Simantic

A message to graphic designers

Simon 26th November 2009

Today I received a link to this. Yeah, I know, it’s funny and to some extent valid. But I don’t know what I hate more, exploitative managers with archaic business models or smarmy graphic designers.

There are a lot of creative job positions out there where people do work for limited or no pay — including but not limited to photographers, audio engineers, production assistants, animators, painters and illustrators. Yet graphic designers (and to some degree, web designers) seem the only ones compelled to spend hours being smartarses about it. I know it’s important to let off steam, but publicly and constantly in such a brash way is hardly satirical. While I find a lot of the content humourous, I seriously get an email with a graphic designer having a whinge almost every week. And it makes me sad to call myself a designer. Because often I or someone I know has put up with a lot worse. We’re lucky to be in a job getting paid to do something we love. There are millions of people out there being exploited or who are in dead-end jobs and have no other choice. Then there are those who have nothing.

I know I’m on rant and a soapbox and I’m not having a go at those who forward these messages on or at the guy who wrote these, but rather at us as an industry.

Edit: I have just read a bunch of the other pages on 27b/6 and I believe that I’m am now well-informed enough to see that David Thorne is a clever and funny motherfucker. But I still think that graphic designers should be seen and not heard… or in some cases neither seen nor heard. That’s it, take down this blog!

Entry Filed under: design