Who would�ve ever thought that starving artists would become highly sought after by Corporate America.
Granted, the computer is now the canvas and the mouse is the paintbrush, but companies today are avidly searching for a new breed of graphic designers � one who is not visually orientated, but computer savvy and can produce the kind of slick media that managers see their competitors using.
The increasing demand for the high-level creative techno-talent has even fueled a new employment industry niche and has forced design schools to modernize their teaching methods.
Cambridge based MacTemps, Inc. which estimates more than half of its $55 million is from graphic design, earlier this year began a new venture called Portfolio, which specializes in providing companies with experienced professionals in graphic design, desktop publishing and multimedia. Portfolio ahs already opened eight offices nationwide and plans for three to four more next year.
Freelance Access, Inc., a five year-old temporary services specializing in creative talent, has quickly grown to an estimated $2.6 million in revenue this year from$540,000 in 1993.
To make the most of the area�s burgeoning design market, the company created a multi-media division a little more than a year ago and spent the last five months creating an interactive CD-ROM portfolio. The CD-ROM, which will be sent to clients, will showcase the work of about 300 graphic designers and new media artists Freelance Access represents.
More Expertise Needed
Then there�s Graphic Express, Inc., a Back Bay firm that offers pre-print services to graphic designers and local companies. Graphic Express has grown 800 percent in the last five years. Two years the company began offering classes in design software, and more recently, multi-media. Just this month, the 125 employees, all part of its expansion into digital media/CD-ROM production and internet design and production services.
�The starving artist is a major player now, thanks to the phenomenal growth in new media,� said Byron White founder and president of Freelance Access. �In this business, the over all image and looking hip is extremely important to companies, and that is where these people come into play.�
The industry growth is fostered by companies eager to take advantage of new technology to enhance everything from sales brochures and reports, to trade show booths and client presentations.
�With the ability to produce presentations and the like on computers, people are demanding that everything look better,� said John Chuang, president and founder of MacTemps.�
�Most of it is inspired by competition,� said Nunzio Domilici, vice president and general manager of MacTemps Portfolio. Companies see their manager of MacTemps Portfolio competitors� annual reports, web sites and multimedia, and they realize its become a lot more interesting. We get a lot of calls from companies who don�t really understand any of it, but they want it for themselves. The problem is that they�re definitely not going to have anyone in-house that has the skills to put it together.
Meat and Potatoes
Print houses want graphic designers for in-house services and typography. Film companies need them to meet the growing demand of typography. Film companies need them for multimedia and digitized films. Fortune 1000 companies are hiring them for annual reports and web site production.
Even law firms are seeking them out to visually enhance evidence presented at trials.
Today�s graphic designers are expected to know the meat and potatoes of design software: Quark Xpress, a design program: Adobe Photoshop, a photograph retouching and sizing program: and Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Freehand, graphic creation and manipulations programs.
New media design wizards are expected to be proficient in audio/video presentation software Adobe Persuasion and MacroMedia Dircetor.
In addition, knowing pre-press flow and being able to take projects through proofs, match prints and printing boosts a designer�s marketability.
�The process has changed so dramatically that technical proficiency has become the dominant factor now in the analysis and evaluation of talent,� said White.
Salaries Rising
Demand for new-media talent is out-stripping supply. White estimates that while the Boston market has 3,000 � to 4,00 freelance graphic designers, only 400 to 500 of those have advanced knowledge and experience in designing new-media.
Schools are playing catch-up as much as the rest of the industry. Nationally, the top design schools have begun to invest in the technology and offer multi-media and interactive design courses. But businesses want the talent now.
�It�s frustrating to see how badly prepared universities and colleges are,� said White.
The Rhode Island School of Design in Providence just instituted a fifth-year graphic design program that offers four courses dealing solely with interactive design.
�We felt that given the changes in the industry and the demand for high level skills, the program would be beneficial for students and the school,� says Han Van Dijk,, head of the graphic design department. �There is a serious demand.�
Serious enough that entry level salaries for high level graduates now range from $35,000 to $50,000, a jump from the traditional graphic design wages of the low-to-mid $20,000.
While some top-ranked schools have moved quickly to offer multimedia, the rest have been criticized as lagging behind the trend.
�I don�t think colleges understand it, or are equipped to teach it yet,� said Jim Fitts, creative director of Boston-based advertising agency Think Tank, a wholly owned unit of Graphics Express.
Locally, the Massachusetts College of Art is building a 20,000 square-foot, $1.5 million technology center that will be built in thirds as funding becomes available. Expected to become fully completed in two years, the center will have a 150 work stations.
Meanwhile, may young designers are being forced to learn on the job, though some potential employers are turning them away at the outset if they lack new-media skills.
�I tell them to go home and figure it out,� said Joan DiCollibus, principal of the multimedia and web site service for Planet Interactive.� �I�m in business, not counseling.�
�It�s a Catch-22 thing: it�s hard for creatives to get experience without work, but it�s hard to get without experience,� said Domlici. �It�s a hard business to break into.�
