Want a job? Get in line!

Have you looked for a new job lately? It’s pretty bad out there.  There aren’t many jobs available, and the ones that are available aren’t very good. Many of the jobs are asking for so many different skill sets, it’s tough to even get in the door.  Maybe I missed something, but a graphic designer isn’t also a programmer, animator, photographer, videographer, and a sandwich artist.

I for one think that design is dead. Gone are the days of comfortable budgets allowing you to explore creative solutions to a project. Gone are the days where you have enough of a budget where you can spend time on customizing fonts or creating a website from the ground up.  The new theme is beat the price. Damn the design, just get the price down.

So how do we get out of this mess? You have clients cannibalizing one another by building sites for next to nothing. Creating a logo for dirt cheap. Producing work for so small of a price, they HAVE to do tons of work just to stay afloat. All at the expense of good design.

To fully understand the problem, I think you have to look at it from an outside perspective. So let’s just for a minute create a made up client with a made up project.

Client: Billy Bob’s Crazy Ass Hot Sauce

Project: New Website, Logo, and Marketing Material

Hey Y’all, I’m Billy Bob and this is my crazy ass hot sauce! I’ve been making this hot sauce for about 5 or 6 years now.  We started just canning the sauce in mason jars and writing our name on top with a sharpie marker.  Then my cousin’s best friends nephew was in art school, so I paid him $40 to create us a logo.  That’s what we’ve been using and it works.

Problem: Billy Bob didn’t go to art school. He see’s good design as something that works for him. So if he’s able to move his product in a mason jar with a sticker…it works.  But what he’s neglecting to realize is the potential he’s missing out on. Creating a professional brand will not only reap immediate benefits in his ability to become a legitimate producer, but he’ll also be building brand equity.  His myopia (shortsightedness) is going to maybe not keep him from making a sale out of the back of his pickup, but it will keep him from being a player in the hot sauce industry.

So as a designer, your job isn’t to show people that what they have isn’t working, but instead, what they don’t have isn’t helping.

This goes for freelance designers looking for a project or designers looking for a job.  Make yourself part of their future. Show them with your skills and vision what they can be as opposed to how you can fit into that mold.  Cause when someone is hiring someone, they aren’t looking for the same thing.