Why Graphic Design is the Worst Brand Ever

Posted on February 04, 2008 by Ed Roach

Before 1984, graphic design could boast that it was a discipline, something valuable in the hands of a competent designer.

Then came desktop publishing and the graphic design brand started its gradual decline. Today anyone with a computer and a few hundred dollars in software believe themselves to be proficient in the execution of graphic design. What got me writing about this, was a comment in a recent post from a graphic design listserve that I get daily in my email. The listserve is populated with graphic designers from across Canada.

Ed Roach

One person wrote in that her nephew in his quest to be a graphic designer, decided that he needn’t attend a sanctioned secondary education on the subject as he read several articles on graphic design off the web and now “knows everything there is to know on the subject”. He’s got the software, knows all the “tricks” and is now set to conquer the world.

As business people, we all chuckle at this young person’s naiveté and plain ignorance. But what has lead to his belief that a few articles on the web is all there is to becoming a graphic designer. How many of you who are reading this article, work or own companies who’s marketing materials were either done in house by the IT people or had a friend do it on the cheap? In the business world there is more respect and attention given to interior decorating than to marketing. Marketing to many is a necessary evil. Hiring a graphic designer to facilitate the production of materials in a marketing plan is an alien concept to many.

Graphic design to be fair to businesses is the most at fault for this loss of brand professionalism. The industry has done nothing to encourage professionalism in schools who churn out young “designers” who by all rights should not have even passed the course, let alone put out their shingle. I would love to ask that young man who knows everything to explain kerning to me. Can he explain what a widow is or where he might see a river in a body of text? Would he even care what trap and choke are? What they do know is every filter in Photoshop. They will never design a logo with a font that doesn’t exist. The first time these people send a file off for printing, don’t understand why a 11 color file doesn’t make sense because it is cost prohibitive, and an early sign of an amateur. Printers love these people – they cost people money.

The difference between a graphic design professional and everyone else is that as professionals, they have to design to sell. Every idea they have has to communicate. The industry has allowed non-talents to flourish. Designers regularly under-charge for their services. They regularly present spec work. Businesses think nothing of letting the secretarial staff design their materials. This is not the case however if they need legal work done. The books are not handled by the janitor, they have an accountancy handle it and rightly so. Many pass off the in-house design as a way to cut costs. What they fail to see and apparently forget from business 101, is that marketing should communicate their brand message and differentiate them – NOT something that must be accomplished for peanuts, by anyone who knows there way around photoshop. The computer industry defines this nicely – Garbage in, garbage out. Garbage doesn’t make you money. The sad thing is, the lack of response to these amateur materials only strengthens businesses belief that marketing is at best a crap shoot, and the first things to cut in a slow economy.

There are of course many TRUE graphic design professionals. They have experience and know what works. In their hands you will increase market share and grow your business. Their own personal brands are strong, but even they must constantly battle the poor brand of the graphic design industry as a whole. Imagine what difficulty your own business would have if you had to fight not only competition, market conditions, buying cycles, your own short comings and issues unique to your category – but ALSO a general public perception that anyone with a computer can do what you do cheaper if not free. That is the world of the graphic designer in the year 2008. Graphic design has fallen into the biggest pit of poor branding and has become a commodity. The road back is long one, and the world’s best have the ability to do it one em at a time.

68 Responses to “Why Graphic Design is the Worst Brand Ever”

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Jeff

- 5th Jun, 09 12:06am

Where the problem lies Rob is we took the time to focus and decide upon a career. We trained ourselves in formal institutions, racked up large student loans and really learned our craft and the history of it. However with the advancement of technology, the ease of obtaining computers with every known design program built in…anyone can call themselves a designer. When you dont have any kind of certification…what you do is dumb down the industry and consequently we all get paid less. The person hiring us will now have to decide to pay the educated person at a decent salary or hire the kid out of high school for $9 an hour. And now administrative assistants and marketing jobs require you to know Photoshop, InDesign etc. because if their son or daughter can play on the computer they bought them…they assume its not that important of an element to their company.

