When you were growing up, did you think you'd be doing this for a living? The field of graphic arts and commercial design has changed so radically in the last twenty years that many of the jobs today didn't even exist in 1989. And it's more than just the job description; people are changing along with the jobs they are doing.

The majority of professionals working in design fields today have been trained traditionally and just about every one of them has had to adapt to new tools. At the very least, proficiency in Photoshop and Illustrator are required. Plenty of people have had to make the leap to the Web and there they encountered code—HTML, CSS, ActionScript—the rabbit hole. This step is a big one—essentially a step away from the visual and into the abstract.

“Art has nothing to do with HTML,” says Marilyn Novell, a long-time graphic designer who trained traditionally in art school and added typesetting to her skills. Typesetters, as it turns out, were the canaries in the coal mine. Phototype-setting using dedicated computers put a bunch of cranky hot type operators out of business, and those who adapted had to learn code to tell the type what size to be and where to go. Soon enough, even those typesetting jobs began to go away with the arrival of that evil smiley Apple face and a whole generation of newsletter editors broke the chains of good taste and began designing their own documents. 

Novell quickly adapted to the world of desktop computers. So when the Web came along she was ready to make the leap. The technology gave her the ability to combine her skills in typography, art and design at Protozoa Studios. “Not everyone in the commercial art field was able to adapt,” she says. “When Web design first started, I encountered a slew of old-style designers who could not figure out how to make the leap.”

Crossing the divide. Over and over again, designers working today mention friends who have gotten out of the field because they had a hard time adapting to new technology. Lisa Winand, an independent contractor based in St. Petersburg, Florida, dropped out of design for a while because she was computer illiterate. “I couldn't even type,” she adds. But then she mustered her courage to get back in, and went to school to learn digital techniques while continuing to do freelance work. “The sharpest division exists between print professionals and those who design for the Web,” she says. Winand sees a trend back towards specialists, people who excel in one area and notes that the larger houses tend to look for experts. Most people, she says, design for both print and the Web, but there are quite a few people who prefer to work solely in print.

“If you only plan to work for another ten years or so, that’s fine,” says Rick Murray, rather pointedly. “The print market is going to get smaller and smaller." Murray is the president of the Edelman Digital group within advertising agency A&R Edelman. In his job he helps clients put together campaigns, develop branding and hires artists to help realize those ideas.

Even more ominously, Nick Bolton, who works in the R&D department of the New York Times, said recently at a panel on the future of publishing, “I’m willing to bet $5,000 that print will go away.” The experience of reading a newspaper or a book will remain, but it will happen using something like digital paper technology, he says.

Murray is among the first to admit that something is being lost in the march toward a digital future. He says it’s still important to learn the basics of design and to be classically trained. “Anyone who describes themselves as a pure play digital designer isn’t going to be as good as someone who has been classically trained and has added skills in digital technology,” he says. Murray has noticed, with some surprise that the tendency to work out designs on paper with fast sketches has almost completely disappeared. “Instead, time and energy is spent drafting something up on the computer and some communication is lost.”

Communication Arts publisher Patrick Coyne has seen similar trends during his 22-year tenure at the magazine. “You’ve got distinct groups within visual communications that have been affected in different ways. But, certainly for everybody, technology has shortened the creative cycle, which has been to the detriment of creativity. One can always improve a project given a little distance. Those days are gone.”

And what has been gained? Democracy.

Coyne notes that the power of print was broken when the Mac arrived, even though not everyone knew the jig was up. Designer Erik Adigard, who was working at Wired in the mid-1990s, knew it was and he began rewriting the rules.