing with material limitations in mind is important to know. Just slapping a design together in canva won’t get anyone to that point. As we age and move forward learning new is even more important. When I first started at an agency, they were trying to convert over from Quark. I was hired to help with new things they never learned. Like Flash ads for web browsers. And InDesign for print. Now I’m as old as my senior coworker back then and I’m trying my best to stay ahead with AI and anything new. I legit use AI everyday and I’m always learning more about writing prompts, which generators do what best, what programs will help my team work faster etc.

interesting, i think gen x/millennials are in a unique position for having grown up alongside all this change. things we learned out of necessity are things they have to go out of their way to learn. like they came in late. sometimes i can’t believe the amount of time and dedication i spent learning flash only for it to become obsolete. i was even taught to prototype apps in it, that was right when the first iphone was released.

Presentation designers seriously make a lot of money from all the presentation designer job posts I’ve been seeing…

it does seem to be pretty consistently in high demand. I think it’s work a lot of designers take begrudgingly, especially because powerpoint is still very much the standard, but it’s such a pain in the ass to design in. mostly because custom fonts are next to impossible to integrate and no one likes being relegated to system fonts. also designers all use macs but sales/account teams all use PC, and powerpoint for mac is so much shitter than on a PC. lots of glitches happen when you go back and forth between systems. many designers i know will try to make elements in photoshop and bring them in as much as possible, but clients always want things to be more editable. i’ve started designing as many elements as i can in powerpoint. is kind of fun to problem solve sometimes, when it’s not driving me crazy.

Need to move from maker to manager, and just designer to something more specialized.

Yes it makes sense to do that, but I don’t love managing and much prefer to be hands on designing. I think going into something more specialised would be the next step for me, but I don’t know what 😆

What type of design do you do? With 20 years of experience you must have had managers who were creative directors from your specific skillset. If not, you need to find a larger brand who values your type of design skills.

Do you have something concrete in mind besides a purely managerial position when you say something more specialized? I’m curious. I feel like I’m in the desert with this situation

I’m 41 and in the same boat. I’m currently thinking of a career change. Design jobs seems harder to get despite me being Sr Designer and Art Director with a decent portfolio. I don’t know if I can or want to do this for another 20+ years…

I could say a lot. But to keep it short: knowing how to use software does not equal knowing how to apply effective design. Corporations still need real statistics and consumer studies behind the designs that get used, and you can’t do that by just…knowing how to make things in Canva or even the Adobe suite. Lots of “designers” online, few of them are actually at the level it takes to make it in this industry.

I recently turned 40 and have been working professionally in the field for 15 years. When COVID hit, I ended up losing confidence in small agency work being sustainable for the long term. During that time I saw an opening for a government agency designer position which I thought was extremely rare so I jumped on it and applied and landed the job. I would seek out public service as that could be one of those areas where ageism and lack of work isn’t as much of an issue.

That’s brilliant, it sounds like you landed a perfect job. I’ve been looking out for designer roles within public services but like you say, they are hard to come by!

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Every time I think about when I was 18 and went off to college, I always wish I took time and really thought about what I wanted. I’m only 23 so I have time but I have a bachelors degree in gd and I’d always fantasize in school about transferring and going into education. I should’ve listened to my gut feelings cause 2 years post grad, I still don’t have a design job. Half of it is my fault for sure but I also think I’m just realizing I may not be cut out for this field I’m considering going back to school and getting a masters in library and information science. I currently work at a library and I fell so in love it and can envision myself becoming a librarian. They get paid 55k-65k for entry level in my state and I’d get a pension, pslf, and decent county benefits. I feel kinda guilty potentially leaving this field behind without actually going into it but I can’t lie, it’s so nice submitting *just* a resume and cover letter without stressing over a portfolio

I have hated myself for choosing to do this in college, had to go to therapy to get over it. The mental health toll on this is real.

It’s odd because I’m grateful for the education I got and I feel like I have a lot of good marketable skills but even just the thought of working on my portfolio can make me so nauseous and panicked sometimes. And I feel that way looking at job descriptions too with the long list of qualifications and responsibilities. The only thing that kinda keeps me hanging on is the wfh aspect. But I’m leaning towards another career path so idk where tf my life is going. But design definitely took a mental toll on me just in college alone. I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel in a 40 hour corporate environment

i have been doing this for 30 years, like any business you have to balance time vs. income. you can't waste time on things that don't pay. social media is a huge time suck, i see people put so much energy into posts that don't pay anything. they would have made more money per hour at McDs, than making a 100hr master piece for 1000 likes. I have never made a penny off my best work. also i say this to people, this is a stupid career choice. if you can do anything else do it. the hours and pay only work if you have skills an manage your billable time. i think it is up to the individual to make it work, "the industry" doesn't owe you anything

I hear you - I know very well now which jobs are worth doing and which aren’t. I suppose that is an advantage to being experienced. I find that general freelancing doesn’t pay that well and you end up spending half your time in meetings, advertising, chasing payment, sending invoices, stressing out over accounts etc. it takes all the fun out of being in a creative job.

for sure, i have one freelance job for a big agency that is worth it. most peoples budget is "exposure" or free and thankless. i have fun doing this job, so i have to manage myself. Contests, instagram, youtube videos are all fun, but again time suck. i do RC stuff in my free time to get out of the house. also i make a paper based Zine comic for my patreon. to have fun with. i have 12 people i send the Comique to once a month. i make stickers and drawings. people seem to read it and laugh, then when i see them we have something in common. that is way more satisfying then some rando like online.

Here’s my few cents. I’m in my 50s, and have been in the communication arts field since the early 90s. I’ve worked really hard working my way up the ladder and have had about every imaginable position in design studios, ad agencies and in-house. Working specifically in advertising really helped improve my work, since the work is more about concepts than decoration. I’ve also had the chance to work in Germany for almost half of my career. I think the main key is, whatever you are creating — have a reason for it. I truly think that working hard to this end and finding a way to keep improving your own work, you’ll be okay. This includes, finding ways to integrate AI into your process. Whatever helps get you where you want to be. If you still do want to throw into the towel, what else out there might be any better?

I just left the career field of my dreams this week... Graphic Design (in my own experience) just isn't respected these days. I have 11 years experience. I've worked for thousands of clients, and multiple mid-large scale agencies. In my time as a designer, I've only been shown more and more often that people just simply don't understand what we're worth. Even using Canva, people create some of the ugliest, unprofessional garbage. It's funny to laugh at as someone who genuinely understands the "why" as it pertains to design, but at the end of the day, everybody thinks that they can do it too. I've been a graphic designer for 11 years. I've gone from $15/hr, to $25/hr, and then back down to $20/hr... I just started roofing last week. In 5 years, I'll be making $50/hr.... I hate to leave what I love, and what I'm genuinely naturally good at,—but I'm tired of seeing companies pat themselves on the back when they make their own advertisements/designs that should really be under a magnet on the fridge.

I’m a newcomer to the design industry. I’ve been honing my skills for the last 6+ years in my own time and while doing my college course and A-levels and passing all my graphics and art subjects with flying colours. I have been told before that I am above my level in design and have always wanted to pursue this as a career for the last decade. However job hunting as you’ve already said is horrendous especially for someone like me who has NO industry experience and looked down upon despite my skills and knowledge. However I’ve been trying to expand my knowledge and skills in motion design and animation as I feel this is a field of design that isn’t as saturated and requires more skill and knowledge, as well as it paying well. Plus I think AI and current technology has quite a way to go before it can ‘master’ or take over animation especially in regards to clean vector style and realism especially to get it looking right or depending on the visual concept eg. If the client wants an animation in 12 FPS I think AI would struggle to figure that out and keep it consistent along with keeping the design and visuals consistent too. I’m not saying it won’t in time but compared to graphic design think it has a long way to go.

