You are on the right track with some of the problems...
"-- 71 percent of respondents to TrendWatch's recent survey cited the economy as the greatest challenge the(y) foresee in the next year -- "
But the offering solutions like Seybold, an expensive trip to hear sales pitches for high-priced hardware, and joining an InDesign users group (oh please, stop pushing it) won't help agencies or designers financially.
I also think the technology rocket ride is no where near over and that that is a large part of the problem. I can not afford each upgrade and some upgrades are not helpful. The major players Adobe, Quark, Mac, etc. are dumbing down professional software for consumers and splitting the market (Quark, InDesign, PageMaker) so that there are more standards to fight over and support.
What are open fonts and why do we need them? Because it will force all of us to buy those thousand fonts over again if we want to stay in business. And that is the ONLY reason.
Now every person with a computer and a piece of six-month-old shareware thinks they are a designer. I get many calls with: I know exactly what I want. I will give you copy, a layout and art. What will you charge? It won't take long. I want it done on CorelDraw so I can update it myself."
After saying all that though, I think the middle layer of designers may disappear. The bread and butter print jobs are staying mostly in-house. Web jobs are staying in-house too, with companies hiring one person to build and maintain their entire site or simply putting their logo on a "CityX" type site. Creativemoonlighter.com sites are popping up all over and making hourly rates of $4 to $8/hr. look like industry standards.
The very first time I saw a Mac, I saw a huge world of exciting and endless possibilities opening up. Now I'm thinking I might be able to see the end after all.
Yes and No
You are on the right track with some of the problems...
"-- 71 percent of respondents to TrendWatch's recent survey cited the economy as the greatest challenge the(y) foresee in the next year -- "
But the offering solutions like Seybold, an expensive trip to hear sales pitches for high-priced hardware, and joining an InDesign users group (oh please, stop pushing it) won't help agencies or designers financially.
I also think the technology rocket ride is no where near over and that that is a large part of the problem. I can not afford each upgrade and some upgrades are not helpful. The major players Adobe, Quark, Mac, etc. are dumbing down professional software for consumers and splitting the market (Quark, InDesign, PageMaker) so that there are more standards to fight over and support.
What are open fonts and why do we need them? Because it will force all of us to buy those thousand fonts over again if we want to stay in business. And that is the ONLY reason.
Now every person with a computer and a piece of six-month-old shareware thinks they are a designer. I get many calls with: I know exactly what I want. I will give you copy, a layout and art. What will you charge? It won't take long. I want it done on CorelDraw so I can update it myself."
After saying all that though, I think the middle layer of designers may disappear. The bread and butter print jobs are staying mostly in-house. Web jobs are staying in-house too, with companies hiring one person to build and maintain their entire site or simply putting their logo on a "CityX" type site. Creativemoonlighter.com sites are popping up all over and making hourly rates of $4 to $8/hr. look like industry standards.
The very first time I saw a Mac, I saw a huge world of exciting and endless possibilities opening up. Now I'm thinking I might be able to see the end after all.