Sphincter Noose

This one’s for the homies.

Overworked and underpaid is a common theme for the majority of the workforce in the United States. Most are no stranger to feeling undervalued and taken advantage of, all the while navigating an absurd level of expectation. You know, the American Dream™.

But, at the risk of appearing biased, the folks in the creative industry are among the most underrated assets in the professional universe. We not only often share the ‘underpaid’ sentiment, we also contend with an overwhelmingly large population of people who don’t (and don’t care to) understand the skillset, therefore leading them to believe they can easily do it themselves.

This is not to say there aren’t well-paid designers and creative problem solvers. There exist companies and individuals that understand how a thoughtfully curated brand and meaningful messaging accompanied by well-designed graphics – be it print/digital collateral, marketing, UI/UX, etc – positively affect a company’s journey and success.

Though most of my friends, family and coworkers have been complimentary and appreciative, my American Dream™ is to change the general attitude towards those of us who have spent and still spend many hours in a design stupor, learning new skills, and quite frankly – making this world a more beautiful place.

As I’m sure my fellow creatives can attest to, this has long been a struggle. In order to place appropriate value on something you need to understand its impact (many would likely argue degree of difficulty, but that’s relative.) Art of any form is subjective which means quantifying results in order to justify your worth in general, let alone on a monetary scale, is no easy task.

As a whole, people often have trouble understanding the scope of something unless it can be directly applied to something in their own lives/they’ve experienced.

Let’s try some perspective. Shock is a common reaction to learning that a short film for a wedding can cost anywhere from $1500-$5000 – yet – those same people won’t bat an eye when spending $2000-$4000 on a cake. Let’s compare the impact and longevity of those two investments: one is a beautiful video, that you can watch with friends, family, or your significant other for decades that will remind you of your special day when it might not be so easy to remember – and the other is a beautiful, probably delicious, temporary element of your day that people enjoy for 5-10 minutes. And then shit, into a toilet (hopefully), never to be seen again. Putting it simply, you’re paying thousands of dollars for human waste.

Creative is an oft neglected line item in many budgets. There generally isn’t an ounce of hesitation in allotting $100 for someone to hand out bottled libations at an event, of which the only level of knowledge required for such task is, at best, knowing how to use a church key. But when the budget czar sees that $100 (still cheap) for a flyer design, something which promotes your entire event, and requires not only time, but technical skill and user/customer experience knowledge - hands wring, sweat pours, hesitation nation is in full effect.

How do we change this narrative? It has been a nagging thought in my head for the nearly 20 years I’ve been a victim of this ill-informed and frustrating line of thinking and all I’ve got at this juncture is a blog that 3.5 people read.

So, how can you do your part, you’re (probably not) asking?

Don’t take advantage of your friends and family’s skills and expertise. Do we like to help you? Absolutely. Do we love what we do? Most of the time; and this doesn’t mean you should stop asking for our help – many times we’ll offer! But also, just be cognizant of the fact that it probably wouldn’t occur to you to ask your doctor friend to do your surgery for free/at a discount – at least not frequently, or while sober. While we enjoy it, it’s also how we make a living.

Don’t ask your contact on your company’s design team how you can “download Adobe” so you can “create documents that look like the white papers you guys do.” While likely well-intentioned, it just further illustrates that the general population holds the opinion that designers are glorified kindergartners with a computer instead of a box of Crayolas. And that makes us sad.

Don’t confuse the ease in which we do things with ‘easy’.

At the very least, I politely ask you to ever-so-gently, carefully, and slowly remove your heads from your own buttholes and think 2 (maybe even 3!) thoughts about what you see around you, anywhere you go. That billboard advertising a concert (or even the one that just says “JESUS!” on I-43), the brochure you get in the mail for open-enrollment, the menu at a restaurant, signage, etc – how would the absence of these items impact you? Perhaps more importantly, how would poorly executed versions of these items impact you?

The bulk of these things do not exist because Dale downloaded Microsoft Paint and wanted to draw a pretty picture (except for Edible Arrangements.) A big reason you buy Apple products is due to the design/brand/marketing team’s collective expertise in visual communication, customer experience, and knowing the consumer. You ultimately enroll in the appropriate benefits because someone has spent years in school and in practice understanding UX, typography and information design. I could go on, don’t fret, I won’t.

We spend years in school, countless hours honing our skills in a wide variety of software programs and mediums, researching trends, and analyzing the performance of what we create – especially in the era of social media, instant information, and short attention spans. There is a science behind this art. And we are worth it.