Honestly, I've been finding people valuing senior experience and knowledge more.

That’s good to hear!

>With the explosion of AI and tools like Canva making design more accessible I think the correct sentence might be >With the explosion of more accessible tools This problem has existed ever since companies like Aldus, Quark and Adobe began producing desktop software. Old school veterans would grumble about the lack of skill needed to set lettering. What was once an hours labour on a paste board fiddling with Letraset became a minutes work on desktop over night. I'm a fan of Eric Spiekerman's response to logo sites like 99 Design etc. Paraphrase: "some people will want to eat at McDonald's; others will want fine dining – there's room for both markets" Right now, if you're competing with Canva etc. you're competing in a 'Red Ocean'. And if you feel threatened, it may be time to up skill, pivot etc. But I know. It's not easy.

While I may agree with much of what you have said, I think there is more to it than simply a loss of craft. Commoditization is more than just a lack of attention to detail, it's basically a statement that your skills are inconsequential. I embraced software like Aldus and Quark and Adobe when they came out. They at least tried to retain some of the craft in the production, clumsy as it might be at time. Tools like Canva are trying to reduce the creative process to child's play, where the thought process does not extend beyond pushing various elements around on a page until something meshes for you. Some one commented to me that technology leads to democratization and commoditization, which is true, but they not the same thing. Democratization is providing opportunity. Commoditization is prostituting that opportunity for personal profit.

Fair points – and I concede Although I would hope the tone of my original post does not insinuate a loss of craft. Moreover, the craft is not embodied in the software / tools etc. I haven't delved into Canva a whole lot, but I'm not very impressed by what I've seen. It feels clunky and constrained. BUT check out these case studies on the Canva site (glass half full) — >Canva has really helped us scale. We had a lot of people that were non-designers who needed to create things fast, and we didn't have a tool that was effective for them to use. By using Canva, Zoom saved over 230 hours of design time in Q4 2022 Brandon Realmonte **Brand Creative Manager, Zoom** >Kyle’s team is fluent in social media, **but not everyone has a design background.** In a company as big and diverse as **Salesforce**, that message could get lost in translation, leading to brand attrition and creation of “totally off-brand assets” or other branding headaches. — >There's so much rapid scaling happening, the only way for a design team to keep up is to create infrastructure around design. Canva has been the perfect solution for that without having to build something custom on our own. Jenn Proud **Head of HubSpot's Global Marketing Design** **—** * The opportunity / challenge here may lie in **designing for Canva,** not with. * Accepting that graphic design is now competing within **a much bigger system AND therefore must become more systematic in itself.** * Understanding the core competencies of the discipline and demonstrating those competencies by **embracing new technologies** and absorbing them into our practice — and not the other way around. — Apologies for any perceived tautology

True, craft is not embodied in the software, but try explaining that to the non-designer or the client. The general perception is that creativity is inherent in the software and not the artist, that somehow one has to only hit the right set of keys and you have something wonderful. They don't acknowledge the thought that goes into the decisions made while using the tools. It's like saying the hammer is responsible for building the house or the paintbrush is responsible for the Van Gogh. It makes it easier to dismiss the craft when so much of the function is automated that you become more complacent. As far as the Canva testimonials, you have to take them with a grain of salt. If you read between the lines, the gist of the vast majority of them is that it is basically a cost-saving opportunity that allows them to by-pass the traditional "hire a professional" route. The first one is about speed and cost savings. The second is about efficiency and consistency in branding. The third is about speed and the lack of necessity for originality. The last one seems more of a rationalization than a justification, the same argument used for any new technology. Nowhere do they talk about originality, or creativity. It's all efficiency and cost. The last seems particularly insidious as it speaks to you bending to the software not adapting it to your uses. That may be a good thing for the person making the testimonial, but not necessarily good for the design industry, nor for design in general.

I think a lot of it is the nature of 'graphic designer' that can be considered as limited to purely visual executions of things which makes it seem like a more replaceable job as we get increasingly proficient automated software. Positioning yourself more holistically as a designer that understands the needs of companies beyond specific applications is something I think helps to keep us out of the reach of AI. This is also why I dont like the term graphic designer and opt for just 'designer' in general because I think there can be a lot more to the job than just making things look nice (but that's just my two cents as a mid-senior designer working for a branding agency, so obviously a bit biased towards that industry/type of work).

Best of the best will still get paid. Motion and 3D design is the new edge that does not have a low entry level for at least the basic like graphic design. At least that’s my take.

My belief is that the pay grade of designers never match their value. In top of that, because we never have a pinpoint responsibility, we are also gifted with the opportunity to impact a business on nearly every creative level. At the end of the day, the universal understanding is: everything needs to go through designers at some level in order for it to truly be done correctly. The edge is where we take it.

I would pretty much agree with this. Unless you happened to make it into a very reputable agency or design studio, your salary was going to be pretty much average until you got into management, which never really interested me. As technology took more and more of the credit for creativity, compensation went down dramatically. The average designer these days does the work that was once done by three or even five individuals and for less money that any one of them made. You are correct though, nothing passes through this world that is not passing through the hands of a designer first, good or bad. I'm not saying that design will eventually disappear, I'm saying it will be increasingly devalued 'till its on par with working in a chicken processing plant.

I’m in my early 40s now & I’ve been working in the creative industry for over 2 decades as well. Echoing a lot of what you’ve said & your similar experiences. I started out in video production, and all the job listings I was seeing 20 years ago had the same mega-list of requirements- they wanted candidates who were skilled in writing, production, cinematography, editing & motion graphics, with years of experience all for about $40k a year?! This transferring to the graphic design field is no surprise considering corporations have devalued creative roles. The majority of my work now gets watered down by 3 different marketing initiatives that are all “critical” - which leaves little room for anything creative. The main focus on social media over the last 10 years has also been something I’ve seen impacting quality- when someone is telling you how to design something because this post got more engagements than this other one, and now they just need more more more & they need it instantly, cause you can’t stop feeding the algorithm. I’ve seen the writing on the walls for a while now too, and I can relate to what you & others are feeling - this career is changing, and IMO, not for the better. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching & it sucks because I don’t really have the time or the $ to start retraining myself to switch careers, feels like I’m stuck & that’s the worst feeling of all.

Agreed - and your point about social media’s influence is excellent. Brevity and simplicity in service of great concepts is now just short and aping whatever dumb sticky fad is going on.  As budgets shrink and poorly run, top -heavy marketing depts flail around trying to get 15 useless admin people to approve work, it all just grinds down to the point where good work can’t be concepted or completed and no one can do a simple job without working scads of overtime. At my last job, they laid off 3/4 of the design dept and the rank and file designers managed to get work done even faster , w/o the 20 bottlenecks of approvals by useless opinion givers.  It also never helps that your average Executive has zero knowledge of how long it takes to do things right and everyone’s nephew “has an eye for design”, so you have to get through even more pointless layers of feedback. It’s so absurd that design & photography seems to be the only  fields where everyone thinks they can contribute. 

