Today is a sad day in downtown Boston. As I was heading into work I saw workers hanging a Borders bookstore closing sign.
Boston is still suffering the huge gaping hole that once was the Filene’s building. Now to have this huge landmark of a store pack up shop will probably turn this area of Boston into a ghost town.
It was inevitable that Borders would eventually close, thanks to the popularity of the Kindel and iPad. I fear this is just the tip of the iceberg of an already in full swing trend away from print media. So what’s a print designer to do you may ask?
Well, there’s no need to go into a full on panic yet. There will always be a need for print graphic designers for some time to come, just probably a lot less book, newspaper and magazine ones. There will be, however, an ever growing demand for web designers and web developers. If you haven’t already, start learning at least the basics of web design and at the bare minimum how to hand code HTML and CSS. The more you know as a designer, the better off you will be in this field.