Business and Theory: Working in the Industry. (26th September)

The Business world of the industry is one whole half of Graphic Design (and now Animation) that I had always been vaguely aware off but hadn't ever acknowledged.

But with this lecture there's been an obviously stark awakening.

As designers, we possess skills that businesses and executives lack, our skills and even our ways of thinking and problem solving can differ wildly from people that will end up commissioning our work, which is why independence and confidence are so vital for working as a designer.

There are many nuances within the economics that govern the business of graphic design, but the broad strokes of the concepts are relatively simple to understand and apply.
  The basic principle is that the economy is always shifting and bulging as factors in the world change with it, and this will always effect the scope and outcomes of your work, with local companies and markets eventually feeding into the national and global economy as a whole.

The biggest effect the economy will have on designers is on the markets we will be creating for, and when a market changes so will the marketing surrounding it.

The basic concepts of Marketing are split into "4 P's"; Price, Product, Promotion and Place.

Price are all the monetary values associated with a marketing campaign. The costs to create and sell a product, including transportation and administration, as well as the actual designing, as well as all the profits associated with a product.
  The practice of "Loss Leading" is also enveloped within this concept, of making less profit on a product to become a "market leader" on it, rather than make an immediate profit.

Product is a description on the actual service or item being delivered to consumers. What the product's main function is and what makes it better and distinct from similar products on the market are both key things to consider when designing for a product.

Promotion will be the element we as designers will be most involved with, which is how the market you are designing for will be made aware of the product. Promotion, whilst being important as it's own concept, is largely defined by the three other "P's".

Finally, the Place in which a product is sold is a very important thing to consider when bringing a product to market, as a product sold purely on the internet will not appeal to an older audience who enjoy a tactile and physical contact with a product, where as teenagers and younger people enjoy that convenience.

Whilst these concepts are all fall under economic and business field, it's important to understand, as a designer, the tangential information of the fields we're working in, beyond the simple design process that we are accustomed to, and knowing more ultimately means that our designs will better fit the world we are making them for.