I moved here three weeks ago. Temping is just dead. The print/identity job market is terrible; there are still a fair number of interactive and fashion design jobs turning up on a daily basis, mostly mid-level positions. But the competition is tough—one AD told me he got over 300 applications for a job, and it wasn’t the most desirable job. And some jobs are evaporating with the money supply before anybody gets hired—it happened to me just yesterday. The only real upside is that rents are in free-fall; even super-hot Brooklyn rents started crashing in the last few weeks.

Spend a few days watching Craigslist (where most NYC job postings go), Krop, and Coroflot. If you really want to come here, make sure you have a big pile of cash to live on. Don’t sign a lease unless they’ll let you out with no penalty if you get laid off and can’t find work (this is already common in Manhattan). It might even be a good idea to submit a resume/portfolio to temp/headhunting firms for feedback before you come.

What are you doing for work James? Are you freelancing or still looking for work?

I’m unemployed and stumbling through my crappy font design projects all day. But I’m also right out of school, I don’t have any Flash in my portfolio, I don’t know the first thing about Drupal or Wordpress, so I’m not really well-prepared for job-hunting in New York. If I didn’t have someone else paying the bills I would have given up on design six months ago.

Gutsy move in these times. But some times that's what it takes. Good luck!

I've had friends here tell me the same thing James said: hundreds of applicants for every open position. Which sucks, but you should look at how many jobs are open in your current location. I moved to nyc from chicago last fall and there are definitely more job opportunities here than there. But I'm really glad I'm not looking for a job, I saved up so I could take a sabbatical from clients. Good luck!

my crappy font design projects

I do not think so, cheer up.

James, this is like recommending prospecting for gold, i.e. stupid, but: if you strike it lucky with a font on MyFonts, it will pay the bills for quite a while. My gut feeling right now is right up your alley: display, individualistic, perhaps with even only a few family members. While all sales are down, something like Museo still sells quite a bit.

Fantomas, James Puckett's advice is good. I've been freelancing at NYC ad agencies for 2+ years now, and I've always been able to find gigs... until now. I've even heard of studio managers and art directors being laid off. Agencies are merging studios to cut costs. That doesn't mean there aren't any opportunities, but as James said, if you send in your résumé, there will be at least 300 other résumés being sent in, too.

I agree with jackson -- you'll probably find more opportunities here, in spite of the crisis. Just make sure you have some spare $$, in case it takes a while to find a job.

@James what do you need to know about WordPress?

@paul: How to install, configure, and design web sites using it. Now that the economy is in the tank businesses have much less money to spend, so instead of print or custom web sites they go for projects built on CMS/blogging systems. And that kind of hands-on web design is really not somewhere I’m interested in going—I know enough about tech to make two or three times more money doing UNIX sysadmin work and not have to deal with clients complaining about logos and colors.

@James: I'm in a similar position as you, I left school last semester and was hoping to stay in NY, and didn't realize how difficult it would be to find a job. Anyway, here's my rant: What's the deal with flash? every single design-related job requires flash—even jobs advertised as "print". I'm starting to think that the people writing the job descriptions don't even know what they're talking about and just tack on flash like some kind of buzzword. Grrr.

What’s the deal with flash? every single design-related job requires flash…

• The world is full of people who like blinking lights, motion, fades, and low-end video games. And that’s what those people are willing to pay for.
• Designers get stuck in the “I don’t do code” mindset and use Flash for all of their small projects.
• No headaches from undocumented IE rendering bugs.

NYC is so 20th century. If you want to be in the thick of mankind's glorious messed-up future, try LA, where it can feel totally normal to be "between jobs", and even "self unemployed" can make sense. The weather is good enough that you can even live in your car. But you do need a car - without one you're a useless lump here.

hhp

No headaches from undocumented IE rendering bugs.

that does sound nice... as long as all your visitors have enough patience to wait for your slow, slow flash site to load.

More relevantly, though, 2 of my roommates who are photographers are extra busy with freelance work lately, I guess because all the companies laid off their in-house photographers and need someone to do the work...so I don't know if that also goes for design freelancers or not, but maybe?

