ASH

The world of design is ever-evolving, which is why staying abreast of design trends and changes in the marketplace is so critical to your success as a designer. Whether you work for a design firm or for yourself as a freelance designer, you should be prepared for upcoming challenges. To help you prepare, here are the top 10 issues web designers and graphic designers will face in 2014. Are you ready for them?

1. Employed or self-employed?

Being employed by a graphic design firm means a steady paycheck and benefits such as health insurance and paid vacation. When the work day is over, it’s over, but the tradeoff is an income ceiling. Working as a freelancer offers more freedom and the potential for greater income, but has greater risks. With the impending changes in health insurance, the freelance lifestyle could become more expensive than ever before, causing many freelancers to seek full-time employment for the benefits.

2. Niche markets

Most graphic designers I know are jacks of all trades; they design anything they can get paid for. In 2014, the more you specialize your offering, the easier it will be to stand out from your competitors and land better, higher-paying clients. Pick your pony and ride it to success.

3. Continuing education

Remember those “The More You Know” commercials that used to interrupt your Saturday morning cartoons? Well, they were on to something. As the world of design continues to evolve to accommodate new marketing tactics and advanced technologies, so too must your knowledge of design and how it relates to marketing and development evolve. In 2014, you should continue to seek out opportunities to expand your knowledge of design in your chosen discipline.

4. Marketplace value

Competition from designers who charge far less than you – especially foreign designers – can threaten your ability to win new clients. In 2014, you should become an expert at selling not only the quality of your design work, but the value in your understanding of your clients’ markets.

5. Outsourcing

If you’re a freelancer, there is a limit to how much you can charge (at least, that clients are willing to pay), and there are only so many hours in the day. If you want to maximize your income, it’s time to consider outsourcing work to other talented designers. Perhaps you should adopt the agency approach?

6. Add-on services

Another great way to increase your income is to partner with companies that can provide complementary services. This will become more important than ever in 2014, as busy small businesses want to pass off their design projects and not have to contract with several companies to get them done. For this reason, it behooves you to establish partnerships with developers and printers and add your fee on top of any work they perform. White label partners allow you to put all work under your name.

7. Passive income

The cost of living continues to increase, yet you continue to face stiff competition in pricing. Specializing can help you charge more, but you can also take advantage of passive income opportunities such as selling your designs on posters, shirts, coffee mugs, and more. Devote some time each week to a new design you can sell via online product marketplaces such as Zazzle.

8. Pay raises

Whether you work for a design firm or are a freelancer, you need to work in annual pay raises, at minimum. Ask your employer for a raise; or, if you’re a freelancer, increase your fees by a set percentage every year to make up for inflation and increased cost-of-living expenses.

9. Trends vs. innovation

As noted, understanding and being able to apply contemporary design trends will land you more work and keep clients happy. At the same time, you need to differentiate yourself as a designer. How will you balance design trends vs. design innovation?

10. Value perception

It’s unfortunate, but graphic designers have been devalued by the same digital world that has created so many opportunities. Supply and demand dictates that marketplace, and designers are a dime a dozen online. That’s why it’s so important for you to work to change the perception of designers – or, at least, your own design work. It’s critical to demonstrate the value of what you do to your clients’ overall goals in order to lay a foundation for long-term success.

DESIGN SPECIALISM (FLUX 1)

For this assignment of flux we were assigned to identify changes in graphic design and discuss the new trend in design. Therefore, the topic that we choose is “GLOBAL COMMUNICATION”. This is because think by nature many designers are introverted and do not naturally have strong communication skills (of course this is a generalization) . Most of us enjoy working on our own and creating something special, but communicating with clients and colloborating with other designers plays a main role . Communication skills can affect your performance as well globally.

How we started ?

At first we tried to research about the flux in the fields in graphic design such as typography, illustration,advertising,photography,printing technology and multimedia.Therefore, we listed what are the changes in different areas.

Than we listed down the changes of different types of printing over the years and how

advertising in the printing media changed as well.

Social Change

For social change we listed down the changes such as how social media connects the world and how social media can be used to promote artworks .

Cultural Change

For cultural change we listed down the changes in art movements,cross culture borders and influences

How we started ?

Later on, after referring to this note given we realised that connecting our informations is really important and it should be relevant too. Therefore, we realised that our direction too research about all the fields in graphic design would not be a good idea and so, we focused on “ collaborating“ and from there we were able to connect most of facts through culture, technology and social by the ‘Global Communication”.

How did we start to research on the chosen path ?

•Study and investigate about Cultures•Why is it important ?
•How nationality reflects in artworks?•Influences•New medium

We researched about different types of countries reflection on art works and the elements used in the art works as well.

Facts about nationality reflection in Artworks :

LATIN AMERICA

•Pop Art and art deco

•Contrasting colors,wacky typo,

and energetic shapes

•Propaganda,Nationalism

•Minnimalism

China

•Oldest civilization

•Flourishing history of art,literature and culture

•Fairly new comopared to wesr

•More liberal

•Traditional art

Middle Eastern

•Rich color and culture

•Beauty symbols and calligraphy

•Conservative

Therefore different cultures, have different meanings

history,different experiences,beliefs and customs.Designers

from around the world have their own approach to art.

Conclusion :

With all these studies about cultural,influences and movements ,designers nowadays have a lot of knowledge about the various types of backgrounds. These studies later on will be an inspiration and also they will have the idea to develop their work and create new styles .Enables them to collaborate and communicate to push their boundaries in their work.

TECHNOLOGY CHANGE

For technology change at first we listed down all the informations that we had on our mind . From there we found out that the single most beneficial thing that the Internet has done is to create a new medium for designers. Collaboration networking will be one of it. Design becomes a living, breathing animal that users can interact with. Collaboration using the Internet is instant. Online communities allow a designer to work together with her peers to come up with solutions that arise in everyday work. Designers have clients worldwide and able to communicate Globaly.

What is Online Collaboration Networking?

-Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals

-Collaboration is incredibly key for any artist.

-It is so key because it allows artists to not only branch out, but to establish relationships and connections with other artists.

-Another spectacular aspect of collaboration is how broad it truly is.

-A collaboration is not limited to two artists working together on a single piece of art, a collaboration can be something on a much larger scale, the most concise example comes in the form of the digital art collective.

- a way to display large scale collaborations to viewers who are thirsty for inspiration.

-Art collectives typically involve between 30 to 100 artists who release exhibitions every few months.

-massive scale collaborations is something that is not only beneficial for artists, but also for viewers.

Advantages of participating in art collectives, and how collaboration will help you grow as an artist?

Participating in online art collectives offers numerous advantages.

- A collective is a great forum to get your worked reviewed by professionals and critiqued by peers.

- By working together unique opportunities arise for fusing style and stretching your creative abilities.

- You can grow close connections with other talented artists, and learn to solve design/illustration problems by tackling themes.

Online Collaboration Tools

-DRAFTBOARD
-CANVASDROP
-CAGE
-MARQUEED-STIXY etc

VALUE OF COLABORATION NETWORKING

As a designer, it’s natural to feel threatened by others who serve the same niche market. Common reasons -to avoid designer collaborations include fear of your

-clients being stolen

-having your top-secret design skills discovered by others

-earning your designs skills aren’t quite as advanced as you’d assumed.