GDUSA SPECIAL WEB DESIGN REPORT: PART 1

SPONSORED BY PHOTOS.COM

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

For the second year in a row, we release our national web design survey online. It just seems appropriate. As you will see, results of the 2008 survey shows that graphic designers are embracing internet and interactive projects — out of preference or pragmatism or both — in record numbers. Part 1 of this special report focuses on the quantitative. In April, we will release Part 2, a more personal exploration of how designers feel about web design work. A special thanks to Photos.com, a leading stock photography subscription solution, for sponsoring this special report and for their continued commitment to the creative community.

— Gordon Kaye

TYPES OF DESIGN PROJECTS

Print & Collateral91%
Internet83%
POP & Signs70%
Packaging62%
Broadcast/Video32%
Environmental21%

JUMPING ON THE BANDWAGON

The internet has changed everything: how we communicate, interact, gather information, do business and conduct politics. As noted in last year's survey report, the impact has been good, bad, ugly and all points in between, with the final tally known only to the big web developer in the sky. Graphic design, as a mirror of culture and society, cannot help but be affected.

INVOLVED IN ONLINE DESIGN

200253%
200355%
200455%
200562%
200662%
200773%
200883%

In 2007 we found that, in terms of how graphic designers earn a living, internet projects had broken into the mainstream. The 2008 results show a continued upward trajectory in frequency, involvement, time and commitment. Perhaps even more important, the data — combined with extensive commentary by respondents — reveal a fundamental transformation in the way designers think about internet and interactive design: the language of futurepromise, potential and possibility has given way to a consensus that the opportunity is here in the present and that the future is now.

Dick Bernard, Bernard Graphic Design, Powhatan VA nicely captures the spirit: “Internet design has been a positive development for my business and career. It?s a huge bandwagon clattering towards us. Either we jump on it or we get flattened by it.”