Yes…there are people like yourself who are probably very good at what you do…but the sad part is graphic design as we know it is really separating into two different areas. Web programmers are picking up the print design jobs as a “side” to their coding and all their html and css and they’re “available” fonts to design with. (Please, not Arial again). And then admin. assistants and marketing/PR folks are picking up the rest. I think we can officially say goodbye to graphic design as a profession and now its just another segment of marketing.

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Carl

- 4th Jul, 09 07:07pm

Interesting discussion. Guess it depends on how you want to classify ‘Graphic Design’.

You don’t need any formal training to be creative, nor do you need to be creative to churn out a print-ready file that meets all the criteria.

In the past, this was all done by the same person, mainly due to the high barrier of entry. Today, the barriers of entry are low (almost non-existing). Software is sometimes free and easy to learn. Anyone can create something and this disrupts the “old way”.

The same goes for other creative industries. For instance, anyone with a camera phone can now do a short film and reach a world audience via YouTube. The same goes with musicians, photographers etc.

Granted, you get a lot of garbage but you also get some interesting creations that never would have seen the light of day.

I agree that it is a shame when businesses settle for poor quality, but that’s there choice.

Stop complaining about the “decay” of graphic design.
Start looking at creative ways to utilise it.

Once you find yourself believeing that “things were better before” rather than seeing the opportunities around you it’s time for you to retire.

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M. Dunn

- 26th Jul, 09 11:07am

I myself am a young designer. I did go to college and I have been working in the field for about 3 years now. I absolutely love it. However, I have noticed a certain attitude from old school designers and it’s starting to get a bit ridiculous. I respect the fact that they had to do everything by hand. I was actually required to learn the “old ways” in school because my professors were old school. I think that a designer who can’t draw is pretty much worthless and that you should always know where you came from to be able to know where you’re going. The thing is, that there are ups and downs to both sides. We are now responsible for an entire project on our own instead of just a portion of it. Employers don’t want a plain old designer anymore either, they want you to be a web designer too. I’m spending more money going back to college to learn more about web design because that is what my field wants. I’m not about to complain about it because even though I’ve been in this field for a short time, I know that constantly adapting and learning new things is the key to staying up to date. My dad has always told me that college gives you options, and you want as many options as possible. It seems to me that the computer is looked down upon by the old school designers because they weren’t willing to change. They fought it and in return ran out of options. The young kids came in and took their jobs. You have to be adaptable if you want to make money. I know plenty of young designers and all of us wish that we could have a more hands on approach to our work. There are days that I hate the computer and all I want in the world is a pencil and a pad of paper. There are a lot of people out their who claim to be designers and it is annoying when somebody sends you files that are full of elementary mistakes (that they did on a weird type of software that you’ve never heard of) or underbids you and takes a job that they don’t deserve. Oh well, life is tough. The old school designers are not the only people in the world that are passionate and educated about their field. Kerning is when you tweak the space between characters.

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Ed Roach (author comment)

- 30th Jul, 09 04:07pm

M Dunn – I believe you get the point of the article.

Carl – it seems as if you’ve embraced mediocrity. There is no excuse for poor quality, old school or not.

And thank you Jeff – you’re singing my song!

By the way, great discussion here. It’s very healthy.

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Carl

- 15th Aug, 09 05:08pm

Ed – I have not embraced mediocrity.
What I meant to say is that graphic design is business. Yes, there are artists out there, but design is (usually) a busines transaction. It is up to the client to spend little and get little or spend more to get more. The fact that ‘poor quality’ designers and low prices exists is because there is a market for them. Companies are obviously willing to settle for less. That is not the fault of the designer, old school or not.

And as a paradox, the most cutting edge viral video campaigns right now are shot intentially with poor quality, even though the companies behind them are multi-million dollar brands. Levi’s, Nike, Ray-Ban etc all produce videos of ‘home-made’ qaulity and lauch them on YouTube. In a way, poor quality is in.

M.Dunn – I agree with you almost 100%, almost. I don’t believe you are “worthless” as a designer just because you can’t draw. By saying that, you more or less put yourself in the same group as the ‘old school’ designers you say sound ridiculous. Why am I not a designer if I can do amazing things on a computer but can’t draw with a pen and paper?

My belief is simple; adapt to your clients needs and the technology of the times you live in, and stop judging each other.

