Business Conditions Improve for Creatives

Results from the TrendWatch Graphic Arts new Summer 2003 Design & Production survey suggest that business conditions have improved for graphic design firms.

The latest TrendWatch Business Conditions Index (BCI) for the creative community is up across the board, from 4.72 six months ago to 18.87 currently. Meanwhile, advertising agencies are up to 22.73, and while graphic designers are still in negative numbers, they are improving, up from -16.33 six months ago to -5.10 in the latest survey.

Looking a bit more in detail at specific business conditions, we find "generally good" business conditions (the percentage of firms that said business was either "excellent, better than past 12 months" or "OK, about the same as the past 12 months") have traditionally been at some distance from "generally bad" conditions (the percentage of firms that said business conditions were either "poor, not as good as the past 12 months" or "very bad, much worse than the past 12 months"). In Summer 2001, however, these two poles started converging.

In Winter 2002/2003, business conditions for the creative community were just about evenly split between generally good and generally bad, which is never a good sign. That they're diverging again is a good sign, however.

One of the survey's traditional indicators is the business challenge "keeping up with technological changes." There was a large spike in this challenge in 1997 as creative firms sought to get up to speed on Web development. That ended in mid-2000, and this challenge fell off. It gently swelled shortly thereafter, but has been on a slight downward trend ever since. This is largely due to bad business conditions, but it also has to do with the fact that these firms perceive little truly "new" technology coming out. The slight upturn in this challenge in the latest survey—the first increase in two years—suggests that creative firms are seeing palatable new technologies.