Getting Laid off
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- aaux
Earlier today my roommate and I were laid off from our fluffy design jobs at VSA Partners in Chicago. The reason isn't our lack of design skill or a conflict of interest, its simply the economy.
So why I'm broadcasting isn't to complain, or put down VSA. It's to get a better understanding of just how bad design is getting hit as a whole.
So tell your stories and lets just see how right CNN is about the future of advertising and design in the coming months or years. Oh and if anyone is hiring out there let me know haha.
- airey0
sorry to hear. post a link to your folio or CV and we might be able to help?!?
- VectorMasked0
I know this post of mine is a waste of cyberspace, but really sorry to hear that.
We could all get hit anytime too. I know I can.
Good luck to you both.
- sofakingbanned0
shit, sorry to hear man.
Do you have any leads you can hit up for freelance?
- All in process gonna spend all night updating and emailing.. then tomorrow hopefully start the new websiteaaux
- Cool, maybe this will be a good thing for you guys.sofakingbanned
- aaux0
all updated work is in progress, but this is what I've got up at the moment.
www.dblackman.com
www.flickr.com/danielblackman
- jamble0
Sorry to hear it.
I got laid off 2 years ago from full time employment, not due to the economy particularly more due to the company I was at going much more down a software development route instead of design work.
Went freelance using my redundancy pay and I've never been happier.
In terms of the economy at the moment, it seems to me that it's a good time to be a freelancer, agencies are still winning projects but don't always want to take someone on full time to do the work.
- Yeah good point. I do alot of freelance with a design firm called FWIS maybe ill spend some more time trying to pursue that.aaux
- akoni0
was laid off 3 weeks ago... best thing ever
- chossy0
I agree with jamble, if you have plenty contacts in freelance I would not worry. I am very concerned over web design though as loads of people are happy with templates and I think more so now than ever, also I think the internet has lost lots of it's excitement and businesses are slowly just turning it into a shitty copy of your local ad trader. I think the main thing to do is continue making wonderful designs wherever possible but concede that bills need to be paid.
- vilca0
It's the same here, on the other side of the pond, London.
My agency is doing quite bad at the moment. We work with some very big international clients and they're all pulling back. Marketing budgets have been slashed, no money comes in and lots goes out! It's shit man!
We're all worried on what's going to happen. They're saying we should be safe until January but if no money comes in we have to pack it up!
I'm already out looking for jobs, but there are so many designers out of jobs at the moment, and no one hires. I'm thinking farming could be an option.
Best of luck to you and to everyone else that is in this situation!
- mistermik0
aye good luck all.
- kelpie0
Digital will do ok, far as I can see - recent surveys show a lot more confidence there than in any other of the creative strands anyway. Totally disagree with Chossy on where its going/gone too. As for templates; sure if you can show me a template with a built in CMS that can handle everything a company needs these days, (especially once they realised their marketing budget can go far further online than off and move most of it to digital), then I'll worry, maybe.
I'm pretty confident if you have a brain, know how to use it and think further than "website" and "banner ad" in this game, then the possibilities are both endless, and damn cheap. happy days.
- neue75_bold0
Things seem to be fine in Amsterdam, but then again, I don't speak, read or understand Dutch, so the country could be in recession for all I know...
- chossy0
Fair enough Kelpie, I am still concerned though as a new advertising agency started up about a year ago and their website is a blog thats it a nicely designed blog!!!!. If an advertising agency goes for this as their site what does this say (fuck all probably :/ I dinae ken much about much anyway I'm just chucking things on the mirror seeing who sniffs it up)
- kelpie0
do they work in digital? things happen pretty fast there and lots of companies are switching to blogs as they're about the only thing loose, quick and flexible enough to keep up with everything that's happening. We're thinking of doing it ourselves. By the time you've found the time to design your own site amidst all the client wortk, then designed it, then had it built, then had it populated with content its already out of date!
Who gives a fuck what an agency's site is like anyway? surely what their client work is like is what matters?
- not arguing, just chattin', btw choss, if the tone sounds conffrontationalkelpie
- thats just you being scottishmistermik
- I think it matters. If you're guarding clients brands you need to do the same with your ownbabaganush
- who says they aren't? and that the things they can say in the blog aren't a far better indication of their ability to guard a brand?kelpie
- seems to me that people want information at an exponential rate which is not achievable. I do edits for a finantial company.chossy
- and they film it in the morning and need it edited and encoded by that evening they are about 45 minutes long when cut down.!!!chossy
- bergnatal0
Mate,
The company got rid of half of my team last week. don't feel bad it is the economy
- mimeartist_com0
I'm just glad I'm not paying for an office in Carnaby Street like I was just over a year ago
- should have gone flash.. should have gone flash...mistermik
- hey?mimeartist_com
- rich manmistermik
- chossy0
They do everything adverts, posters, digital. Problems I am beginning to see are that people want videos and will pay very very little for them, for some reason people have far lower standards for a video than they do for most other things.
- that's probably the interweb's fault to be fair. when the means of distribution is everywhere people think production is cheap tookelpie
- ...tookelpie
- site?babaganush
- It's because the latest agency 'gimmick' is user generated content...'make our ad'. Cheap crudbabaganush
- Moo0
Work told us on friday that they are laying off a load of people and on friday I got an email from my boss saying that my position was save as I'm the only web designer so that made my wife a little happier BUT then yesterday I got told they had made a mistake and that I was up for the chop with the rest :( how could my boss get it so wrong i can't believe how my work is being run with people like him in charge what a joke.
*****END RANT******
- kelpie0
To be honest, provided it was an ok sum, I'd be sorely tempted to take redundancy right now.
- chossy0
It's fascinating that video and film is still seen in such a playful light. Companies get massively excited if you suggest putting a video on their site or making a DVd for them. Just when they find out the cost they pure shite their can likesey!.