That's what some of my friends are saying. It's hard to find a full-time job with benefits, but freelance jobs are in abundance. I guess only time and relocation will tell.

Anyone else in NYC?

I just pulled a similar move to Philadelphia, from Boston, about three months ago in order to be closer to family. Granted this city is not really comparable to NYC or Boston in terms of the amount of design work or publishing being done here, but there has been nothing. Nothing. And I know Flash, and can turn out some lovely stuff in AS3. But the competition is simply too stiff, or else, as James noted, jobs evaporate even before the interview stage.

I'm just going to try to eke out doing freelance work until my wife finishes her MA, and then I'm thinking about law school. Weeee.

Good luck!

On a related note, are all the short-term unpaid internships I see in NYC design job listings normal? Or are they just misers exploiting the unemployed young designers out there? I’ve seen hundreds of internships that require print and web experience, sometimes even expecting the intern to provide a computer and software, and they run as short as two weeks and no more than six. I’ve even seen some very specific production internships that are only for a night, just to get a project out. Please tell me that this isn’t normal and that the local design schools teach the kids not to work for people who are too stingy to hire freelancers or production staff. In DC even the really crooked “nonprofit” lobbying organizations didn’t try to pull the stuff I see going on with New York internships.

Eric, I'm right there with you... just moved closer to Philly myself, and I'm seeing diddly as far as jobs. I've applied a few places, but those jobs disappear almost as soon as I press send on the old email machine. It sucks.

This is probably a better time economically to find freelance clients than spend all of your time looking for a full-time position. Just realize the challenge involved in having steady bills while the pay might not be as consistant. The fact that you are moving to a new city throws another element into the equation.

Not to discourage though. My advice would be to FIND PEOPLE wherever you are. People know people who now people. People can be clients or friends of future clients. Who knows? The fact that you are reaching out to designers for advice on this forum is definitely a good start. Sorry I've not addressed your concerns about NYC (I live in Seattle).

RE: Flash and HR Departments
I've seen how this works. I submitted to HR that we needed a competent UI graphic designer for web. What comes out the other end is Flash, PHP, Bachelor's Degree, Javascript, etc. Not a mention of UI, which is actually a harder specialty to find than the others. I ended up posting the real job to Craigslist myself because the people we were interviewing were everything we already had, but not what we needed.

@James
RE: Wordpress
I'm a web designer who does a lot of Wordpress development, and I'm always looking for side gigs. If you hand me a finished Photoshop mockup, I could have you a decent theme done up real quick like. You help me finish up some of my fonts, and I'd do it for free and host it even.

Dan, I’ll keep it in mind if I can start finding freelance gigs without using temp agencies.

A one night unpaid "production internship" where you have to bring your own computer and have print/web experience is possibly the sketchiest thing ever.

Traditionally, ad/design firms that did 'web' stuff did it all in Flash because it was just like using Illustrator.

These days, though, Flash is an IDE with it's own language and can be leveraged in some amazing ways.

Most visual design gigs that ask for flash experience, are more likely looking for someone that understands what can and can't be done with it, and want someone that can do UX design with that in mind, but who will be passing the production on to dedicated Flash developers.

That and there's always the HR job descriptions that want someone with 10 years of graphic design, COBOL programming, oracle db optimization skills, and who can bat .350.

More relevantly, though, 2 of my roommates who are photographers are extra busy with freelance work lately, I guess because all the companies laid off their in-house photographers and need someone to do the work...so I don’t know if that also goes for design freelancers or not, but maybe?

I'm not so sure that this applies to design freelancers, Gillian. An ex-coworker was telling me that the creative temp agencies (the ones that get freelancers their gigs) are working with skeleton staffs right now... That means that even they are not getting requests for temp or freelance help.

Hi Nikita

I sympathise with moving out of the teaching job (I gave mine up midway through last year), but you'll need a considerable budget to start up in a new town as a freelancer – whether you go direct or via agencies.

