Adobe Creative Suite 3 Announced

[Glenny2lappies]

Maybe the EU might have something to say to Adobe

It's obvious that Adobe are exploiting their dominant position. It's patently anti-competitive (people in Europe can't buy from the 'States).

When MS did this the EU reacted by fining them the largest amount ever - $2M/day!

I wonder how much Adobe will get? OK, it may take some time, but revenge is a dish best served cold. But the sooner the better.

 

[Glenny2lappies]

Flawed logic; lets not argue statistics

According to http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk the average salary for a graphic designer in the U.K. is £36,076. According to http://www.salary.com the average salary for a graphic designer in the U.S. is $43,452.

The U.S. dollar equates to essentially 1/2£s (it's actually .51 right now). This means that the average U.K. graphic designer makes $70,737 U.S. dollars a year.


U.S. $36,076/$1,799 - 4.99% of annual salary
U.K. $70,737/$2,763 - 2.19% of annual salary

Relative to income, CS3 costs LESS in the U.K. than in the U.S.

So, the average US designer salary is $36k. That's as true in major cities as in hicksville? In the states you have more land; the UK and Europe is more urban where prices are *much* higher.

Average cost of a house in the UK =£220K = $430K. What's the average cost in the States?

What about comparing taxes, e.g. take-home pay? Also there's VAT at 17.5% on all transactions (higher in Europe) - in the 'States you pay 6ish percent (or none in some states), purchasing on-line avoids this tax.

Please, the logic is flawed and will result in a pointless discussion about statistics.

Lets simplify things; the cost of production is identical. Apart from a small distribution overhead the prices should be fairly similar. We live in the age of the internet, so why should we not choose to get our goods from anywhere - I do this regularly with DVDs & CDs (another x2 hike).

A 200% mark-up is taking the piss big time.

 

[popelife]

That, my friend, is a global problem. It is quite frustrating.

Yep. My point being that it's not easy for designers to make good money. £36,000 is a pretty respectable wage in any industry in the UK, and fairly unheard of in the graphics industry. So where they got that average salary beats me. When you have the pick of each year's design graduates, and can pay them £20,000 or less, there'd have to be a damn good reason to pay someone £36,000 or more.

(It's a universal rule - any career that looks glamorous or artistic is also likely to be the least well-paid.)

Self-employed designers typically have it even worse. They're the ones that are going to be hit hardest by this upgrade.

Yet the cost of living in the UK is huge. Have you seen our house prices?

So any arguments that designers in the UK have more money to spend are, as we Brits like to say, "rubbish".

 

[Blue Velvet]

Yep. My point being that it's not easy for designers to make good money. £36,000 is a pretty respectable wage in any industry in the UK, and fairly unheard of in the graphics industry.

I would disagree...

When you get into senior positions that involve substantial client and print management, then those sorts of salaries are common.

 

[popelife]

I would disagree...

When you get into senior positions that involve substantial client and print management, then those sorts of salaries are common.

Yes, but the proportion of designers in those kind of positions is tiny compared to the vast number working much more dead-end positions for crummy money. Unless there are a lot of designers out there making city-trader salaries, I find it hard to believe the average income in the industry is £36,000.

I guess it depends who this website polled to get that average. I suspect it wasn't a particularly representative sample.

Most designers I know would spit their coffee over their desk (and immediately demand a raise) if I told them the average income for their job was £36,000.

 

[shecky]

Yes, but the proportion of designers in those kind of positions is tiny compared to the vast number working much more dead-end positions for crummy money. Unless there are a lot of designers out there making city-trader salaries, I find it hard to believe the average income in the industry is £36,000.

you do not start there but you can get there pretty quickly. its not uncommon at all.

http://www5.designersalaries.com/aigaaquent/Home.form

once you start getting into senior designer/art director positions that number gets attainable pretty easily.

 

[RojoLeo]

So, the average US designer salary is $36k. That's as true in major cities as in hicksville? In the states you have more land; the UK and Europe is more urban where prices are *much* higher.

Actually, yeah it's pretty well distributed. in "hicksville" (we have a lot of that here, gotta be more specific) a salary would probably be around 20-25k, whereas in a major urban the salary would start at 30k for a junior position, and go up indefinitely depending on the company. In an average urban area, the average graphic designer makes around 40k.

