Evidence continues to reveal a slowing in the U.S. economy.
AIGA Design Leaders Confidence Index
AIGA is "the professional association for design." Graphic Design and Web Design professionals belong to this organization.
The AIGA Design Leaders Confidence Index is a quarterly survey of influential members constructed to provide a snapshot of the current conditions within the design economy.
The index has dropped substantially during the last two quarters indicating a slowdown in design-related opportunities.
Despite this drop in confidence AIGA claims the design economy is expected to outperform the national economy in 2008.
Source: AIGA
According to a press release, " . . . only one-third of respondents feel [business] will decline in the next six months. Only one in four reduce their likelihood of hiring new employees."
Graphic Design vs. Web Design
A quick look at the Boston Market for technology talent reveals the following job opportunities at Boston.com:
Still, Web Developer opportunities surpass combined Graphic Design and Web Design opportunities by nearly 50%:
- Web Developer [ 89 ]
This analysis, however, is crude since most organizatiions are looking for a basket of skills and don't necessarily rely on labels when searching for talent. A more precise method is to search on technical skills mentioned in job descriptions, not job titles.
Web Development
A keyword search on technology skills most in demand reveals that the only two traditional Graphic Design skills to land in the Top 20 are as follows:
- Photoshop [ #11 ]
- Illustrator [ #19 ]
- JavaScript [ #6 ]
- Flash [ #13 ]
- HTML + CSS [ #17 ]
The remaining 15 skills, while not exclusively Web-related, do reflect skills commonly affiliated with Web Development, including programming and databases, both in an open source and a Microsoft environment. These skills have been updated for February and are listed in the right-hand column under Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston.
Developer's Note: The chart for this article was developed using Google's Chart API. Developers who want to add simple charting functionality to their Web projects should check it out.