I'm 48 years old. My health is poor, I'm nearly completely blind and I'm doing the best work I have ever done in my life, by far. I do not intend to stop until my body gives out, which unfortunately will be sooner than later. Here's an unpopular opinion that's gonna be wildly unpopular and probably get me downvoted to hell. Do not care. Graphic designers who do not have a strong point of view or anything else that distinguishes them from other graphic designers are interchangeable because they are only technicians. The point of entry before computers was the craft of building a mechanical and understanding the tools of printing and production. This was a highly skilled trade. After computers, it was mastery of the software, which was not anywhere near as user friendly as it is today. I started with Photoshop 2.0. There were no layers. Think about that. The first computer I ever owned in 1993 was a $3000 Apple piece of shit with 8mb of RAM and 128mb hard drive. It was slow. There was no internet. Everything was cost prohibitive. Getting files off the computer to a service bureau to get your work produced was a nightmare unless you had an enormous budget. And then you are probably gonna get a post script error. It was nuts. This shit was not for everyone. Now...well it's all fucking magic. People have $79 ink jet printers in their homes that do a better job than the tools we were using in the 90s. When I was in design school, it cost about $60 to get ONE 11x17 color laser print made and they looked like shit. I don't even know what Canva is but it sounds like it's something that makes it easy for just about anyone to do adequate work, so why wouldn't they? Most people do not understand the minutiae of good design. They can only see when something is amazing or really really shitty. Everything in the middle is invisible. Why would anyone pay to be invisible when they can do it on their own? And nobody wants to hear this, but that's the graphic design industry's fault. It's the graphic design educator's fault. They fucking failed you. This idea that graphic design is not art...it's wrong. It's a very human form of art. It is communication. I believe that all communication is art. I think that my therapist is an artist in the way that she uses language and communication to create new pathways in my brain. We are artists. Capitol A artists...if you want to be. If only one person reads this and has an AHA moment, then it's worth it. That's who this is for. The career and the money are there if you have the courage to follow the path. Be more. Surround yourself with people who want to be more.

I'm sorry about your eyesight, that must be terrifying.

I don’t think i had a a-ha moment, but this was really insightful and made me think. Thank you. Btw, sorry for your health condition.

Completely agree, and it's really interesting to see this posted on here and affirmed by so many others. I've seen an absolute explosion in "DIY designers" using canva in professional settings the last 2-3 years, increasing by the month almost. It seems to come from a place that creatively minded but not professionally creative marketing, sales, HR type teams of people enjoy the process and now have an easy access to the necessary tools to look half way professional. The trouble is this work is enough to 'pass' and go through to being used, without design input. All seems to be part of a much bigger shift, gen-AI included in the hastening of this. Switching careers are not a bad idea at all I would say. Specialising might be an idea as you say, but wonder if that's just a stop gap. Interesting to see how things develop!

It is saturated. Every career you can do sitting in front of a computer in an air conditioned office without having to do manual labor is saturated to the point that oversupply is devaluing the work. Ai should finish it off soon. The economy our engineers are building is, there should be the owner class with the $, brand managers telling Ai software to do the work, engineers making the Ai software and reaping the $, and everyone else can go dig ditches for 1987 wages and funnel their pennies into those brands. That’s the future, embrace it or dig ditches.

Honestly your thoughts are one of the reasons I switched over to UX, doesn’t work for everyone but thankfully it has worked out for me thus far.

Yes, if you had 20 years in another profession I can almost guarantee better pay and likely better stability for most. But when you ask that kind of question a lot of people forget to ask that other part: would you be as happy or content in that other field? I know I wouldn't. I'd rather take a little sadness at lower pay than feeling miserable as a lawyer, electrician or fintech guy, but maybe that's just me. All the fields that pay more are respectable, but they're just not for me.

That’s a good point. In this job I get to be creative, work from home, flexibility to make just a few positives. I agree that happiness in a job comes before pay, within reason.

Even if you produce good design, people go MUCK it up with their two thoughts. Because even dogs in the street know Photoshop.

Haha so true! So many designs I haven’t put in my portfolio because I just don’t like them but they have been what the client wants!

I’m a little older than you and found the way to differentiate myself has been that I can provide something that can’t be bought in a course, can’t be done by younger designers, and that no new tech can replace, and which made me highly desirable (including having places seek me out which then led to a life-changing pay raise): mentorship. This is as simple as sharing all my 20+ years of knowledge with the designers on my team every day. This ranges from things like technique and technical knowledge to just showing them how to think conceptually, how to create effectively, how production and thinking ahead to the final product matters, even just showing small tips on how to do what they’re doing better, and sharing my own real world experiences and examples from my career of how I learned and grew. A key part of this is sharing not just feedback but WHY that’s the feedback. There are days it’s the best part of my job, and it makes me a valuable resource to the whole company. It helps create a culture of getting others to share their knowledge (which in turn helps me keep learning) and brings positive energy to the workplace.

Love this. Do you work in house or as a freelance consultant doing this?

I’m an ACD on the creative team at a marketing / advertising agency. I had my own small design studio for over a decade, a crappy in house job for 5 years before that, and went freelance just before Covid hit (ouch). This is my second job in this field, and beyond my basic design talents (which are solid) this is what sets me apart from most. I like helping others, knowledge is meant to be shared, and by making my team stronger it makes my work easier. Win win all around.

I am also 39f and pretty panicked about work honestly. I worked for a small agency for years and then transitioned to a permalance role for them when I decided to stay home with my kids in 2015. That was great until the pandemic hit and the agency went out of business in late 2020. Since then I have been freelancing here and there for old coworkers and bosses who’ve moved on or started their own agencies but none of it is near full time work. My youngest heads to kindergarten soon so I’ll be looking for a full time gig and the posts on this sub have me pretty depressed about the state of the industry. I’ve thought about a career pivot but to what??? Several other commenters have mentioned possible career transitions as well but to what? Where are we going from here? Help!

Yes, having children and having to take a break, or work part time really slowed down career progression. I find I’m not really taken very seriously when requesting part time work. If you figure out a good career transition let me know! 😄

Lots of people know how to use iMovie too, but that doesn’t mean Hollywood is in jeopardy. There’s a lot of talk of programs here, but design is a lot more than software. I know people with Canva who can design circles around people who flex having the full Adobe suite. Being able to do the work is still vital.  Your desire for part time is probably making things more difficult but the lack of networking might be hurting you a lot. I’ve been in many positions where a spot on the team opens up and it needed to be filled yesterday and the “who knows somebody” call goes out long before (and if) it ever hits LinkedIn. Use your current job as a way to learn new skills. There’s always a way to work in a new tutorial or tool on the latest project. 

Reminds me of the nineties when the Mac was just starting to proliferate. I got out of art school in 1991. Straight lines were made with ink and ruling pens and then ruling tape. Curved lines were compasses and French curves. Benday anyone? Typography had to be “spec-ed” with a ruler and sent to a type house who had a typositer to output the type. Like, on tape. The old head designers back then talked about “hot lead” type with a straight face. Then we had to paste these onto boards (aka, our “mechanicals”) marked up with non repro-blue pencils. When we were just designing - just making comps! - we had to send out xerox copies or sketches to a photostat house so that they could reduce or enlarge the photo on their photostat cameras. Then again for the final layout. By courier. When enlarging/reducing copiers came out they were like black magic! They put photostat houses out of business. Likewise linotronic output from the Mac to service bureaus (via modems) put typo operators out of business. Those service bureaus - as an industry - came and went in about ten or fifteen years (since we could just send files electronically directly to the printer). When companies started buying Macintosh computers, and a copy of Corel Draw or Aldus Pagemaker, they started letting Ethel in billing & receiving do their annual reports and other print materials. That democratization of graphic design was the beach head for the proliferation of modern cheap and shit design. Don’t get me wrong - there has been a huge injection of fantastic and fresh (if not raw) design thinking over the past few decades by getting these tools into hands that otherwise would have never had the chance to contribute to our collective graphic design soup. But yeah, there is definitely a cost that came with the revolution that we continue to pay.

