Designing Through the Recession – Michael Bierut
Michael Bierut, with Design Observer, wrote on interesting post on being a designer in a recession and 5 things you can do to make it throught it. Here is a quick recap of the article. You can view the full article here.
1 Be frugal.
2 Be careful.
In your desperation to compete for work, you’ll be tempted to do things that you might not do when times are good: take on work for a shady client, start a project without a contract, ship a finished job to someone who’s fallen behind on an agreed payment schedule. Do not do these things. Not only will they not help, they will almost certainly end in tears, probably your own.
3 Be creative.
The modern design studio can’t help but subscribe to the cult of asap. But while working at full speed is great for profit margins, it’s not so good for quality control. A design solution almost always benefits from a second, third or fourth look. Take advantage of the slower pace of a recession by remembering what it was like in design school to spend a full semester on a single project. What seemed then like torture may now feel like a luxury, and your work will benefit. And don’t forget that recessions are a great time for the kind of research and development that manifests itself in self-initiated projects, work that takes a longer view than the next deadline.
4 Be sociable.
5 Be patient.
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