Originally Posted by
VanillaThrilla
Here's the problem that I have with the graphic design business:
People who are willing to pay for graphic design are often bombarded with fresh graduates or new designers trying to build their portfolio and get experience, and who are willing to take the absolute bottom dollar if they even get paid to begin with. Many of the times they'll even do the job for free just to make sure they get it instead of someone else. I started dissecting and teaching myself HTML when I was 11 years old and picked up both Illustrator, and Photoshop. I taught myself Rhino3d and Bryce among other rendering apps, and taught myself virtually everything. I started doing freelance web design and graphic design and made pretty good income doing it starting back in 1996 or 1997ish and continued up until 2-3 years ago. Everyone wants something for nothing, and unfortunately there's no shortage of recent graduates or kids dabbling with the programs these days who know what they're doing enough (at least) to pick up the projects. Personally, despite your experience, I would look for something else.
Well, here's my thinking...
Not a lot of printing companies do graphic design work. We were one of the only ones that did. Most people that need something designed had to go to other sources. The problem is that the majority of "graphic designers" in this area don't know anything about the printing process. They don't set up jobs correctly to get them to print the way they want them to. We actually had a list of about 10 companies/designers that we would no longer accept work from because we would end up spending more time correcting their files than if we had designed the job in the first place. You know... the ones that use Illustrator to lay out pages and use Photoshop to create logos... that kind of tomfoolery....
Through doing the design work I have done, I've made a lot of good contacts. I'm hoping that I can keep those contacts and possibly get them to send some business my way. If not, at least I'm only out the $50 for the business license. And, if I get one job, that covers the cost of the license. Plus, right now I've got about 30 local businesses that I have designed and/or renovated web sites for, so hopefully that end of things will pick up or at least stay steady.