The downsides of working in the design industry
A new year equals new wishes to evolve and become a better person on all fronts. That also includes becoming a better professional and evolving one’s career.
Personally, I didn’t imagine I was going to end up where I am today. Once upon a time, I wanted to become a biologist and dedicate my life to studying big cats. After that, I wanted to pursue journalism as a photojournalist. However, I ended up in communication and getting a degree in multimedia, which is to say that I started my career doing and knowing a bit of a lot of things. While that’s not necessarily bad nowadays, it wasn’t appreciated back then because I wasn’t a specialized professional.
Fast forward to today, I’m trying to make it by combining two subjects that I love: design and animals. Most days, I love and believe fully in what I do, but also fight to have visibility and a profitable business.
Designer’s main struggles: paycheck and recognition
Before being a solopreneur trying to make it on my own, I worked as a designer for a marketing startup, social media agency and freelanced for two companies. In every case, I always felt underappreciated by employers, clients, and sometimes, even my peers. I am not the only one.
WeTransfer partnered with TRIPTK to conduct a study about the creative industry, with over 6700 participants worldwide.
Not to my surprise, over 90% feel unvalued. These numbers include freelancers, consultants, and small studios, so it’s recurrent across the entire industry.
In addition, there’s a general understanding (55% of the study’s respondents) that doing projects that align with what we love and believe, is crucial. Yet, only 22% can do it realistically.
This study also shows that 56% of creatives struggle to make enough money, so working on what’s needed to pay the bills is common practice.
Social media and the hustle culture are causing health problems
Besides the “common” issues, designers also face new challenges with social media and the dissemination of the idea that to make it, you have to be constantly working, posting, and grinding.
Burnout, a symptom of chronic work stress, is huge among people that work in creative agencies. According to WeTranfer’s study, 67% of respondents from Europe were close to or experienced some form of burnout last year. This number is even higher globally, with an average of 75%.
The way the world works today is making designers sick by demanding more and faster and downsizing the effort that goes into such work, regardless of its dimension.
Not to demonize free open-to-all software, but the fact is that they are leading everyone to believe that working in the creative industry is a breeze. That, aligned with other factors, helps cause a larger gap between clients, employers, and designers.
Traditional education is lacking
Even before entering the industry, future creatives are ill-prepared.
I started in design as a mainly self-taught designer, consumed by the idea that I should have a proper education since that is what I’ve always heard from “proper designers”. When I went back to university to get a master’s, I quit before finishing it (read this post if you want to understand why).
The reality is that universities are trying to adapt to current times but are rarely effective. Traditional institutions create an illusion and help romanticize the design industry. By making students believe they’ll always be driven by purpose and have the greatest of times, it’s doing them a disservice.
On the other hand, they don’t prepare them for everyday tasks such as promoting work, talking to clients, communicating ideas, and working with constraints. These are skills you learn on the job, and it would be great to have some preparation beforehand.
Conclusion
Being a designer is great fun but doesn’t come without challenges and doesn’t allow you to create art and do what you want, most of the time.
Though purpose, social responsibility, personal growth, and meaningful work are the main reasons that drive people in this industry — and I second that — health and wealth shouldn’t be on the opposite spectrum. Designers still need to make a living.
