OUTSOURCING PRODUCTION
| SELECT READER FAVORITES |
| COMPUTERS |
| APPLE |
| DELL |
| LAPTOP |
| APPLE |
| DELL |
| IBM |
| SONY |
| ILLUSTRATION SOFTWARE |
| ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR |
| COREL |
| PHOTOEDITING SOFTWARE |
| ADOBE PHOTOSHOP |
| PAGE LAYOUT SOFTWARE |
| QUARKXPRESS |
| ADOBE INDESIGN |
| SCANNERS |
| EPSON |
| HP |
| MICROTEK |
| CANON |
| UMAX |
| AGFA |
| DIGITAL CAMERAS |
| CANON |
| NIKON |
| SONY |
| OLYMPUS |
| KODAK |
| COLOR COPIERS |
| XEROX |
| CANON |
| MINOLTA |
| WIDE FORMAT PRINTERS/PROOFERS |
| EPSON |
| HP |
| XEROX |
| CANON |
| PEN TABLETS |
| WACOM |
| COLOR MATCHING SYSTEMS |
| PANTONE |
Here the main thrust of the survey is to determine the use and specification levels of production services, and to test the premise that in a digital world it is important to have a close and trusting relationship with a technology-savvy service. Among the outside services relied on by creative professionals, Commercial Printers topped the list, as designer control over print buying — another perfect example of control moving upstream — surges. (See July '05 GDUSA, Print Design Survey.) Other services that matter to designers, in order, are: Stock Visual Providers, Service Bureaus, Internet Access Providers, Digital Short Run/On Demand Print Providers and Trade Shops/Color Separators.
MEDIA DIVERSITY
Turning from questions of products and services, the survey also deals with what type of media designers are working on and in. In this connection, the results reveal that creative professionals are using digital technology to design and produce an extremely diverse range of projects and media in standalone applications or integrated cross-media projects. The questionnaire allowed for multiple responses to reflect the fact that creative firms work on many projects simultaneously or seriatim.
Perhaps the most interesting finding is the most obvious: designers do in fact work in large numbers on an array of different projects. Print design, the results confirm, is still the number one source of projects for professional graphic designers. Indeed, 91% of respondents say they work on print and paper projects — brochures, collateral, annual reports, letterheads and envelopes, advertising, calendars, posters, periodicals and publications, direct mail and catalogs and more. Print is proving to be more user-friendly, resilient, customizable, efficient and adaptable to today's needs than heretofore thought, say the respondents.
| what media do you design for? |
| print |
91% |
| pop/sign/display |
70% |
| internet |
62% |
| package |
61% |
| broadcast/motion |
26% |
After print design, the second highest source of projects proved to be the bundle of activities best described as point-of-purchase/display/sign design, with 70% of respondents saying they work on such projects. The reasons for this high percentage: the need to stand out in the clutter, and to use interior and exterior spaces to bring in customers, close sales, reinforce brand image and corporate identity.
Third in line is internet design at 62%, slowly rising again now that the dotcom crash is safely in the rearview mirror.
The fourth and final project category to generate a majority of responses is package design. At 61%, this area remains a large and stable source of design projects driven by the critical role of packaging in establishing and maintaining a brand as well as in making a sale at the point-of-purchase. Indeed, the increasing recognition of brand-as-asset by the business world assures an important role for package design projects.