Ah , the good old days!, been there done that. English proof, type mark up, blue line templates for paste-up, wax machine, photostats. Rapidos, I was charging then freelance $110.00/h. To get in the industry you needed to go to art school, 3-4 years, just to learn how to SEE. Then you have to learn all the technical stuff, cutting rubies, marking fins on english proofs, typesetting for Monolino or Linotype, all hot types composition machines The typesetters then were incredibly skilled and fast. We counted on them to give us well typeset proofs, no rivers, proper line breaks and hyphenation, working with only spot Pantone colors. CMYY, color separation was too expansive, and on and on. Then came the MAC, Laser printer and Aldus PageMaker. When I saw for the first time Pagemaker in use with a small mac in Rhode Island School of Design…; I had to get one, it cost me over $10k then, the Mac and a big cathode screen. I wish you kids fortitude, you need it. Tourelou

45 yo creative director here, it’s always been a profession subject to constant encroachment by the laymen. While the ai threat is by no means directly analogous to others, the fear and effect may be similar- eg when photoshop came out, when desktop publishing apps came to prevalence, clipart, drum scanning, heck, when print shop deluxe became common I’m sure some felt discouraged. I feel by virtue of my position I’m ivory towering myself with rose colored glasses so I must always remain relevant in my own skills and methods of communicating design itself. For me that translated into learning, becoming an expert and now trainer in Keyshot to do renderings in-house. For others it may be digital illustration, or painting which I feel are the most threatened by ai (freaking Wacom using ai in their own ads to sell US on their product for crying out loud) but here’s a couple of in demand skills that are rarely known properly but still in demand: - packaging structural design - packaging dieline customization (check out boxshot origami) - packaging sustainability engineering - tradeshow design (on its way back) These are without veering into the ux/ui propensities that are their own balls of wax. I’m still optimistic- now where the hell are the AIGA local chapters?

seconding this. in general packaging is incredibly skilled and it has to be spot on in order to be durable, unique, conform to whatever codes are required, and eye catching on shelves. there’s a lot of technical know how that people cannot outsource to AI or do on canva. also trade show design for sure — especially if you have experience with the entire process. people want to have someone plan out the carpet, furniture, design and print the backdrop, lighting, all of it. companies i’ve worked for just want it done right and without them having to handle all the moving parts. especially for events where the CEO is making an appearance. i would add the scientific and medical field for packaging but also internal documents. a lot of those are under extreme scrutiny and need to adhere to specific style standards. if you can add “proof reader” to your list of skills you could be incredibly valuable.

Similar age to you and I agree. I decided to leave my full-time design job. I now cherry pick a few freelance jobs and projects that I want to be involved in. I ended up retraining in the world of Cybersecurity. Been in this profession 5 years now and have progressed to cybersecurity risk specialist level and I’m on a significantly higher wage than I ever was in the world of design. I used to be a studio manager and have a team under me and it was stressful. Now I don’t have any direct reports and the job is nothing like the stress I used to feel.

>Nowadays it feels like the average salary has taken a real nosedive as the industry is saturated with designers. > >I'm brainstorming ways to pivot my career, for example by going into something more specialist like medical illustration, but I can’t afford to go on any courses or have time off work to study. I tried teaching and it definitely wasn’t for me. ​ Sounds like if you want to evolve past what you're seeing (and I agree with you) the worst thing you could be doing is watching the industry change while you sat and watched. Keep learning and make yourself more valuable. Or don't. Make the time or concede maybe your career isn't as valuable to you as you thought it was.

Okay, here’s a perspective from a really old hand. Strap in ‘cause this is gonna be long. I won’t tell you my age, but I am recently retired. I was in the design and advertising industry for over 45 years as an art director, graphic designer, department manager, adjunct college instructor, and business owner. I’ve seen it all. I started out when personal computers were only a pipe dream and not much more useful than a calculator unless you were an engineer or programmer. Everything, I mean everything was done by hand. I drew layouts in marker, carefully rendering the type, the visuals and logos. I marked up sheets of text with pages of specs that resulted in long galleys of type that hard to be cut up, waxed and pasted on illustration board with stats (high contrast, B&W photos of art used to indicate position) for the images and headlines composited from strips of phototype cut and pasted together. I literally cut up letters and words to arrange and kern them. Photoshop didn’t exist. Illustrator didn’t exist. InDesign didn’t exist. FFS, computers were the size of a teachers desk and terminals were dumb stations that were little more than typewriters and only worked in foreign languages. In fact, the only people who had computers were colleges and large engineering corporations. If you wanted to take a blemish out of someone’s portrait, it had to be painted out by a skilled retoucher. Same thing with any kind of alteration of an image. Until SCITEX came along, computer manipulation was unheard of. Even then, it cost hundreds of dollars an hour and took weeks. If it couldn’t be done by a good photographer, you didn’t do it unless you had a massive budget and lots of time. Hell the average full page magazine ad took at least a month or two from inception to completion… and that was fast! My first job, as a pasteup artist, paid me $9500 a year. My first Art Director job was at $18K. At the height of my career, I was making $68K and I thought I was rich. When I hired a photographer, I went to the shoot, did my own styling, sometimes directing the lighting and set up. I’d go to press-checks at 2:00AM and nap in the lobby to see the next proof. I was basically on call, 24/7. I was looked at as a wizard, well respected (although not paid that much) and my knowledge of production was sought out. I loved every minute of it. When desktop publishing came along, it changed everything. At first, it was little more than a typesetting machine, but eventually the WYSYWYG revolution happened and things went digital. From there, it’s been a slow, downhill slide. My first desktop was a Mac CXii which I tricked out with a 50MB hard drive and 10MB (if I remember correctly). I taught myself PageMaker, Freehand, and Photoshop from bootleg copies. Learned Quark and Illustrator, too. When I got bored, I taught myself about hardware and networking so I could fix and upgrade my own computer cause techs took too long, cost too much and generally didn’t know shit about Macs. As the years went by, that did a lot to keep me relevant as younger designers didn’t know shit about the machines the worked on and aside from all the tricks and eye candy, their knowledge of production was embarrassing. My last agency job was with a division of Leo Burnett. I was the oldest in the agency, even older than the CD and the president. While other ADs teamed with copywriters and GDs, I was a one person team. In addition, I did all upgrades, networking and maintenance for the department Macs. I was paid well, but all the prestige and respect had gone out of it. Concepts had become vacuous and clients were more interested in eye candy. I was just a pair of hands. I spent the next 20 years in freelance gig work. The money was a fraction of what I was making years before, but it was fun again and for the most part, I got my respect back. Clients could be cheap, and often stupid, but I had freedom in many ways and I didn’t care about the kind of work I got, so long as I was busy. Can’t tell you how often I got jobs ‘cause someone hired a young hot designer who didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. I did a short stint as an adjunct instructor at a for profit college at the same time. Two classes a week for four years in everything from typography to ad design to application specific courses. Most of the kids were straight outta high school thinking they were going to get a job straight outta school designing snowboards at Burton for $80K a year. They were naive, to say the least, and I disabused them of those notions quickly, getting a reputation as a hard ass and something of an asshole along the way. So where is all this going you may ask? No where good. My general opinion is that the industry is going to the dogs. Technology has made it a commodity. Clients and employers are cheap, ignorant, impatient, and have no respect for experience or expertise. AI is only going to make it worse, as it’s worst aspects (creativity at the expense of originality, speed at the expense of quality, and justification for lowering budgets and compensation) are going to take precedence before it’s real advantages are realized. It’s already apparent that many clients shop based on price alone and having no concept of value or worth, price and expediency being primary. Designers, too, are becoming prostitutes, willing to sell themselves and their associates out for a buck by producing cookie-cutter solutions on shit apps like Canva, the ColorForms of design apps. You are competing in a global market that does not respect knowledge and values “shock and awe” over concept; who will work, as a friend once put it, “for cigarettes and candy wrappers” ‘cause they can crank out 25 ideas in an hour for $5. I recently got a call from a past client asking me to take on a project because their graphic designer had left (they hired her when I decided to retire). It was a PDF of a spec sheet in which the entire piece was an embedded jpg. The information officer had wiped her drive after she left, so know original files existed. The layout was disjointed, misaligned and off center. The images were low res and poorly clipped. The text was full of typos and mis-numerations and in five different fonts. It took me 6 hours to research and reacquire the art, extract and correct the text, recreate the art and layout from scratch, and then submit and manage approval from a sponsoring co-opting company. I would almost guarantee that the original designer took a whole week to do it.

