Decline of Design – Reader feedback requested.
As you may know, I’m on the job hunt. For the past year or so, I’ve been looking for a full time gig somewhere. Needless to say it’s a bit frustrating. Just the other day, I found a post for a job where they wanted someone who can design, update the website, write marketing material, photograph at events, and do the social media and SEO for their website. Oh, also, they wanted you to have a Masters….all for the low low price of $38,000 a year! Pretty disgusting.
So I ask you a question. What are some things you’ve done to beat this decline in our industry, and why is our industry particularly susceptible to this drought in the economy verses other industries?
Do you think that websites like 99 designs and other competition based websites are part of the reason for the constant “lowering of the bar” for our freelance industry? Are we cannibalizing ourselves by allowing sites like this to exist or is this just survival of the fittest? I want to know what you think.
Loading ...
about 5 months ago
I must agree, sites like 99centsdesigns, are cutting into our creativity, we spent years hoing our craft, only to find out, we are being replaced by companies who use templates created in India, where they are paid 2 cents a day.
So you get a group of low wagers (india) designing templates for 2 cents each or less… you turn around on sell it here for $50.00+ depending on the template and there you go, a nice site you can use at a very cheap rate…
I’ll say this templates will never beat originality, because the person who designed it got screwed, and now so are we…. the original concept designers. Websites are much more valuable when designed from our heads, not bought offline. Besides the person who’s creativity went into the template got screwed himself.
about 5 months ago
Death to the template!!!
about 5 months ago
Its pretty much useless to complain about low priced template sites and the wages offered by companies. There is no longer a demand for really creative web sites like in the past. YES, the cut rate template people have helped cause this shift. But also in an effort for companies to save money and keep employees, many of them have shifted the web task onto someone that would have been laid off. And it doesnt matter what fellow designers think of the template sites. If the client likes it and they like the price…. well then it doesnt really matter what opinion you an I may have.
Just like when the Japanese car was brought over here for public consumption. The days of makink 75 an hour designing a web site are pretty much over… and in fact, the typical pay you are gonna find now a days in web works is gonna be 10 to 15 dollars an hour.
And the term “FreeLancer” pretty well shoots yourself in the foot as well these days. People that have money to buy web sites, want to know you are going to be around for a while. FreeLancer gives off the idea that you make web sites in the evenings from home, or at Starbucks on your lunch break.
And if you have ever busted open one of those “template sites (especially the Flash ones) you will see that modifying them is more work than making your own. So what it means in the end… If you want to survive.. you might want to lower the bar on how much you think your stuff is worth.
I do a lot of work for another agency that had to let their staff go because people just dont want to pay 10K and up for web sites any more. And in fact, there are not a lot of cities where you can get 5k.
I created a website for a company in NC and billed them 5K, but that same site here in small town TN would not even bring in 2k. They just dont have the money… just like I dont have the money to go buy me a new Power Mac.
about 3 months ago
I must agree, sites like 99centsdesigns, are cutting into our creativity, we spent years hoing our craft, only to find out, we are being replaced by companies who use templates created in India, where they are paid 2 cents a day.
So you get a group of low wagers (india) designing templates for 2 cents each or less… you turn around on sell it here for $50.00+ depending on the template and there you go, a nice site you can use at a very cheap rate…
I’ll say this templates will never beat originality, because the person who designed it got screwed, and now so are we…. the original concept designers. Websites are much more valuable when designed from our heads, not bought offline. Besides the person who’s creativity went into the template got screwed himself.
about 3 months ago
All I can say is, you get what you pay for.
If clients want to use templates, then I say fine. Good enough for them. They will also get the lackluster returns that come with them.
Good designs will pay for themselves. Cheap clients however, will keep costing you long into the future. I say drop em. Dont work for cheap, dont sell yourself short.