I don't think I want to do graphic design anymore - burn out

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  • Horp1

    I think things have changed though over the last 15-20 years. Some of you are responding to this saying "Yeah, that's the way it is. Welcome to reality" but actually, it wasn't always quite like this, not entirely.

    When I came out of college in design, it was possible to do work that clients respected and didn't wish to interfere with. The interference only really came along (and here we go, blaming 'technology') when the mysticism of the process was codified and retailed in boxes. When I worked on things pre-digitally, hardly anything got fucked with. HArdly anything at all. Possibly a request to add something, or to re-order content, but that was pretty much all.

    It really did make a huge difference when computers joined in. People slowly started asking... cautiously at first... if it might be possible to change stuff. They weren't entirely sure. Imagine that... a client who's not entirely sure if they should be asking, or even if it would be possible anyway, to change something.

    Then they got bolder as we all sought to justify the massive investment in the computer equipment "Why of course we can change that. That's the beauty of these expensive machines. We can do anything". "Anything? really?" and so the people who were once deeply respectful of a totally opaque process started to get bolder and bolder with the their requests, and computers, desk top publishing, started to proliferate to the extent that everyone felt that it is easy to move the logo and make it bigger so move the fucking logo and make it bigger, and put this picture over here, and make this thing look sparkly and on and on and on.

    graphic design sucks now because graphic design has largely, whether yu like it or not, been demystified. I love it when people counter that by saying "Ah, but having computers and software doesn't make everyone become a good designer. There's still a difference between good and bad design".

    That's missing the point. There IS still a difference between good and bad design, but the world doesn't give a shit fr the difference any more. Its all just temporary, it needs to fit a schedule, and it needs to deliver. Nobody anywhere is even remotely interested any more in whether it delivers with a designer's sense of understatement and dignified elegance, or whether it just used an elegant looking typeface on a cool background colour.

    Its all just powerpointing now though its still called design. Its all just themes and impressions. There is no line of progress. Copy can be changed at will, images can be buggered into fuck by retouching over and over again... nothing has a final permanence. It used t be that you'd have to get all components done, finished, submitted and signed off, and that was largely that.

    Now, if you'll excuse me... I'm busy adding romantic blurs to the edges of some corporate imagery. (I'm not really).

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    • I agree with this.d_rek
    • <-- This. X100.nocomply
    • nice.bulletfactory
    • i agreeplash
    • i'll disagree just for the sake of controversy.CanHasQBN
    • well stated!monospaced
    • "It really did make a huge difference when computers joined in." ‹‹ this this this thise-pill
    • This is probably the best post I've read on QBN for 2012... the bar has been set.Al_dizzle
    • So true. I came into the design profession in 1987 as an intern. Before the computer there would be more investment in the idea, on both sides, because clients didnt have the ability to move forms and type around at that point.Josev
    • the concept, on both sides, because clients didnt have the ability to move forms and type around at that point.Josev
    • [slow claps] great post!chris_himself_2
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