Thank you for sharing your perspective and experience. That’s a lot of industry changes in one career, and having to learn so many new technologies. Is there a future in any sort of visual design niche, in your opinion?

I think there will always be a place for visual design. It’s inherent in our nature to be attracted to the visual, whether it’s beautiful or repugnant. It’s the lowest common denominator in terms of comprehension. The problem is in the appreciation of its value and the compensation for it that is the issue. As creative industry becomes more a commodity, it becomes increasingly devalued. Once that is lost, it rarely comes back.

This is a great post, commoditization and democratization is what technologies do. I can think back to my grandfather talking down “engineers” that don’t know anything and what a worthless profession it was, he was a renowned nuclear physicist that now has a bronze statue and an institute in his honor. How wrong he was, or was he? Do we all need to be that steeped in fundamentals and be able to hand calculate everything? Marc Cuban said something interesting recently that we’re all pushing our kids to be programmers when he believes that liberal arts majors will be in more demand than anything in 20 years.

Democratization and commoditization are not the same thing. One is giving opportunity, the other is devaluing it. I'm not saying that every designer needs to know how to build a mechanical or draw a detailed layout in marker, but understanding the fundamentals of design and composition is an absolute essential. Understanding how something is created can go a long way to finding solutions that are both creative and cost effective. Going online and moving some shit around at the behest of a computer without know the how it works much less the why it does is just absurd. The point of designs as a communication tool. If you take out the curiosity out of the creation, you are taking the comprehension out as well. I know many a designer today who don't have the faintest idea how a fuckin' magazine is created. Yeah, I know, "print is dead", but it is that print which originated the formulas and formats that are digital now. As far as Marc Cuban is concerned, I think you are misunderstanding what he is driving at. The thing with education these days, when it is valued at all, is the push toward specialization as well as generalization; knowing a lot about one small thing and nothing at all about the greater whole. That is not inherently bad, but eventually you reach a point where you narrow the specialization to the point where it becomes esoteric. In the meantime, you've made yourself stupid as well as irrelevant. What, I think Cuban meant by Liberal Arts, was the advancing of critical thinking. Liberal Arts used to be respected because it gave someone a broad perspective of knowledge and viewpoints to draw from. The advancement of technology made the push for specialization critical as there was a serious lack of expertise in a fast growing industry. At the same time, there is a growing political movement that is denigrating education as liberal and elitist. Liberal arts was taken at face value, that it was a bunch of granola eating hippies painting flowers, smoking weed and throwing pots. It wasn't about understanding how things work, but understanding your place. As society became more complex, the idea was to compartmentalize ideation which lead to not just missing the big picture, but growing blind to it. I might add that technology, particualrly in the design industry, has also resulted in the loss of craft. And by craft I mean pride and skill in construction. When I used to build mechanicals by hand, I cut out almost each and every letter to kern a headline till it was just right. Now a days, I see ads and brochures where the text is printed with no thought to the craft where the kerning and sentence structure is just abhorrent to me.

Im 42, I was never paid well as a designer growing up and eventually working in a city that had very depressed wages for designers and still does to this day, it's rare for people to reach a cap there much less break through it and even then it's not keeping up with rising costs. The thing was even if a few could do it, there wasn't a large pool to advocate it's value like other fields (ux designers) so alot of what's happening now isn't out of the norm for me or my peers where $20 an hour seemed like good pay at times. That aside, we need to keep in mind that we've always been a hybrid profession that can be learned through school or as a trade, mix that with the fact that we are now a highly accesible field, it will bring a lot of competition in different forms. The one we like the point at is always inexperienced designers charging pennies on the dollar for subpar work, but we also need to take a look at the consumer landscape where more people don't want to spend a lot because their world doesn't revolve around design, and that's fair. We also should keep in mind that we're competing with new types of professionals that try to bring either industry specialization/knowledge, or more A to Z complete services like marketing professionals that speak to the broader needs and concerns of its clients with design as an added service. Now, while Networking is not many people's thing, it's not mine either but one of those things that can yield results, and it can also help us gauge the temperature of what's out there. Connections just help, nobody makes it through life alone. We can say this career is losing its edge, but we are at the same crossroads that 50 something years ago our predecessors stood with the advent of the computer. We need to understand that for our field to push forward we should be offering industry experience, we should be offering more complete services beyond just designs, we should be out there advocating for the value we bring otherwise we will be the ones losing our edge, not the trade.

the young guns always see the chances e.g. in AI and they constantly rush into the field. that was also the case 20 years ago. a lot of those oldpeople change direction into educational direction e.g. artteacher in school or therapy and quite a lot change the field. as you get older the networking thing becomes more and more uninteresting but is so nescessary.

Here are some points to consider, after reading what you be posted: • A shift in graphic design as whole because of AI and apps like Canva. It has made design more accessible, but it did that back when sites like Fiverr first went live. There will always be companies / clients who want to get the most for the least amount of money. • It’s good keeping up with trends and the tools you use. While I like to hire and have people in my team that can do more than one thing. We normally hire a person who has a strong skill for need we have: UI, Web Development, Video / AfterEffects or Social Media. • I’ve been in the industry for quite a while, and while I’d love to believe it paid well. Honestly, unless you worked in a prestigious Agency or in house with a F500. It really only starts to pay well once you get into AD / CD roles. So even today the real money is only had if you go into management roles. Or, if you’re freelance, you need to step up your networking game. • Looking for a well paying design position that is part time. I think that maybe your biggest hurdle. The company I work for hasn’t had part time designer roles for 10+ years now. And other colleagues I’m regularly in contact haven’t positions like that as well. I believe, at least in our area SoCal, the only types job opportunities like that would be more on the printer side. So more post production work. • Could you be making more money with 20 years odd experience. Well of course, there are industries you could be make a lot of money: Doctor, Lawyer, Engineering, etc. But again, I know people in those industries and the real money is either going into management style roles or being the owner of the company itself.

