ageism in graphic design / web?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey all,

I’m in my 20’s but I love and am investing a ton of time learning and getting better at all things design.

That said, I do not work for a big agency or a big company at all, and I am wondering if anyone has experienced ageism in the design/it field as they get older? Do you think you can be a humble graphic designer in your 50’s for example?

Thanks!!

2

I have several friends who worked in IT (programming / systems stuff, not graphic design) who, despite taking continuing education to keep their skills current, found themselves pretty much unable to find jobs once they got past age 50. After several years of fruitless job searching (much of it before the recession hit in '08), they gave up on the industry.

3

:frowning: thanks for the reply Kenobi …that really sucks

4

I believe it, but, you know, in 30 years time, when you actually are in your 50s, the culture will certainly have changed, and it is entirely possible that peoples prejudices about the right age for a graphic designer will be quite different from what they are now.

(Of course, it may be that by then only pre-teens will be thought to have any competence or creativity.:()

5

Yeah, I suppose the field is relatively young, given that personal computers really did not start getting big too long ago.

6

I teach at a college and we have had pretty good placement for students of all ages.
The trick is talent - most companies don’t give a rat’s ass how old you are if you can do what needs to be done, and show some flair for the art.
You just need to keep up with the technology, and continue to produce quality work. Graphic design and web design is an evolving field - you snooze, you lose, no matter how old you are.

7

Yes, you need to learn a lot of things you may never use just for the sake of keeping up with invisible, possibly imaginary competition. You have to love the technology side as much as the design side - 'cause no one cares about you once you stop doing the dance.

8

I can’t answer regarding graphic design. But you asked about related fields too.

I develop software and am 49. I currently have two companies semi-actively pursuing me.

By that I mean, they call once or twice a quarter and ask if I’m available yet - and let me know the pay and the benefits. The pay is quite nice and if I weren’t part of a start-up with hopes of a bigger payout later, I would take one of them. There is a third company that calls once or twice a year.

So to your question, my age does not seem to be an issue that they care about. It is my skill and experience that they want.

9

41 Year old graphic designer here. Is there ageism? I’m afraid the sad answer is ‘yes’.

Look around the average design agency, and you’ll notice a sea of 20 and 30 somethings ( both designers and project/account managers). It may seem ridiculous, considering the enhanced skill and experience of an older designer, but there is a perception that designers need to be ‘on the button’ of latest trends, and many think older designers won’t be able to cut it. It’s also a high pressure environment, and many think older designers can’t or don’t want the pressure of late nights and intense deadlines.

It’s all ridiculous, of course, but the perception does exist. Example: my ex, a fantastic freelance multi-award winning designer, started lying about her age once she passed 40 – she pitched herself at 36, which meant she was old enough to charge top rates but young enough to not be dismissed out of hand. She remembers sitting in a highly regarded design agency in London, overhearing the Creative Director remarking ‘can you believe we got an application from a 40 year old. As if’.

Shocking really, but there it is.

So, what happens to designers over 40? One of four things IME:

  1. they don’t remain a ‘humble designer’ as the OP calls himself. They get promoted and become Creative Directors (as I have done in the past). However, as an agency might employ 20 designers and only one CD, competition is fierce.
  2. They set up on their own, which is where I am now. Clients are less ageist than design agencies.
  3. They change jobs but stay within the industry, becoming marketing professionals, strategists, account directors. Basically providing the brains and their experience, but without actually designing anything any more.
  4. They leave the industry and either retrain or move to the countryside and become a potter/painter/photographer (insert other nice crafty job that allows you to live by the seaside here).

At 41, this question is really burning for me. I’m currently thinking about what I would like to be doing at 50, because I really can’t imagine still making a good career at this aged 60.

10

Point of order. Graphic design is not about computers, they’re just the modern equivalent of a pencil. Agencies don’t hire designers based on how well they can use Photoshop, they hire them for their creativity. Whilst a standard knowledge of the usual design packages is expected, you aren’t applying for an IT position so don’t confuse the two.

When I started work, I had a desk and a drawing board, and typesetting was done by external typesetters, and the business was no less ageist then than it is now. Sadly.

