2011
The future of graphic design is something worth spending some time thinking about if you’re remotely involved in the field. Whether as an artist, a client or just a fan, graphic design is going to go through some intense changes in the future, some fundamental changes, and you’d do well to try and keep up.
Something you will likely learn if you sign up for graphic design classes soon is that a good majority of the work you’re going to do as an artist is going to be unpaid. Today, building a reputation for yourself requires a lot of work, and whether you want to start your own webcomic or a design blog or anything else to get your name out there, the process is going to be like building a castle out of single pieces of gravel, one at a time.
If you have the talent and you put the work in, you will eventually break through and it will become a for-profit venture, but these days, everybody is a graphic designer. Standing out from the crowd is harder than it’s ever been in the past. It takes perseverance. While all of the semi-serious students drop out and while all of the trust funders find less challenging pursuits, you’re still going to be there doing what you do until you’ve build a respectable list of clients.
In other words, hard work and perseverance are even more important these days than talent and training. If this isn’t what you want to do for the rest of your life, then find another field right now before you waste any more time on it.
On the flipside, the reason it’s gotten so competitive is because it’s become so easy to announce yourself as an artist. If you can produce a more impressive body of work than the next guy, both as an amateur and as a professional, then you should have less trouble scooping up a lot of work as a designer and as an artist.
It sounds corny, but your personal future in graphic design, as an artist, revolves entirely around how much you want it and how hard you are willing to try. As a client, it’s simply a matter of knowing what you want and having an eye for strong design, as it’s going to be harder and harder to find a “name” graphic artist in a sea of semi-famous and semi-obscure designers.