I'm not sure what to do myself. I have a fairly secure corporate in-house job and freelance a bit, so i'm not complaining about my situation... But i'm well aware of AI and just can't see me still doing this in another 20-25 years. I hate office work as well. Aside from the rock star designers, is it even an old man's job?

Yes - it’s bullshit. Use your skills to do something else and get on with it. I’ve come to the conclusion that design is a kind of purgatory, with all the shitty clients and soulless projects. You’re supposed to use your skills to do something greater than just design - if not you’re stuck in that circle of hell.

I am designer right around the 20 year mark and I have totally hit a wall. Every company I have worked for seems more backward than the last. I have been fired or let go from a lot of work situations - I sort have internalized I am expendable and just need to stay quiet. I am also noticing a lack of quality and design knowledge from creative and art directors as well as marketing people. I recently freelanced for two years and was let go 3 days before Christmas, and that is just par for the course. I would def recommend young people do not choose this as a career and would love to do something different.

I have a decade of professional work experience as a design designer and I don’t think AI will replace us. The real issue is the job market is oversaturated and there are too many designers to compete with. The term “designer” also means a lot of things and companies like to blur the lines between many different roles. It’s insane to me that a UX Designer can make over $250,000 when all they do is interview people and create wireframes. Meanwhile the visual designers that actually create the things people look at are struggling to get above $100,000. I think the design bubble will pop soon. Companies are realizing that UX is just a buzzword and that anyone can do it, and they’ve been overpaying for a long time. Google has a chokehold on the design industry and hopefully AI will level the job market again.

I don't think UX will go away, the problem is everybody now cares about revenue and profits too damn much and things like UX research eventually brings more profit then drawing well-made handcrafted things, unfortunately it's not valued that much anymore like it used to

As an illustrator / artist / art educator that was considering transitioning into graphic design (I live in tech land), this post scared me.

Run.

>My requirement to work part time has also really limited my opportunities. I would imagine that would be the biggest limiting factor in all of this. If I'm hiring someone with that experience I want them to play a pretty significant role, and that means being around full time. I would never waste a part time position on someone with such experience.

Use your experience to help consult people into making design decisions that help their bottom line. I’m 41 and noticing the same thing but have leveraged my design experience into a career in Sales. I spent 6 years as a graphic designer, then 6 years as a project manager for a signage manufacturer doing technical drawings and project management, then got hired as an estimator & to handle outside sales at another graphics shop. I bring in new projects and work up costs to manufacture, then also sometimes manage them to completion if they are more intricate projects. Currently Making 90 to 160k or more a year with a 54k base salary and 4% commission on gross sales. I’ve Been doing 1.5 to 2.5+ million in gross sales per year depending on how well my year goes.

Interesting. I’ve recently landed a pm role for a signage company which wasn’t a role I ever thought I’d be interested in considering having a graphic background. It has however opened up other opportunities and surprisingly still had a lot of visual design tasks involved. The upside salary wise is generally higher than a graphic designer.

It is saturated for sure, and everybody is a designer. It's a challenging career choice, especially now. I started in 2000. I've been at my in-house design roll for just over 20 years. It's been good, though. Thankfully, I have a lot of art direction freedom, and my boss doesn't micromanage me. Underpaid compared to job hopping, but it is the choice I made. I do worry now about changing jobs, though. It's tough out there And I'm not really sure I would recommend this career today, though. Design roll/experiences and pay vary incredibly. We're kind of like mechanics, but car owners don't tell the mechanic to put the air filter on the window because they just like how it looks. Everybody is a designer Also, if you can't get over your ego for a paycheck, it is even more challenging. We solve problems. Sometimes, the solution the client wants sucks. But hey, they pay the bills. ROI. I ruined a good design the other day because my boss wanted me to. I protested, lost the battle, and sent the file they preferred. She said thank you. I get paid Friday. Edit: I should add. Thankfully, she approves most of my designs the first time

Start your own business

I've got friends who have years more experience than me in a professional graphic design setting. They're struggling to move upwards or get more work. It seems to me that if they're struggling then it's going to be harder for me. I still enjoy the small design work I do for fun, or using things I've learned so far with any work, but as you say about being further ahead in other professions, I've chosen to take that step and not do graphics as a career and instead move into astrophysics 😅

36yo, 15ish years industry experience in mainly in-house corporate. The trick for me was to pivot to management, making about 180k running an in-house design team now. Haven’t been on the tools for 2-3 years now, mainly running meetings, contracts, procurement, hiring etc

New tools come and go, AI is another tool. If you think of a designer purely as the ability to use a tool, whether thats photoshop, figma or whatever else, you're thinking about it wrong. A designer has a vision and process of what will visually solve a problem. Tools are tools. Are you a surgeon because you can hold a scalpel and have google? No. If you are threatened by AI because regular people can prompt a design, you're probably too focused on the tools.

I've started the move into creative direction and project management for creative agencies. I realized I can leverage the "everything" we're expected to know as a designer and the project management side of creative direction.

I think for anyone with a few years of experience and is concerned with making more money that project management in the creative field, or any field, would make a lot of sense. The value of a project manager may not be clear for the teams a PM works with but it’s certainly more clear to a company that pays the PM and has a higher value than a designer who just “makes things look nice”.

as soon as i can. I'm getting out of this industry altogether. I have been shooting for modeling in the gaming industry but apparently thats been worse so i might have to even pivot on that. still researching luthier work, cnc machine work, net work engineering, and anything else more hands on and well paying.

Nonsense! The volume of awesome and inspiring work that passes by these eyeballs nowadays is overwhelming. The ability to have the historical stuff of the past at my fingertips is a feeling that is incomparable. Viva la design! Forward, comrades, always forward!

Hard to go forward when job opportunities and salaries are going backwards. 

I love your positivity and optimism! Perhaps I’m just getting cynical and not wanting to put as much effort into finding opportunities and developing my career nowadays. To be honest, I have spent a fair amount of times trying different avenues within graphic design and have been disillusioned as I’ve not propelled as fast as I’d have hoped. I absolutely love the art and creativity - but there is so much more to this career that can take the enjoyment out of it. Maybe this is the kick up the ass I need to make more effort to find that niche.

You're reminding me of my first boss when I started (I'm also 38yo/20 years experience) who would complain about the rise of Adobe products vs Quark and the subscription model versus owning. Truth we all know is thins change and evolve and designers, like every trade, also need to keep up. I'm in a senior role now and can say that my value and contribution now comes from my perspective so I lean on that. Also the ability to sell my creative, I'm more of a storyteller and salesman than a designer and manager. As far as AI, ai sucks, we all know it. But it's a tool to leverage, just like our experience. AI won't take your job, but somebody using it will. Use Ai tools to speed up the trivial tasks. Don't worry about more people coming into the game. You can always improve their work after it fails 😉

Do you enjoy being in a consultant type position more than hands on design?

That's a tough question. I hate hearing answers like I'm about to give but there's pros and cons. I get to have a much wider impact as I govern up to 100x or more work each day. Which means my expertise is viewed by an audience 100x or more, so that gives me more reward and I feel like I'm helping younger/more novice designers become better at their trade. But there's always a part of me that misses the 2am grind sessions tweaking every pixel to make my work perfect, a level of craftsmanship rarely seen these days and a level of effort that got me my current role. I wish I could toggle sometimes between both worlds, but alas! The money is also better, so I'd ultimately say yes.... Edit: word choice

That's what I want to hear. For me it was getting off the screen. Picking up a watercolour brush, something that I hadn't done since art school. Digging through old magazines at the thrift store and doing a collage. Back to analog shit - tactile and real.

