THE CREDIBILITY GAP - PART 1
Part one of two
It should have been graphic design in Canada's finest moment: A logo created for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games that would be seen by millions of people worldwide. Instead the method in which the logo would be chosen ignited a howl of protest from professional designers from Hong Kong to Halifax.
At a press conference held in
British Columbia last May, John Furlong, the chief executive officer of
the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic
Winter Games (VANOC) announced a design competition to select the logo.
The contest would be open to anyone. But not only would participants
not be paid for their designs, they would have to pay $150 for the
honour of entering.
The conference was interrupted by
Matt Warburton, past-president of the Society of Graphic Designers of
Canada (GDC), who denounced the contest. The GDC's code of ethics
discourages its 2,000 members from doing unpaid spec work, and the
Olympics did not meet the society's guidelines for pro bono work.
Undeterred,
Furlong went on to say he didn't "know what the ethical dilemma is,"
and that the honour of participating should be enough. "I would think
that this is something [designers] want to do for the country."
"That
kind of attitude drives me crazy," says Warburton. "There's this
prevailing belief that designers are starving artists who should just
give their work away. We don't expect to get paid for it but if we do,
geez, we're lucky. That's not the way I look at my business of selling
design. And I'm not giving it away for free."
The
contest and the tempest it provoked - which received local and national
media coverage and provoked designers around the world to join the
protest - underscore the fact that graphic design is a profession in
turmoil. After decades of TK, many clients still don't understand what
designers do and the value of their services. As a result, designers
are expected to do more for less with increasingly short deadlines.
Many in the profession feel that they receive less respect and
financial compensation now than they ever have, making work conditions
that much more difficult. Casey Hrynkow, of Herrainco Skipp Herrainco
in Vancouver, says it's "much harder today" than when she started in
design 25 years ago. "Budgets are smaller and clients expect much
more."
Gone are the days of fat accounts and languid
time lines. "The people I learned from - like Concrete and Hambly &
Woolly - have a very different standard of living than my [designers
of] generation," adds Scott Christie, president of the Advertising
& Design Club of Canada and principal at Pylon Design in Toronto.
"Things are pretty tough today and you ask yourself, Is design dying?
It's sad because you love what you do and would almost do it for free.
But you shouldn't have to."
At the root of the
designers' troubles lie the twin pressures of technology and economy.
In today's competitive climate, companies have been forced to downsize
and seek every cost saving possible. In a bid to stay ahead of the
pack, they bring products to market far faster than ever before. The
situation has a trickle-down effect on suppliers such as designers.
"Clients today are very demanding," agrees Jean-Pierre LaCroix, of
Shikatani LaCroix Brandesign in Toronto. "If you can't deliver the
fastest designs at the highest quality and at very competitive prices,
they are going to go elsewhere."
No Respect
Almost
any designer you talk to has a horror story to tell about clients who
have treated them like second-rate suppliers or worse.
Cindy
Massolin, of Mountain Graphics in Moonstone, Ont., recalls giving a
client a proof of the third revision of an identity design she had
created for a new store. The client took the proof and shopped it
around until another designer agreed to execute the same design for
less money. "It's easy to work for less if you don't have to do any
thinking," says Massolin, who took the client to small-claims court.
For
his part, Pylon's Christie has been confronted with a few clients who
override his printer recommendation and insist on using their own -
usually someone with rock-bottom prices and quality to matche. When the
job goes bad on press, Pylon takes the heat. "No matter how many times
we tell clients we can't be liable for this, we still get blamed, and
we've lost two or three clients as a result," he says. "Now we don't
even go to press checks in these cases. We say, 'If you are taking this
to your printer, please pay your bill and here are your files.' We
don't want the job coming back at us."
But for many
designers the epitome of disrespect is the Olympic design contest and
the issue of speculative work - submitting finished designs without
compensation unless they win the project. Many feel the major argument
against spec work is economic rather than ethical. "The practice was
established at ad agencies working on accounts worth a million dollars
or more," says Casey Hrynkow. "It's just not economically viable for a
job that is worth $5,000 to $100,000. The winner of the Olympic design
competition may get $25,000, but most professionals would have to put
in 200 or 300 hours of work to come up with something good. It doesn't
make sense. I don't need the publicity myself. If VANOC needs to get
this done for $25,000, they should hire someone for that amount."