11

I’m with SanVito. Advertising in general likes to identify with “cutting edge,” “trendy,” and “speaking the language of the target audience.” It’s generally felt that young people fit into the first two categories, and since the target audience is usually young, the third one also follows.

The one area where age seems to work for someone is in client service, where a more experienced employee probably has a better handle on the sales and management skills needed for the job. But that doesn’t necessarily follow from the creative skills someone got hired for in their 20s or 30s.

Also, at many companies, eventually you run into an “up or out” ceiloing. You may be perfectly happy as a 50-year old graphic designer, but to your employer, you’ve been racking up raises (even if they’re just cost of living raises) for the last 25 years, and now your boss has to charge twice the hourly rate of a 25 year-old just to cover your overhead. May as well bring in some fresh blood while keeping your rates competitive.

12

Kunilou,

How do businesses handle the out part? Is it finding a pretext to fire you, severance, something else?

13

There are a few issues here.

  1. Graphic Design itself is far from being a new field. The arrangement of words and images to function in a particular way is as old as words and images. People who designed the hieroglyphics carved into stone walls were graphic designers. The art of visual or graphic design is something that people of all ages can do well, if it is kept separate from the particular technology that employs the design.

  2. Graphic designers have always designed based on the limits of the production tools and technology. Before half tone process color printing, graphic designers designed for either black and white reproduction using woodcuts or engravings plus type, often in configurations that could be locked up in a metal frame to go on a printing press, or color lithography. As technology has changed, designers have been able to produce work of more complexity with greater ease and at less expense. But no matter what the technology was, good design was good design.

  3. Most “older” graphic designers today got their commercial start in print media before the age of the computer. In many cases they were separated from the actual production of the finished piece. Design and production were different skills, though a good designer needed to be aware of the capabilities of the production/pre-press/printing departments. Design was considered the art and production was a technical skill. Designers went to art school. Production people had vocational/technical training.

  4. Computers have now made possible the merger of “design” and “production.” Now instead of a designer picturing a line of type set on a curve and sketching it on a layout sheet, it is just as easy for the designer to manipulate the type himself on the computer screen. The more design and production have merged, the more technical skills a “graphic designer” has had to learn. They now must know about image resolution and the difference between raster images and vector based ones. They have to learn particular software–first PageMaker and or Quark, now InDesign, plus PhotoShop Illustrator, etc.

But that’s just for Print.

  1. Now that communication media has moved from just being printed and static to also being electronic and interactive, the graphic design field has allowed for more creativity, but also has created a new set of challenges that have not all been worked out yet. Some people with the title “Graphic Designer” are now expected not only to be designers, illustrators, photo-retouchers, and animators, among other things, but are expected to be versed in computer programming–actually writing strings of code.

In a weird twist of events specialization is actually being replaced by diversification. Graphic design is now like being a general practioner.

The downside is that although some people can do it all with a great deal of talent, there’s also a crapload of crap out there.

I personally think that a talented 80 year old graphic designer who worked for a good agency/studio in the '60s could probably design a better looking website that a lot of “graphic designers” who are in their twenties, BUT the non-design technical skills that one is now expected to have mastered would put that 80-year-old at a disadvantage. I hope at some point we see a trend where the more specialized talents are allowed to flourish on their own merits.

I’m lucky that I have been able to adapt well enough to continue to do work in my field for as long as I have. I doubt if I leave my present job I’d be able to get another job as a graphic designer, though.

14

There are all sorts of ways to get rid of an employee you don’t want anymore.

Poor performance reviews. It’s even better if the employer gradually downgrades the employee’s reviews over several years.

Include the employee in a mass layoff, even if the employee isn’t necessarily in the department that lost business.

Find a skill/credential the current employee doesn’t have. Rewrite employee’s job description to include that skill, then replace the employee.

Assign them to undesirable accounts, or put them on short-term projects and lay them off when the project ends.

Move them to that cubicle in the basement with the pipes that run through it.

Tell them they have to take a pay cut. Or turn their job into a part-time position that eliminates their benefits. Nothing gets an older employee out the door faster than eliminating their health insurance and 401K.

See if one of your clients/friends will hire them away. Then it’s their problem.

