Prices are rising. Food is getting more expensive. Energy anyway. It’s not easy to go about your daily routine when you’re in panic mode every day. The last months have been intense. Terrible news are replaced by new bad news. At least if you follow the news channels. Understandably, when there is economic uncertainty, one of the first things companies do is cut back on marketing spending. As a result, there are fewer jobs for creative industries, freelancers and agencies. Several graphic designers I know have given up their business because of the crisis and are now doing something completely different.

In the meantime, things are looking up again and companies that have endured the economic lean period are rising like the phoenix from the ashes.

Save costs

For many graphic professional fields expensive SAS costs can be saved at least partially. Especially in larger advertising agencies and freelancer networks often too many superfluous licenses have been booked. Often corresponding SAS licenses may be used on one workstation and one laptop. As long as this is not the case at the same time. Often licenses can be shared within the team and the costs can be halved.

It can often also make sense to switch back to purchased software instead of the cloud. It’s not uncommon for better and cheaper solutions to be available. According to many graphic designers from Frankfurt am Main, most of the new functions of the Creative Cloud are not necessarily required for daily work. Design has less to do with trends or effects than with methodology and style. Design principles can be applied with almost any software. For example, many of my freelance colleagues have now switched from Creative Cloud to Affinity Designer.

The crisis as an opportunity

But spending less money is one thing. The other is income. How can you save money when income leaves much to be desired. It’s not the case in every industry that expenses are cut. So if you want to survive World War III as a graphic designer it makes sense to concentrate and focus. An example of this would be graphic design for craft businesses. They can hardly save themselves from orders. Not all industries are equally affected by the crisis.

NFTs are a trend that has taken the world by storm. Digital license management offers great potential for creative professionals. Overnight, this has created a new market for digital art. This market continues to grow. There is no end in sight.

Digital info products require only a one-time effort to release and can then be resold without further effort. Especially in the field of further education and knowledge transfer, new opportunities arise for own products.

Design that is imposed by political bodies or local authorities usually lacks inspiration. Local design is often completely neglected because centralism seems to be a kind of zeitgeist. But it is precisely in decentralization and local design that many opportunities arise for young creative graphic designers.

Investing in new media         

Today, once again, bitcoin, gold and altcoins fell while everything else got more expensive. Now we’re cozy at home with popcorn while outside the world powers are playing chess with each other. How should we act? Saving doesn’t always have to be the right answer when prices fall. It would be much better to invest selectively. In yourself. For example, in your own further education. In literature. Painting materials. Things that you would need later anyway. You just don’t buy them tomorrow, but today.

Surviving the world war as a graphic designer

Grafiker Koblenz

As a graphic designer, Stephan takes care of the appearance of craft businesses, medium-sized companies and larger clients. His field of activity includes the layout of print media such as brochures, flyers as well as websites and digital media. As a web designer, he focuses on working with the CMS WordPress, as it offers many great advantages for the presentation and delivery of corporate content. His field of work regularly includes designing company logos, corporate design, infographics and illustrations. Look no further if you are looking for a freelance graphic designer in Koblenz on the Middle Rhine. Stephan will take your company, offer or service to a new level with his graphic design. Become a brand. Make your company immortal and let us write your entrepreneurial story together.