Despite
the GDC's stance on the practice, the association ultimately decided
not to censure members who enter the 2010 Olympic Emblem Design
Competition. The GDC allows members to compete for projects of "a
general, community or public interest if they are of a non-profit
nature," and VANOC is in the eyes of the law a not-for-profit
organization.
The decision did not sit well with many in
the design community. "The GDC caved in. It's really disheartening,"
says Carmen von Richthofen, executive director of the Association of
Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario (RGD). "This being
not-for-profit is a total red herring. 'Not-for-profit' doesn't mean
the organization is poor, but that it doesn't have shareholders to
answer to. VANOC might not show a profit but we know there are lots of
ways to accomplish this, by paying fat consultant fees and so on. If
VANOC right off the bat said that we want this as pro bono, there's
nothing wrong with that."
But despite the huge support
from the design community worldwide, the objection to spec work is not
endorsed by everyone in the profession. Olaf Strassner, the Vancouver
designer who created the logo for the Vancouver-Whistler bid committee,
feels that the GDC is bound by too many rules and planned to enter the
contest. "With the Olympics, it's more of an open contest," he said in
a recent article in The Globe and Mail CHECK. "I don't get [the GDC's]
argument. It's an honour to participate in this contest."
The Trouble With Technology
When
it comes to a designer's working life, technology has proven to be a
double-edged sword. On the one hand, it has revolutionized how
designers operate, allowing them to create far more efficiently than
ever before. On the other hand, it has raised expectations in clients
that designers will work faster and do more - handling additional jobs
once done by dedicated professionals such as typesetters and prepress
operators - while charging less.
For Michael Wou, of
Origami Communication Design in Montreal, one of the chief effects of
technology has been to dangerously reduce deadlines and turnaround
times. "Timelines are getting shorter and shorter," he says. "And of
course, something has to give. Mistakes creep in. The quality of work
goes down. I heard of one annual report where they were making changes
on press. Ten years ago that was unheard of."
And then
there is what one designer calls the "Command-D" factor: Some clients
believe that a lot of design is handled by software. "Just hit
Command-D and the design comes out." This serves to undermine
designers' value as visual and strategic thinkers and turns them into
computer jockeys. The next step, of course, is to cut the designer out
of the loop altogether and get your secretary to produce that corporate
newsletter or PowerPoint presentation. "What technology has done is put
design tools in the hands of the masses," adds John Furneaux of Ove
Design & Communications in Toronto. "Anybody can call themselves a
designer because they have the tools to do it. Thirty years ago, not
everyone could draw; it took skilled people. Today you don't need to
have much training to create something that is aesthetically pleasing.
But good design is not about the aesthetic, it's about the thinking.
Design doesn't matter if it doesn't have a message."
For
their part, developers of graphic software are looking beyond their
core markets of Mac-based graphic arts professionals and targeting the
huge market of Windows-based business and consumer users. "The design
market, what we call our creative professional space, remains a huge
part of Adobe's focus," explains Sebastian Distefano, senior business
development, creative professional, at Adobe Systems. "Our core imaging
technologies are for creative professionals. But in the past, that
market grew in large amounts. Today the growth is a little slower. So
it's safe to say that the corporate market is one of the
fastest-growing markets. People are bringing things in-house as the
technology gets easier for them to use."
In Part 2, find out what Canadian designers are doing to bridge the 'credibility gap'.
About this article
This article was originally published in Applied Arts Vol 19, No 5 (October 2004).
About Peter Giffen
Peter Giffen is a writer and editor living in Toronto.
About Applied Arts Magazine
Applied Arts Magazine is Canada's leading graphic arts publication,
showcasing the best work from graphic designers, art directors,
creative directors, copywriters, photographers, illustrators,
multimedia designers and Web designers in Canada and beyond. With an
average readership of sixty thousand, Applied Arts Magazine publishes
six issues a year, including the Photography & Illustration Annual
published in July, and the Design & Advertising Annual published in
January.