I'm nowhere near NYC, but even in these backwaters people are taking advantage of the situation to post job specs that are quite unrealistic in their expectation (i.e. all rounder intermediate designer with print & web experience for US$20k p/a ??!!). The advice to post resumes/make connections/market yourself in advance is all good, but the reality is that the gravy days of freelancing are long gone. The saner option might be to lessen your expenditure, stay put and carefully restock your burnt-out creative cupboard.

Sure, and while we're at it, why don't we all curl up in a fetal position and suck our thumbs because the economy is not what it was a year ago.

I want my blankie.

Well, frugality is the new black. (And I feel so ahead of my time... ;-)

Dionysian living is the cause of this mess.

hhp

There's nothing in Minneapolis either. Same story as New York and Boston. So many people have been fired and nobody's hiring. It is a really gutsy move right now. I would just be very wise about it. Think long and hard.

hrant said:
> Dionysian living is the cause of this mess.

you're a grumpy old man, aren't you? :+)

_crooks_ are "the cause of this mess" --
criminals who weaseled their thumbs onto
the buttons of the financial control panel...

it has nothing to do with pleasure-seeking.

(the wrong-doers are chronically unhappy;
their greed _never_ lets them feel satisfied,
regardless of how much they already have;
that's why they ran the ship into the ground.
and why they'll run it into the ground again,
unless we put them where they can't hurt us.)

-bowerbird

Here it is again. Mountains of debt are not 'crooks' doing. That's what Hrant meant.

And frugality is a concept recommended to aspiring poets who get carried away by the verbosity of their own exuberance.
Poetry is about quality of words, not about their sheer numbers.

paragraph said:
> Mountains of debt are not ’crooks’ doing.

you're wrong. totally. completely. dead-wrong.

that 700-billion-dollar "mountain of debt"
that we find directly in our path today was
most certainly produced by _criminals_,
although they might never be _charged_...

but they knew full well what they were doing,
and they knew full well that it was _wrong_,
as in _immoral_, as in _destructive_to_society_.

those "financial institutions" that gave out loans for
$200,000 homes to people making $2000 a month?

if they'd done it once or twice, it'd be "a mistake".
but they did it thousands and thousands of times...
do you think it was "an accident"? it was a _crime_.

they knew from the get-go that those were bad loans.

they knew -- with full certainty -- that there would be
foreclosures eventually. but they didn't care, because
it just meant they'd be the owners of an empty home,
so they could loan money to new people to "buy" it...

besides, it helped pay off the loans they'd made to the
developer companies, and the builders and contractors.
the "financial institutions" made money at every level!

moreover, it fed the misleading notion that that house
was _worth_ $200,000, because look, somebody had
"bought" it for that price, even though -- as the banks
and the builders knew full well -- it only cost $80,000
to _build_ the darn thing. they rolled in "surplus" profit.
it's obscene, and everyone on the inside was aware of it.

they _knew_ what they were doing, they knew _exactly_.

nor did it stop there...

because when they bundled a bag of the bad loans to
sell to other "financial institutions", at inflated prices,
they knew exactly what they were doing, yes they did.

and the "financial institutions" which _bought_ them,
and then turned around and sold them to someone else,
at higher prices, knew exactly what they were doing too!

this little trick was straight out of the savings-and-loan
"scandal" from a couple decades ago, and it worked again.

everyone knew, and as long as everyone just kept passing
the bags along, always at a higher price than they'd paid,
so they could extract their commission, they were happy.

and that's criminal. certainly immoral. and despicable.

but it got even worse...

they knew that if they grew the cost of the bags enough,
they'd become "too big to fail" -- they even coined a cute
slogan to drive the point home! -- and the _government_
would come in with a "rescue" plan -- i.e., more money! --
and then they would slurp off some of _that_ big fund...

yep, they knew who'd end up "holding the bag" in the end!

you see, they remembered that too from the s&l "scandal".

and their gall is astounding! $700 billion! unbelievable!
who could even conceive of such a huge amount of money!
heck, g.m. had to work up nerve to ask for just $25 billion.
(and g.m. got slapped! but the money guys? kid gloves.)

and they didn't care if their stock market crashed, because
they knew the big loser would be _our_retirement_plans_...

do you really think the whole retirement-money system was
something that these "financial institutions" didn't understand
they could game, at our expense? talk about a ponzi scheme.

but heck, they learned this trick from the government itself,
with the "social security" system, which is explicitly ponzi...

it's totally silly to say that "dionysian living" caused this mess.
this was _greed_, pure greed, to the point of being _criminal_.
and they knew what they were doing, they knew it _exactly_...
and if you can't see that, you are blind.