Of course, a humane employer might just tell you that the job has passed you by, and it’s time to move on. But do that to a 50-year old with 15 or 20 years on the job and the employer is asking for a lawsuit.

15

First, graphic artists and designers have always been undervalued. There’s always another starving artist out there to take over a job at a lower rate. Once the initial design stage is over, most artists can take over and produce variations of the work already done. Then a new design is needed, the artist is skilled, but not creative, and then suddenly they’re overvalued and replaced with someone new. A good artist can make a huge difference when marketing or designing a product, but many people think they are all the same, just people who can draw pictures. Nowadays, the grunt work of layout is done by computers, so there’s a lot less demand for artists. My wife used to do layout for the Penny Saver in NY, before computers. It was all done at night in a couple of days, and most of the graphic artists in the area did that work as their only job, or moonlighting on another job. That level of employment for artists may be gone forever.

Fr other occupations, I’ve seen a few cases in the past 2 years where companies changed from a strategy of hiring inexperienced, low wage employees, to hiring more experienced people. Those experienced people probably don’t get paid what they did 5-6 years ago, but are getting more than the inexperienced ones. It’s a very small sample, but I hope it’s a continuing trend. Of course I’m in my 50’s. The newcomers are probably hoping we all die of old age before long.

16

Thanks guys for the replies. SanVito, I understand that computers don’t equate to design, it was my sad attempt to give me some hope in my brain.

As a 20-something designer who loves his craft this threat has been helpful but so damn depressing lol. So basically I can’t do what I love and am good at after a certain age.

17

Even I wouldn’t go that far. You may (in fact, probably will) shift from job to job where being young and cutting edge isn’t valued the same way it is in the advertising industry. There are niches where the ability to work consistently within limited budgets and resources is far more important than coming up with the next great thing. There’s academia, where the ability to teach fundamentals and recognize talent transcends the importance of your own talent. You may graduate to being a creative director, where you supervise and guide the young whippersnappers. You could go out on your own and specialize in doing it your way. You could make a buttload of money by the time you’re 40 and then move to SanVito’s countryside.

Take a look at athletes, actors, trophy wives and others whose roles are defined by youth and flash. They don’t all end up impoverished and bitter.

18

IMHO it definitely exists, based on this sample of exactly one.

I was the oldest (and the only female) in the department when I was laid off at the age of 59. Reason given was simply that my job had been eliminated. I received much interest from my resume. Not so much after the face-to-face, despite my best efforts not to appear to be approaching 60.

And yes, I was actively working with cutting-edge technology at the time and had never had anything vaguely approaching a negative performance review.

I have heard similar stories from others in my age group. Obviously anecdotes don’t equal data.

However, you’re TWENTY and worrying? The jobs you’ll be interested in when you’re 40 and 50 probably don’t yet exist.

19

Currently putting in a lot of time and effort in to find a permanent position in digital design in London, (I’m 52). I seem to have no problem getting short term freelance contracts, but interviews for permanent positions keep producing a no. I’m keeping an open mind…you don’t know who else has applied, it’s a subjective view etc. But I’m feeling that my age is a big issue. There’s probably several things at work from “he’s already old” (in their eyes) so if we take him on he’s only going to get really, really old! Then there’s a view that even if you can keep up with the latest systems and technical trends, you have an “old eye” (let’s face it none of us can escape this - you can’t see or design like you’re 21, and your experience would never make you in any case, though I can crib and nick good ideas with the best of them). Socially around the office you are an outcast and not considered for most social/work events, thankfully I’ve not much desire to hang with the 20 year olds pretending I fit in as one of them - I still actually feel like one of them however or rather not much different.
I think there is very much a shelf life in design and feel I’m now very much on the edge of how far I can go. Next step is either: Going cheaper (you may always get work by not getting paid anywhere near the rate you should or is standard), Going unfashionable - dull stuff, where they are struggling to recruit and may end up compromising on you! Getting lucky! a mix of your personality winning someone over and someone not being bothered by your age. Or…Rethinking things altogether. I think you would have to be in a senior management (not designing) role past 50 to find you are able to get new opportunities easily if at all. This doesn’t just apply to the digital design industry of course but also to things like fashion design…I have a few friends in this and the same thing applies.