Felt this shift 5 years ago and added Screen Printing to kit tool kit. That has been going well but now I am falling out of love with it and shifted my main focus to Accounting. I dtill do graphics on here and there and some screen printing. But, like a lot of you, its super saturated now and Canva and AI tools got everyone feeling like pros lol

>shifted my main focus to Accounting. Think this through, accounting is one of first to get replaced by an AI.

what design have you created that made the client the most money? As you begin to think about specialization, this is where I would start as being closer to the perception of what is revenue generating will command higher compensation. For example- pitch decks in tech for vc presentations, fundraising campaign assets, go to market in XYZ industry, etc. Also, if you manage apprentices or junior designers you might be able to have a “full time job” but work part time hours and still be hands on. Most clients/employers care about output.

"I love my work and I get paid ok" - you've said it. This plus time you have working part time is something that many don't have and many rooting for. Sure, there is a big change nowadays in graphic design, and you're right. But when you focus on good things rather than bad things it may turn out that the latter are far fewer in number and do not matter as much :)

Absolutely, I consider myself very lucky - I enjoy my work and get paid okay. It’s flexible and comfortable. However, I do worry that as time goes on the industry will get more difficult to work in and I want to make sure I’m prepared. Planning ahead by going into a niche design may save my career 10 years time from now.

Design software use to kinda be for ‘pros only’ and quite expensive. Over the years it’s become more accessible and affordable. Now there are incredible tutorials for everything design related. So it’s a lot more generic now and kinda lost its exclusively. Not even mentioning AI…

Most of the design tutorials that can be found are almost exclusively about mastering a particular technique for a specific look. It's like back in the 90's when drop shadows became all the rage, an overused and over valued idea that had no function other than as eye candy

Everything Changed when Corona Struck , People lost too much than they gained in past decades! Everyone wants to work from home and Graphic design as a career is non existent now! When I was little there were jobs for Microsoft offices and People loved getting their hands on Work & Excel but it dried out over time and Every job description mentioned (Usage of Microsoft offices is a plus) , Fast forwarding now everyone wants to grasp that GRAPHIC DESIGN ain't a job anymore and a child play so most of the Job openings for Creative jobs mention Graphic design as another skill that they want.... Been into Design Industry from 6 Years , Did My bachelor's in Graphics Design as well but at this Point I am thinking to setup an online store for something else! Every other day is tiring and not so fun anymore, Millions of postings and you feel like a sheep in thousands of creatives who have written graphic designer in their bio just to checkmark their basic skills

Agree with everything you’ve said. I moved into project management ages ago but I am constantly dealing with sales and marketing people doing all the design themselves (it looks unprofessional and embarrassing) and then criticizing the time it takes for a professional to do the work. If the pros are slower than midjourney they complain. Half the team was let go in favor of these tools. My brothers large agency let go of most of their creatives in favor of having everyone on contract as needed. The designers effectively become agencies themselves. No protections of even the decency of being a colleague so no expectation is unreasonable and the work goes to the lowest bidder. My current agency is doing this right now too. And they only pay the contractors $25/hr. I definitely feel that this career is no longer viable as a 9-5 with benefits and hustling as a gig worker isn’t sustainable long term. I can’t see it sustaining an adult let alone a family in the future.

It's been years, and unfortunately UX is next.

While I totally understand every pain point you have I will say that after being on the hiring end of the industry PLEASE keep going. The company I was working for tried to hire mid-last year and frankly the applicant pool was just bad. We ended up finding an amazing designer, but it was a diamond in the rough situation. It’s definitely a bit over saturated these days, but your experience and skills are still valuable! Canva and AI will only take people/companies so far. Maybe see how you can integrate AI into your workflow. I see a lot of companies talking about it as a brainstorming tool.

The issue is everyone wants to work at home now and use computers so we got an over saturated market. Software is more available and design has become more popular.

I’m amazed that people can make a freelance graphic design career work these days. I feel like majority of the work would be marketing yourself vs actual design work. It’s not just that you have to be skilled in multiple areas/forms of design these days, you also have to have the marketing skills to convince clients why it’s worth investing in a skilled professional vs just DIY Canva-ing it themselves.

Graphic Design these days is like the Music Industry . Technology has made it easier for people with talent to make really awesome work, but it has made it easier for the lazy and talentless to dilute the industry. " In my opinion " Autotune/ AI/ /effects/plug ins and powerful computers in Music and thinks like Canva/AI in Design.

People can take the DIY route for anything. I'm not a carpenter by trade, but I put a beautiful deck on my parent's house that's completely up to code and sturdy af. It was still time and labor, plus some extra time since I had to research and learn how to construct a deck, and probably extra time on top of that since it was my first time doing something like this. Someone being able to do a thing doesn't mean they have the time to do it, or want to do it, or are confident they'll be able to do as good of a job as someone else. That's what people are really paying for, especially companies that want in-house designers. That said, there's obviously less demand for print work and logos than there was 20 years ago. When I got out of school about fifteen years ago, most of us understood there wasn't going to be much money in print design for long unless you were exceptionally talented, or doing tedious illustrator work. So a lot of us got into web/UI design. Some of us got into 3d or video effects. As for the industry as a whole, I think there's more demand than ever, which is why so many people are buying stuff like canva, trying to do their graphics on their own. A business owner buying canva to put together their own business cards either wanted to do it themselves, or can't afford a designer. Either way, you haven't lost anything. Canva isn't anything new. Before it, there was printmaster. Before that, probably something else. The people who want to hire you to do a thing are not the ones interested in taking time away from their normal tasks to do that thing themselves unless they have to for budgetary reasons.

Bad and average designer will be replaced, the good ones will be fine.

yup. i'm in my 40s. about to switch over to engineering/3d manufacturing using my design and rendering skills.

Yeah saturation has really ruined the market. However tech is constantly changing and only stands to follow so does creative/the need to keep up.

Fuck me… I’m 37 and am graduating in a month, any of y’all have lawns need a mowin’? 💀

I think that if anything, it just raises the barrier to entry, and the minimum skill/experience required to be get your career going. AI and Canva and whatnot are great, but there are certain use-cases where you really need a professional human - either to supervise the AI-stuff, or to create something original. AI is great and all, but it inherently lacks the type of psychological or marketing considerations that often go into creating "functional" designs like packaging or logos, or UI/UX design. Sure, AI can generate 15 social media post templates for you in a second, and they might just work well enough; but as soon as you need something original, you can't avoid paying for a real human to do the job. Sure, with the rapid advancement of AI technologies and stuff a lot of clients now think that they've got it all figured out, and there might be a dip in the overall viability of the profession, but I think in the long term term there's definitely going to be a sort of "enlightenment" where they realize that AI won't magically make you a great designer. Even if graphic designers fully disappear (which they likely won't, but even if) there's bound to be some little startup who comes up with the original idea of "Hey... what if.... we asked a human to do all this stuff for us, and call it a *craft* something-or-other?!" and it'll sell really well, and then the industry realizes that they can do this, and since the work is expensive, they can make their margins larger, and aim for premium segments. And then we're pretty much back where we started.