-bowerbird

I recommend a viewing of La Boheme. The lot of poets, artists, writers, and perhaps now graphic designers, has not changed for centuries. The meek will not inherit the earth--unless they wrench it from the cold, dead, hands of the wealthy and powerful, first. :-)
ChrisL

Not much of a consolation, but over here in the Low Countries us free-lancers are feeling the cinch too.
Hardly amazing considering the origin of the term ‘free-lancer’, but nonetheless: I am becoming a bit worried. Last year I resumed work after an extended sabbatical and I was really going somewhere, I felt. Now my biggest client is scaling back outsourced work. Which means my projected income for this year will be a quarter of last year if I don’t pick up some new projects.

I am considering a career move ; ).

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

Regarding freelance, that’s a tough place to go right now. Doing some networking and getting by on freelance sounds great, but I’m finding that when I go out networking I just run into people looking for work. At the last big networking party I went to almost everyone was looking for work; even the employed people were because they all assume that they’re going to lose their jobs soon. Nobody was there looking for a designer to help with a business venture. Networking isn’t cheap, either: unless an even has a big sponsor, it’s anywhere from $5 to $25 just to get in the door.

At this point I am seriously considering getting some kind of night shift doorman or security job where I can spend a few hours working on fonts in the slow hours.

I heard on the radio this morning that in China, something like 90% of cars are bought cash in hand, 50% of mortgages.

The Western ability to borrow money to pay for what one could have paid cash for is certainly NOT to be blamed on the crooks. The crooks simply acknowledge how hideously stupid some people are and take advantage of them for it.

People and cultures that have a proper awareness and respect for money have done much better for themselves. For instance, in America there are mortgage "lenders" who strictly follow Sharia law for Muslims. Meaning, of course, that interest isn't charged. The person doing the borrowing has to bear a higher burden of a down payment on the home, and the lender has stricter underwriting policies because they only charge a one time fixed fee that is built into the payments. These mortgage companies, and the people who borrowed *only the absolute minimum* have fared well while all of the Western banks and their borrowers have wallowed in their own filthy mess.

@james
I always recommend night audit at slow hotels. The pay isn't going to be great, but the work is minimal.

> hideously stupid some people are

But the system tells them what to believe.

hhp

>>the system tells them what to believe.

I fail to see how that disqualifies them from the "hideously stupid" description.

Because the only thing people can believe is what they're told. If people who love them (like their parents) don't guide them enough, then chances are they'll believe people who want to own them. Part of the problem is compulsory public education (which tellingly doesn't include Frugality 101) since it separates children from their parents - typically their mother (so that women can "contribute" to the economy).

When 75% of the economy is people buying junk they don't really need, the whole system is really just Madoff to the power Madoff.

hhp

I had a discussion this morning with someone about the Gypsy method of finance: Give all of your money to the family matriarch, then let her decide what you can/can not spend your money on. She will then evaluate your and the family's options, and dole out only the exact amount of money needed for that specific transaction, in cash, out of the family's coffers.

Now THAT is a system I could live with, because like most Americans, I am hideously stupid when it comes to finance.

and if the family matriarch is a Madoff, then what? You are still screwed.
People choose who they trust. They can be wrong in who they choose. This will never change no matter what system you "choose" to believe in. There are crooks and deceitful people in this world of all persuasions, governments, religions, families, clans, tribes, institutions, anti-institutions, and kingdoms.
The key words are trust and faith. The most deceitful people can put on such a trustful appearance. The problem is a world without trust is a very lonely place.

