What the credit crunch means for designers..... ?*

About now you are starting to realise that the credit crunch is going to effect more than just bankers. Yep, unfortunately the greed of a few, as history dictates, effects the majority. This case being no exception - we designers can not hide behind our pretty little pictures. This is a steam train heading towards us. And yet unknowingly and more so ignorately we continued on merry little ways for so long, only ever too happy to knock the ways of the top, as long as the conversation did not expose us to the truths of a system where our gain was due to this few. We will now happily point the finger while we sit back and watch our annual budgets slowly dry in the economic wind, for as designers we are powerless to stop them, for even billion dollar bail outs are sucked into this void.

With a little hope few of us will survive. Fright or flight mechanisms will kick in, the tough will get going, and the those do this for the love will see out the cold winter, even if it mean that their salary has to be supplemented with the horrid and unthinkable work to that of the underpaid, under-skilled and under-noticed barkeep. Those who do this for money will find themselves in a much deeper predicament. One where no amount of bdm's can save the day. Business will sit of the line of red and black, waiting for that last client to pull there savings for self preservation in the impending drought, and they will be maid to decide on the worthiness of key staff that where productivity has no value, until that question hangs above themselves.

Wow, I did not know I could write so darkly. I apologise for providing such a grim outlook, I was attempting to sound poetic.

In the short of it, I believe this recession will last about 2years before we see it start to turn and warm up. In the mean time, a lot of the new start out businesses (4 out of 5 fail – to no fault of our own) that provide design studios with a decent cash flow will not get the capital needed to get off the ground unless they are actually offering a product worthy of investing in.

Other smaller fully operating businesses will continue as normal, tightening luxurious budgets such as design on marketing collateral, ephemera, annual reports and the like.

Firms with a decent kitty and savy marketing managers will need to justify budget decisions with hard tangible data, and hence will move more traditional print spends into the digital trackable world of web. Design firms will need to sure up there web abilities, (which they should have moved towards years ago), and be able to offer all of the emerging internet technologies so as to gain access to a larger customer base. If a company can do this they will find themselves cruising.

If there was substantial growth in the past few years there maybe a bit of trimming come this winter drought but as an individual if you have hit targets and solidified yourself as a main production engine with your firm you should fine.

As a freelancer you should be persuing every available option, and with any time off, working on perfecting the be all folio, and increasing your skill set will hopefully ensure little time off.

You never know that bar job could be just what you need to find a little lost passion. Good luck.