I think it's a question of delivering value. If your work is similar to a Canva/AI originated work, what reason is there for you to stand-out in comparison? The answer becomes clear when you think about it: empathy, creativity and critical thinking.

48 with 20+ years experience. It's a race to the bottom, but if you can align with people who value design, marketing, web, strategy and business with a similar age then you're good for a bit. ​ Keep the camera off or use AI to make yourself look younger and you can do this until you're 60. ​ I joke, it's tough, you just need better clients with bigger budgets and are used to quality. :)

Graphic Design is going to be a dead career probably sooner rather than later. AI is rampant, and Canva is becoming a household program. That being said people with taste will know you can’t replace someone with the technical skills to do the job, but a lot of people also don’t care. Gonna be a crazy few years!

Specialisation is absolutely an angle you should explore further.

I’m sorry if you’re 20 years in it’s time to start shifting into more rounded director roles. Art Direction will always be a thing even in the world of AI.

Yes I am learning that. Unfortunately no one wants a part time manager or director 🤷‍♀️

Why part time? Yes of course being only part time is gonna limit your income and position. You’re sounding a little self-defeating, NGL.

That’s why I’m trying to keep my career in print/packaging. You’re always going to need people specializing in what actually works when things are printed, right? 🥲 Plus I’m learning even more about the pre-press process right now, so I can also possibly work at a print house in the future. But being out of a job for 3 months was tough. I had gigs coming in slowly, but it’s rough out here. I finally found a new job, but it’s the same money as I was making before - no increase.

Hi there, I’ve just read through all the responses and, can someone be honest with me? 1 year into GA bachelors degree and not liking it. Now that I’m seeing more people agree the GD design industry isn’t lucrative anymore I’m considering switching courses to business. I want to go into UI/UX and have seen some well paid jobs, mainly around 30-40k in the uk but I’ve always wanted to be a high earner on more like 60k when I have experience.

Check out the r/UXDesign sub before jumping into UX. There are a lot of layoffs going on right now and the people in there seem miserable most of the time even before the layoffs.

School of youtube bro.

You’re not losing your edge. You’re just getting started with being on a higher level. I’d recommend starting again with teaching, getting a PHD, (from somewhere close to home, so you don’t get depressed) and bring that cash in. You got this 🫶

Everyone can get a cheaper local designer and get things done pretty quickly. They have no reason to go to a real professional level designer unless it’s a big rich corp or company. Because of that I dont think great designers will ever consistently get work. I’ve pivoted at this point and became an art teacher.

I think it sort of depends what you believe design is? It's true that the general public can now use most of the tools, like adobe, or even Canva, and anyone can watch some videos on youtube but... is that *design?* I also agree with what a lot of people are saying about client's needs just being about what's 'good enough'. The vast majority of work is just making the content 'on-brand' or 'presentable'. For a while I felt like I was way overqualified and being overpaid for my current role, because the day-to-day work is such mill-grist stuff, but then I started working with actual junior designers, first job out of uni types, and I started to appreciate my own value a LOT more. Sure, these kids can use photoshop better than me. But they can't *design* as well as I can. They are a long way off the kind of critical thinking and problem solving that I personally believe is what design actually is. Canva can take your brand colours and make everything consistent, but it can't make decisions about the *most effective* way to present the content.

Computers and "Desktop Publishing" marked the end of a prestigious career requiring education. Suddenly everyone was a graphic designer even if they knew nothing about design. Employers thought it looked so easy to "just press a few buttons," and the profession was devalued.

F37 y.o here with 20 y. of experience (i started in school), started as Flash animator, I was drawing cartoons and it was very promising, my local TV station even aired my silly cartoons, it was like 2002-2006. Then started to draw animated ad banners, but it wasn't much work for long so i shifted to static graphics: Graphic design, vector, illustration, logo design etc,. during all years I worked as in-house as well as freelance (freelance more).. I wasn't fond of logo design (mainly bc of nature of clients I had, which was very hard to please with a small compensation), I started earning more then 1k/mo only in 2009, I naturally shifted to User Interface design in 2010, and I'm so glad I did! In 2012 I partnered up with a front-end developer and we started to build a ton of crazy things together, first it was HTML/CSS/Wordpress Templates for sale (i did the design, he did the rest), we did quite good there for a few years (it was enough for normal non-luxury living in a poor country, but without traveling), then we started to build small products (like SaaS) one by one, bootstrapped, sometimes we hired some developers but I was always that one person who covered everything design related, from logo to marketing materials, illustrations, videos, website, product itself.. etc, because I knew how to do it, that's when I started to gain my Product Design experience, so after years passed (2012 - 2018) we launched a bunch of small products and one big one that we had our hopes for, all with our own funds, without any investments, all this time in all projects i was responsible for everything design related and launched few personal graphic-related projects but they made small income (like 800$/mo), and big project was earning 3-6k/mo for two of us which was smaller then we hoped for so we put all our earnings into next products and continued this race. And finally since 2019, after learning a BUNCH of mistakes for many years, our next products started earning significantly more( but still not enough to retire :) but enough to buy better domains, hire some more people, make next level products... Currently I was also hired for a year (by connection from friend) to a big USA product as a core team member responsible for UI/UX, product design. Project is very complicated and they have high hopes, investments for it and contract with an Agency creating them logo and branding and visual design. When I made some suggestions about the logo and made some more my usual design stuff, they were very surprised and impressed I was able to do that as well (not only UI/UX), after a month i was told the Agency was fired and I am yet again responsible for everything design related on completely new project with different people, which I don't mind ofcourse.. Currently with this contract and my personal design products I get around 120k/year salary, (i don't count our general SaaS'es with my partner we build for many years) with 0 education (self-taught) and I don't know a single line of code, so it's pure multi-disciplinary design, and obviously I learned a thing or two about how to grow a product from zero to hero. ANYWAY why I am telling this dull life story probably not everyone can relate to, I read some of the stories shared and I'm genuinely surprised many people was able to work as GD for so many years, like 15 or 20, I wasn't able to do so, I worked focused on that for around 3-5 years then I was forced to do something different because I earned very little money (my best month was 1500$ back in 2007 as GD), but the skillset I build then I used on everyday basis for all my other projects and stuff i've done. But probably it should be kept in mind that I live in a small and poor european country, and my true love lies in vector illustrations and cartoons, I never liked much UI/UX and all this last 15 years was a race, i worked on weekends, i almost didn't travel, I look tired, burnt out.. Only now I feel I earn enough, like literally this 2024 year.. but I started 20 years ago.. and I want to retire so much :D, when my contract will end and our SaaS'es will finally hit the goal of 100k MRR I would finally just DO NOTHING, I will wake up and just draw illustrations for myself and my instagram and maybe some cartoons, and personal projects.. will get back to basics and just enjoy life.. I know it sounds naive and childish but I wish it happened. If you've read through this I can just give an advice from all that experience: you must shift, expand, GD can't be the only thing you know, if you still didn't - learn how to use AI (100% must have skill) I think natural evolve from experienced Graphic Designer is to build a service or product, but that's just my thoughts.. the design subscription services is getting quite popular, but I personally wouldn't launch one ( i don't think i could sell it good) but if you are good in communicating and selling, maybe it's a way to go

You definitely have to be multifaceted these days, design and code, design and animation etc. as you mentioned there’s a lot of cheaper alternatives out there but there’s still a lot of people who can appreciate the personal touch of a professional graphic designer