ChrisL

Wow. Has the word "Madoff" made its way into the lexicon already?

"He madoff with some other guy's money" :)

and if it is a young women, is it Maidoff with my money? :-)

ChrisL

Since this thread has appeared to turn into a free for all...

"which tellingly doesn’t include Frugality 101"

Sadly, Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic are the core courses taught in the US.

From Pre-k to getting my BFA, not once was I required to take any form of Economics course work.

I think that might be part of the issue.

Dan
That's too funny. "They Madoff with my design sense before I had a chance to save it."

Maybe I should work as a doorman somewhere. License and 10 dollar cover please? ;)

From Pre-k to getting my BFA, not once was I required to take any form of Economics course work.

Most of the Ph.D economists out there didn’t seem to have anything especially smart to say about America’s insane economy in the last decade; neither did all of the MBAs who studied macro- and micro-economics from those economists. People didn’t need education to prevent this, they needed common sense and some grip on reality. Any idiot who applied a little critical thinking could see that the real estate market and the stock market were grossly overvalued and that the entire nation was overleveraged. But people chose to ignore what made sense, to ignore the few economists and pundits who were pointing out that the system was a joke, and followed the herd. Economics education can’t prevent that sort of mass delusion any more than religious instruction can enable the devout to see the absurdities in their faith. It just gives people a better vocabulary to discuss their fantasies.

Credit is a great engine of economic progress, but it has to be regulated. In the past, it worked very well to make the US the richest country. But it leads to booms and terrible busts, fueled by speculation and crooks, without regulation.

I blame the Reaganite philosophy--all taxes and regulation is bad--which infected also Clinton to some extent, for the current financial collapse. Right now, China is attempting to expand credit, agreeing that you need a system of both savings and credit to work well and be stable. I've heard economists saying that part of the problem is that we had too little savings, and China too much.

You need to realize that in China the savings rate is so high because they haven't been able to trust the banks or government to help them with anything. For example, the government will just quit paying employees for months on end. This kind of thing is also very dysfunctional.

There are no simple solutions, though there do seem to be solutions, and the Obama administration is working at them.

"Any idiot who applied a little critical thinking could see that the real estate market and the stock market were grossly overvalued"

I disagree.

In hindsight, yes, it's very easy to say that, but at the time, I don't think many people did.

When the American Dream is home ownership, separated nuclear family units, and both banks and government doing what they can to both market and accommodate that, there is a societal pressure to aim for that. It's not a greed as much as a "that's what we're supposed to do as Americans." And when folks do that in a time of increasingly upward home values, the trend is to 'get in while we can before we can't afford a place' rather than a careful study of long term trends and analysis of the mortgage models that were being sold.

As a culture, we've grown accustomed to economic short sightedness. That's partly due to how our system works (consumer driven) and partly due to lack of personal education on the matter.

"Economics education can’t prevent that sort of mass delusion any more than religious instruction can enable the devout to see the absurdities in their faith."

I disagree. I think education goes along way. Along with economics 101, I've always been a proponent of theological history taught in the schools as well. :o)

For instance, there's a giant lack of art and design education in our system. It wasn't until college that I found it and had it instilled in me via education.

As for the current situation, there's plenty of blame to go around to all parties involved.

Carnegie Mellon used to have an Economics course required for graphic design students. I don't think it helped me be more frugal. Ohio State had a Sociology course requirement for design students, too. I don't think it helped people be more social :-)

ChrisL

> Give all of your money to the family matriarch ...

Dan, I'm actually a monarchist.

> if the family matriarch is a Madoff, then what?

Weigh the chances of that.
It's so much easier to find one benign monarch than thousands of honest capitalists.

> I blame the Reaganite philosophy

Right, just keep latching on to the past, and your future will be bright!
Reagan, Caslon, what else?

> Carnegie Mellon used to have an Economics course required for
> graphic design students. I don’t think it helped me be more frugal.

You expect one course to counteract decades of incessant brainwashing?

hhp