The 5 Biggest Challenges Faced By Graphic Designers

Owing to the charm of a professional life filled with creativity, flexibility and artistry excitement, graphic designing has become one of the most appealing career choices for today's youth. At present, there are more than 286,100 graphic designers in the world and even more fresh graduates are all set to add up to this number in the coming years. While there has been a rise in the number of graphic designers, a negative trend has been witnessed in the employment rate in this industry. As per the Brandon Marketing Experts, there has been a 16% decline in the employment of graphic designers in the traditional industries. The sharp increase in graphic designers and the decrease in employment opportunity points to oversaturation in the industry. However, oversaturation is not the only challenge that the graphic designing industry is facing in present times. There are a number of other challenges that are acting as a barrier in the graphic designer's road to success. Below, we have enlisted the 5 biggest challenges faced by graphic designers in the present day scenario. Have a look.

Oversaturation

One of the biggest challenges faced by graphic designers is that the industry is oversaturated with designers. More youngsters are turning towards graphic designing as a career choice because of the dynamic nature and the creative freedom that comes with this profile. However, this leads to a number of graphic designers in the market with limited job opportunities. This oversaturation leads to the problem of exceedingly high competition which ultimately leads to the undervaluation of services. Graphic designers and graphic designer companies find themselves most affected by this oversaturation. They have to fetch the best talent out of the pool of graphic designers for their company to be a part of the cream layer and outperform the crowd. Moreover, a majority of graphic designers are ready to take up individual projects and work at them at a lower price, thereby undervaluing the work.

Crowdsourcing and Outsourcing

Crowdsourcing and outsourcing are on the rise in the realm of graphic designing. The two are posing a big challenge to the graphic designing companies. Most of the small businesses and entrepreneurs are turning towards the outsourcing or delegating work to a larger group of people. Many businesses are adopting the crowdsourcing and outsourcing means to get designs at a much cheaper cost. The graphic design companies feel that the stability of jobs in this sector is on the brink of vanishing. Most of the designing work performed by outsourced freelancers or volunteering internet users are either for free or at a much lower cost. Instead of approaching a graphic design company, they rather turn towards the internet to find cheaper outsourcing or crowdsourcing services.

Freelancers On The Rise

With a number of people getting the graphic designer's degree, there has been a steep rise in people offering freelancing services at a lower rate. Instead of going for in-house projects or approaching a graphic designing company, businesses are now hiring freelancers to get their designing work done. The opportunities for designers are shrinking and more projects are being clutched by the freelancers working at lower rates. Freelancing is becoming the new normal in today's world and most of the companies are looking in the direction of this new light while turning their backs towards the traditional graphic design companies.

Timekeeping With Creativity

Graphic designing requires creative imagination and more often than not a graphic designer gets so engrossed in a project that he/she loses track of time. While it is important for a graphic designer to be creative, but the companies need to ensure that their designers balance the time spent on the project with the quoted price. Timekeeping is important for graphic designers while also maintaining their creativity and it is the job of the graphic designer company to ensure their employees do that. It would be irrational for a designer to invest the time of two designs on a single project especially when all that the client needs is a simple design.

Staying Updated

Staying updated is another big challenge that graphic designers, as well as the graphic designing companies, face in today's world. In order to survive in the cut-throat competition, they need to stay abreast of the latest trends in the market. They also have to stay updated with the technological advancement that's taking place in the outside world and use cutting edge tools and technologies to stay in front of the line. Every year new designing software and application surface in the online world and the designers have to adopt these changes in time to stay in the race. The graphic designers are supposed to anticipate the technological changes, learn them, adapt them in regular working, master and excel them to gain a competitive edge. The companies face the challenge of updating their systems and working culture to provide a state of art environment with latest tools and technologies to their designers.

These were some of the biggest challenges faced by the graphic designers in the new-age world. In order to survive in the fierce competition, one has to outperform others with the top of the line designs and services. Always remember, nothing can surpass quality and you can make it to the top by providing excellent designing services.