If you’re like us, you cancelled your newspaper subscription and now read articles like this one online - for free:
For photographers and graphic artists, not a pretty picture out there
Many fear that the technology providing entree to an unimaginable trove of art, images and information is also obliterating the boundaries that once allowed the creative class to make a living.
...Amateurs produce Photoshopped pictures that once wouldn't have made it out of a darkroom. Workers in India draw corporate logos for pennies on the dollar and e-mail them stateside.
Click on illegally downloaded image to enlarge.
Does this mean we should have a digital counter revolution? A luddite smash n trash of our workstations? Or should I stop stealing stock photography?
Posted by: Boozey Flapjack | Monday, February 01, 2010 at 10:00 AM
Enough already. Can anyone get me a number of an art director in India? I'm sick of going over budget with costly agency revisions!
Posted by: Studio Dope | Monday, February 01, 2010 at 12:06 PM
So many people to exploit, so little time.
Posted by: New World Corporate Pig | Monday, February 01, 2010 at 04:24 PM
What's awesome/appropriate is that on the page right now (on my computer anyway) there's a google banner ad promoting free website design. "919,623 Websites Created Free!"
Posted by: Joey D | Monday, February 01, 2010 at 07:18 PM
Or how about the ad I'm currently viewing for Full Sail University's online degree program in Graphic Design!... Sign up for your obsolete career today! Oh yeah, it features a nice piece of stock illustration that probably cost them $3.00. It seems the only smart person making any money here is Edwina through her Google Ads...
Posted by: Medusa | Tuesday, February 02, 2010 at 12:23 PM
Actually, there's still a lot of money to be made in design. Technology makes for more competition from other countries, but it also allows for us to compete worldwide (I just finished doing a job for a company in Russia). The future's not as bleak as this blog (and others) would have you think.
Posted by: Joey D | Tuesday, February 02, 2010 at 12:58 PM
A company in Russia? Who gives a shit about that? I want everyone in LOS ANGELES to see my billboards and bus shelters!
Posted by: Outdoorsy Type | Thursday, February 04, 2010 at 05:01 AM
I remember the old days, when I would have to pay $400 for a stock photo of a simple blue sky with clouds... or, say, a basketball on a white background. I always thought it was a crime that it would cost more to license a simple stock photo (that they could sell several times) than actually hiring a photographer to shoot it.
You should pay big bucks for a unique stock photo... But I won't feel bad for photographers jobbed out of thousands of dollars for a simple photo of a jar of change. Or a cloud. Or a basketball...
(Having said that, we're still ALL doomed by the Internet's free culture. Micropayments for every web page visited is the only answer...)
Posted by: HughGRection | Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 02:18 PM