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M. Dunn

- 16th Aug, 09 09:08am

I did not say that you weren’t a designer if you can’t draw. Maybe worthless was kind of a harsh word, but I would rather hire someone who can do it all than someone who can only do one thing. If you tell a client that you can’t draw odds are they will lose confidence in you. A designer who works strictly on a computer has limited themselves just like an old school designer who refuses to embrace the computer. If you can draw you can create things that you just can’t do on a computer and therefore add a original and more human-like quality to your work. I can do amazing things on the computer too, but as a professional I explore different mediums. If you are just using elements that are already there and manipulating them, you are more of an assembler than a creator. This is what he was talking about when he said that some people will never use a font that doesn’t exist.

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Seattle Architects

- 26th Sep, 09 09:09pm

You could say this about a lot of professions. I often encounter people who think they can design their own houses. When I see the results, it’s clear they should have hired an architect. Same goes for graphic designers. A good graphic designer will come up with something an untrained person could never even begin to think of.

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Ed Roach (author comment)

- 27th Sep, 09 06:09am

Seattle,

Architecture and Graphic Design have many similarities in doing business. One I see in architecture that must be an irritant is spec. Although it appears ingrained I don’t know if I’ve ever a case where a tender wasn’t accompanied by drawings. At least in GD, we appear to have a choice. How do you feel about it?

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JL

- 16th Oct, 09 04:10am

I work as a “per hour” employee at a corporate retail company. It sucks because you have people who say $0.10 is way too much for a 24# black and white copy. I feel like I am wasting my time designing things from paper to digital because they don’t want a lot of it because prices are too ridiculous. To point fingers, there’s a competitor in business around my works location that charges two to three times more than we do, and I get the traffic of customers coming from there. My work associates have no secondary school training or education… just like the article that said the young kid knew everything about designing because of online tutorials. My supervisor has worked for 11 years at where I am at now, and she still doesn’t know how to identify a bleed, a kern, a river, an orphan or a widow. I feel trapped here… and overworked.

I have been drawing as far back as age 5. I can draw people without looking at them, I can draw whatever comes to mind, and my attention to detail gets a lot of positive feedback. I knew I wanted to be a designer by the time I was a sophomore in high school. Hell, I knew I was going to be a designer when I turned 13. I had 4 sketchbooks FULL by the time I was done with high school.

Straight from high school, I went to a 2-year college for an Associate’s Degree and got my job almost immediately. After working there for 8 months, I feel that I am ready to move on because now I feel that I know what it’s look to work cheap. I want to produce affordable, meaningful graphic design work. Not the cheap walk-ins that I deal with four times a week.

I know this discussion isn’t active any more, but I just want all of you readers to know that secondary education for a graphic design field is the right choice. However, I would suggest to take a 4-year course and not a 2-year course. Bolster your portfolio and your knowledge. Now is the time to invest.

Soon, I will battle the poor brand of designers.

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Ed Roach (author comment)

- 16th Oct, 09 05:10pm

I hear you JL. This old article is seen regularly according to my stats. I think true professionals resonate with the frustration. I think you’re about ready to move on as well. Do you at least freelance to get a sense of what’s out there? Of course there is the web which opens up the world to you.

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Bahaus Furniture

- 16th Oct, 09 11:10pm

I’ve never thought that’s what it means. its good to knows new information about such. Thanks for the post

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woodson remodel construction

- 22nd Jan, 10 09:01am

I think that mostly you are talking about print graphic designers…however there are also graphic designers that design for only web development. This being said its hard to argue a side unless you state more specifically what you’re referring to. I agree with a lot of your points (esp when referring to print designers not knowing about 4 -2- 1 color printing and kerning etc…but some of it sounds like a bit of arrogance. Good article though

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Ed Roach (author comment)

- 23rd Jan, 10 10:01pm

Woodson, I’m speaking of graphic design in general and that would include online design as well. I can see why you would view some as arrogance, but in my defense, I’d prefer to say it stems from confidence in my field. Sometimes you have to leave the chips where they fall.

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Evoco

- 31st Jan, 10 04:01am

“Great post, very useful for a beginner like me”

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Ed Roach (author comment)

- 1st Feb, 10 10:02am

I’m glad you found it useful, Evoco. Thank you for commenting.

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