Respect the Craft: Why Creatives Deserve Respect Just as any Other Profession

I’m a creative — always have been, always will be. From interior decorating my bedroom with Southwest-themed, adobe-style wallpaper and Native American trinkets in 9th grade while getting A’s on English Honors class papers throughout high school — to freelance writing decades later for DSN and Examiner.com. And don’t even get me started on playing the piano throughout childhood and songwriting for the singing group I was in for a brief stint, or even choreographing dance routines for cheerleading squads and step troupes. I’m even obsessed with Project Runway and HGTV’s DesignStar. Creativity is in my blood! It was only natural to eventually gravitate to a career that propelled this passion to create — design and communications. I can honestly say that I was actually ahead of the curve with the illustrious ‘creator economy’ way back before it was a thing — having turned my passion into my own solopreneur venture in 2006, a creative agency. And even though it’s the hot new thing and many clearly see value in our place in the economy, the question still arises from our encounters with non-creatives: when will creatives get the respect deserved for their craft?

How does the disrespect manifest itself? In a myriad of ways and due to a variety of factors — from being viewed as a ‘replaceable commodity’ or the growth of “do it yourself” tools, apps and software that has truly democratized design and communications. And so many fellow creatives I know have experienced different levels of disrespect…

My dear colleague Asheya Warren, Founder of Praxis Marketing and Communications for Professional Services firms said she has felt insulted when Project Managers approach her with the “will you pretty this up?” because of the pervasive perception that design is as simple as a “drag and drop” in a word processor — with no clue about the true talent, effort or time required for our craft. Ironically, I can commiserate with her frustration as I too started my agency with a client in the design and construction industry — where it became a regular occurrence for technical staff to downplay the importance of your role in creating an aesthetically-pleasing and technically-sound proposal to bring new work in the door. It was humiliating — to say the least.

Or Crystal Perry, who runs her own brand strategy firm and is the founder of #fortheculture wearables on SecondSixty.com laments that she has felt disrespected when proximity feeds an unhealthy dynamic: “I used to have a working relationship with a friend who called me and dumped his ‘newest and greatest’ idea in my lap, and then did nothing…. while I was charged with doing all of the labor of executing the idea(s) — with compensation never making its way to the convo.” Crystal sighs with exasperation as she thinks of how often this occurs.

Have you been there?

How many times have you been insulted by requests for doing things pro bono? From that annoying nonprofit client calling you with the “need your help designing these social media ads, but I don’t have a budget.” Or the committee chair in the charity you volunteer with who refuses to acknowledge that you are actually running a business doing this, but asks you to donate your talents, instead.

The fact is — it’s important to educate those who devalue creative work on the obvious: it’s a trade, a skill…like any other profession. It requires talent, a creative eye and technical understanding of things like CMYK color palettes and the like! Yes — any novice can attempt to design something or take a stab at persuasive writing — but will it be original, polished and effective?

How do you approach this?

1. Show them the money. Creative staffing agency AQUENT has an awesome tool you can pull up that shows salaries of creative roles across industries on an hourly basis — so that you can quantify your value with any project or campaign: https://vitamintalent.com/check-salary.
2. Show them your process. If you carve out 5–10 minutes to perform an introductory ‘demo design’ or ‘demo release/copywriting piece/article’ to show them visually your process and all that it entails — what it requires to design, create or write something compelling and dynamic — it will be well worth your time…and serve to diminish questions down the line. This demonstrates clearly that the value lies in the time, expertise, and experience.
3. Show them examples. You must begin to get comfortable pointing out the difference between good design (and other creative works)…and bad design. As you build up your portfolio or work — testimonials lend credibility and those who are willing to invest in the best, will.

It’s a real thing. InfluencerMarketingHub.com reported that not only has the movement for creatives to monetize their passions led to a “rise in new career opportunities” but “50 million join the creator economy” was the projection in 2019.