Why creatives earn Lower figures

Though artworks are amongst the most expensive items in the world, yet creatives earn lower figures in comparison to other professions. 

The fault in this may first lie with a society that places less value on graphic design as a non -technical skill and more on jobs that require years of academic learning. This trend occurs everywhere, even in advanced countries.

Here’s a survey which shows creatives earning below the 33,000 minimum wage in the UK.

source: Liberty games

The report, from Glasgow University, found that the median annual income for self-employed visual artists is just £12,500, a substantial decrease compared to 2010. Furthermore, 53% of employees in the creative industry believe they are not being paid their worth. In lower-income regions, such as parts of Africa, the situation is even more pronounced.

If you’re an NGD designer, you’ve also struggled with the poor pay you earn in comparison to other professions, constantly wondering why a designer can’t make a break the same way an entry-level footballer can.

Here are 7 reasons you probably struggle with earning a decent figure.

Stick around to see which one resonates with you!

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1. Social Perception of Design Work

Designers aren’t deemed as valuable as professionals in other industries. In fact, until recently, many societies didn’t even consider design to be a profession and regarded it as a common side hustle requiring little or no expertise.

Due to this perception, employers and clients from the outset attach low prices to design work since their perception regards it as “not so serious a thing”.

2. Creatives Earn Lower Figures Because of Proliferation

Access to technologies like Photoshop or the numerous create-a-logo websites creates room for newbies who continue to fill up the design space.

These numerous designers by their lack of expertise, undervalue the industry for others, including more experienced designers. So while a professional designer believes he is worth 60$ hour, he has to deal with the $5 Fiverr designer.

The impact of this is that more experienced designers often lower their prices just to survive.

3. Technical skills

Creative ith the greatest talent don’t matter much if they have poor technical skills.

How good a creative is in manipulating industry software gives bargaining power, factors like photo manipulation for instance memerize clients leading to greater appreciation and higher pay.

The better you’re at a tool the better your chances of earing higher!

4. Low self-esteem 

The first step to commanding a high figure is confidence in your work.

Thus, while employers tend to deem design work as lower than others, designers themselves don’t believe their own work deserves high figures.This “not good enough” mentality unfortunately influences the prices they append to their work or service.

5.The Categorization Factor Is Why Creatives Earn Lower Figures

Categorization means factoring everything that goes into executing a project for a client. Creatives earn lower figures when categorization is absent.

To categorize, the creative segregates his services into different parts and makes the client pay a higher price for added services.

Think of categorization like insurance, where there’s the bronze, silver, gold, and the ridiculous platinum package.

By splitting a service into several parts and increasing the features each level offers, businesses are able to get clients to pay more, even when all of these can be offered at once.

But this is something common to only a few designers. Most creatives would design a logo and offer it in different resized formats at the same price to a client, but only a few consider this resizing a service on its own and make it a feature clients have to pay.

6. Pricing Mentality/Productivity

Pricing mentality affects how much a creative earns at the end of the day.

There are creatives who, from the outset when asked their price, give prices that are first, advantageous to them,selves i.e., a figure they believe is most lucrative for themselves and not unimaginable as a fee to the client.

Some artist hoever live in the “ I dont want to chase them away” mentality. The effect… A client who stays with you but keeps you poor 

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7. Not Every Creative Professional Is a Creative Thinker

Every creative can produce creative work but not every creative can think creatively.

Creative thinking does not mean thinking the difficult or the complex, but actually in the simplest and clearest of terms, and being able to utilize the ordinary that most people would overlook in pursuit of the extraordinary. 

Here’s an example:

Murdererer Gary Gilmore just before he was to be executed, said the words “Let’s do it” . Years later, Dan Wieden, founder of Wieden&Kennedy advertising agency, tweaked these words to “Just do i,t” which became the famous Nike slogan. These words were already in existence, but it took a creative mind to figure it out. Now, imagine how much such thinking earned him?

Final Thoughts

You know how sometimes a cheaper meal tastes better than an expensive one? That’s how it is for creatives – the same skill you offer for 10 bucks is being offered for 100 by someone with fewer skills.

Simply improve the confidence and value creation game, and you are set to skyrocket your earnings.