What about comparing taxes, e.g. take-home pay? Also there's VAT at 17.5% on all transactions (higher in Europe) - in the 'States you pay 6ish percent (or none in some states), purchasing on-line avoids this tax.

I don't think you really want to start this argument considering the free university and health care you benefit from as a result of the taxes (at least I know it is in Scotland, not sure about the rest of the UK) And I don't know anywhere where the tax is as low as 6%. It starts out at around 8 and goes up depending on the state, then you have income tax which for middle income and above is at least 30%, then you have property taxes...it goes on and on.

 

[Glenny2lappies]

don't think you really want to start this argument considering the free university and health care you benefit from as a result of the taxes (at least I know it is in Scotland, not sure about the rest of the UK)...

I'll go with that! It's really difficult to compare like with like when looking at incomes and expenditures. My beef is simply that I hate being targeted to pay more, particularly in this age of the internet and where the products are identical.

As an aside, take a car - Jaguar? - it'll be about twice the price in the UK as in the States; despite the additional cost of shipping to the States.

This is one of the reasons the Brits are so sensitive to this; all suppliers like to take the piss and there's a general move to get consumers to do something about it by hitting them where it hurts. In the case of cars it's difficult as the manufacturers will do all they can to obfuscate the price. Adobe can't obfuscate their products; CS3 is identical in the States and the UK.

CS3 is about twice the price in the UK for no other reason than because Adobe think they can hike their prices and get away with it.

 

[popelife]

you do not start there but you can get there pretty quickly. its not uncommon at all.

http://www5.designersalaries.com/aigaaquent/Home.form

once you start getting into senior designer/art director positions that number gets attainable pretty easily.

Alright. So I used that website, selected "Senior Designer" and got their results for every North American city they list, and the result for "Outside North America".

The lowest median salary by a big margin was for Outside North America, at $40,000. (a little over £20,000)

The results for North America ranged from $50,000 (Minneapolis, and Denver) to $70,700 (San Francisco)

So, once again, explain to me how easy it is to make £36,000 or more (getting on for $70,000) as a designer in the UK?

I'm not saying it's not possible - I know some well-paid designers here in London, and they tend to move in circles where everyone else is well paid. So they may be under the illusion that everyone gets that kind of money. I'm just saying that for the majority of "designers" in the UK, working for printers, small provincial design houses, company in-house design departments, getting paid anything much over £30,000 is a dream. There are way more dead end jobs in UK design than there are well-paid ones. Only a minority ever attain the dizzying heights of "art director".

 

[Blue Velvet]

I'm not saying it's not possible - I know some well-paid designers here in London, and they tend to move in circles where everyone else is well paid.

Let me share a small secret. I'm a crap designer... pretty average, really. However, what I also do get paid for is production: managing a complex folio of work, managing multiple large projects at once, managing freelancers, managing a large amount of print buying and managing a bunch of Macs.

So, to get paid what I get paid, is more to do with a broader set of skills than designing... you know how much actual designing I did today? Probably about an hour or two's worth. The rest was meetings, phone calls, speccing work and taking briefs. Not glamorous but responsible to a lot of people...

 

[Glenny2lappies]

...what I also do get paid for is production: managing a complex folio of work, managing multiple large projects at once, managing freelancers, managing a large amount of print buying and managing a bunch of Macs....

Isn't that a design manager as opposed to a designer? Much like a sales manager and a salesman where the manager will do some sales, but the majority of time is spent managing people and expectations, etc.

Managers do earn more to reflect their enhanced responsibilities and risks.

I guess we've all missed the other aspect; freelance designers. That would be interesting to compare. In my experience they can expect between £200 and £500 per day with around £250/day being more common (juniors probably less although I rarely deal with them). Obviously this depends upon specialities, length of the job, and skills. I'm not sure how this compares with other people's experiences and that in the 'States?

 

[RojoLeo]

I'm not sure how this compares with other people's experiences and that in the 'States?

£200 and £500 per day would be roughly $400 to $1,000 a day or $100k to $250k per year....you'd be hard pressed to find many freelancers making that much money freelancing. That works out to about $50-$125 an hour...while designers may charge that, they're generally not working 40 hours a week at that rate.

I don't personally know a freelancer making more than $40k, but I live in a small urban area, not huge like NYC or LA.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Isn't that a design manager as opposed to a designer?

So you would think... anyway, that's what I do on some days, but today I'm just designing. Working at home, away from the phone calls and meetings, working on two projects.