Every couple of years graphic design is threatened by devaluation or extinction because our standards are being attacked by the forces of evil knights templates. Remember the commercial where Apple claimed that with a Macintosh computer designers would no longer be necessary? Alas, it never came to pass, despite the persuasive 1984 ad campaign (above).
Remember when stock imagery was the scourge? It'll take more than that to squelch real talent. And don't forget that for decades various template companies have foisted their wares on the field (below top), charging paltry sums for subscriptions to template libraries. Well, there will always be clients who go for cheap, rather than good.
Now, one of the most highly respected editorial designers is producing templates too. Thanks to Roger Black's "Ready-Media" template collection the design world is having a cow. This is not Black's first foray into template design, but it is the first time, the promotion asserts, that "world-class media design been so available, so accessible, so affordable. A cabal of highly skilled designers have pooled their talent to give you outstanding media templates for both print and web-based formats, featuring a huge variety of pages. At a fraction of the cost" (below bottom).
Cabal? It's not the quality of the design that's upsetting members of The Society of Publication Designers (SPD), but the "fraction of the cost." Well, maybe the quality too. And that's the sticky wicket, in this critical economic era, is charging a "fraction" unfair and detrimental to the whole editorial design field? Or is it a smart entrepreneurial idea, that will inject better design into the field?
Debate rages: Which rings true? This from Dirk Barnett on SPD.org “Thanks Ready-Media, you just set us all back about 10 years.” Or as Ready-Media designer Robb Rice says, the templates will leave magazine designers “freed to concentrate on visual content.”
StockLayouts template
Ready-Media template
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I think what they're doing is reprehensible...but look no further than the right sidebar and the "Vector Brush Sourcebook" to see that there's a cheap generic alternative to everything. If someone wants high quality design and not a cheap approximation of metro new york or new york magazine they'll pay a talented designer to do custom work for them
From the position of customer magazines, I’m concerned about the Ready Media concept, simply because some marketing departments will believe this is the way to create their own publications. Those publications will then fail (because they can’t reflect from templates all the unique aspects of a brand and its objectives which a successful customer magazine needs to reflect.)
And then – do you know what? – they won’t blame the failure on Ready Media’s templates – they will blame the failure on the generic concept of customer magazines.
Roger may have ultimately cracked the template code, but having worked with this idea for years, I've always been struck by how inefficient and ineffective templated designs ultimately are. The inevitable course of events seems to go like this: Publisher looks to templates as cheap alternative; publisher employs cheap template and cheap template maker; publisher alienates art director and editor in process; publisher realizes that cheap template maker doesn't care or understand his particular design needs; publisher realizes that template maker doesn't care that he doesn't care and has no one dedicated to his project; publisher spends lots of extra money in customization; publisher tries to enlists jaded art director and editor(s) to no avail; publisher realizes he is getting what he paid for; publisher ends up with a product that isn't quite right, a staff that isn't quite happy, and a bill that isn't quite as cheap as he wanted.
And by the way, what exactly is "visual content" if not design and layout?
bad design is expensive.
what does Brazil's 2012 world cup logo committee (that included judge Giselle Bundchen and some 25 design firm participanting) think they'll spend producing that 4 color gradient nightmare? A fortune. And no one will want to buy those ham-fisted logo'd chotchkees.
i have to say i was one of those hair on fire designers complaining when paula scher designed a stationary/ logo "template" for HP some years ago. But while HP's business model floundered I don't think the need for cheap is going away anytime soon.
This debate is nothing new. Remember when television was supposed to kill radio, and digital was supposed to kill print? Neither occurred.
Consider this a price check on the design world. By having a high-quality, low cost alternative (with trade offs of course) the designers who are only "successful" financially because it's a captive market. They're decent, but aren't truly worth what they're being paid for.
It's one of those forced re-evaluations that happen to everyone, every once in awhile. The great designers will continue what they're doing and rise to the top, those who are puffed-up will fade away.