Respect

Try this experiment.

Walk into to your local grocery store. Load up your cart with groceries and then go find the manager. Tell him you'll pay him at the end of the month or better yet tell him you'll pay at the end of the month and then ask for a 15% discount on everything, y'know…because of the 'recession' and all.

How do you think this scenario would pan out? Sound silly?

»Watch this video.
It illustrates perfectly what many of us deal with on a daily basis.

Graphic Design is a business and it fascinates me that some folks don't get that. We have employees. We have overhead (I'm going to guess that our overhead is a great deal more than one might think it is). We also have families.

Speak to other graphic designers and advertising professionals and what you will probably find in common is that many of them sense a lack of respect for their work from their clients and potential clients. Speak to the clients and they may say they don't see the value in the service.

While finding statistics on ROI for graphic design is near impossible, you can't look at companies like Apple, Target and Starbucks and say that graphic design has had no impact on their sales or customer traffic. Granted these are huge organizations but they also have a huge respect for graphic design.

As designers, it is becoming increasingly important to educate clients and potential clients alike on the value that our service brings to them. We can no longer be just 'cool artists'. We must become research junkies. If you can find facts and figures about how design has helped a business, send it to your clients and you'll start to see value show up.

©2009 \\ COSMIC \\