This is kind of a sensitive subject for me. I’m in a dying industry, they are announcing giants in my field falling, practically everyday. You see, I’m a newspaper designer. When I started at my job about 10 years ago, fresh out of school, I couldn’t have imagined what I am seeing today. Small weeklys going down as well as big dailys biting the dust. Luckily for me I’m in what they call a nitch publication, but yet I can’t help but feel that my days may be numbered the more we move to the web.
I do feel fortunate that I took that one web design class back in ‘96. I took it on a whim, to get the credits and I thought it would be cool to know how to make a web page, whatever that was. I had a great teacher and became very interested in the subject. Over the years I’ve developed my skills more and more, learning CSS and PHP on my own and now, hopefully Ruby on Rails!
Where am I going with this?
I have a backup plan, and you should too. I see a lot of designers focus too much on one discipline and I think this recession is a good opportunity to broaden your skills. If your in print learn the web – like yesterday. If your in web, learn print or development.