Uber is the new kid on the block and a rising startup star. The losers: Taxis.
For digital natives it is easy to blame the taxi drivers for being technophobic and to laugh about their doom.
But what happens if disruption hits the digital natives themselves, those creative guys working for startups and things. You know, the cool people? What, if their work gets devalued?
Imagine, you need a logo. It was fiverr which made people think that this is a work worth 5$. Now, a new startup is disrupting the manual part of logo creation entirely: TailorBrands. They let an algorithm design your logo and charge 50 bucks for a complete set of logo, business cards and so on.
The cool people now tend to dislike it. However, it does the same thing to designers as Uber does to taxi drivers. Like in any other context, disruption and technophobia are something which depends on perspective.
There is nothing wrong with TailorBrands. There is nothing wrong with a company choosing a “bad” logo.
Photo by Sebastian Steins - CC BY SA
I’ve seen this wine stand on a German wine festival. It’s called “Sauerwein”, which is a real surname, but barely translates to “sour wine”. And it’s written in Comic Sans. Obviously, this stand has had the best wine around. At least it has had the most customers.
For that winemaker, the poor brand design clearly worked out. Why should he invest in a better logo?
Of course, talented designers could handcraft a better public appearance than a 5$-job or an algorithmic designer. But sometimes, the customer just does not need that. Just like a customer can decide to ride with Uber and not being insured. Yolo!
The bottom line here is that nearly all handcrafting businesses are prone to disruption and so is graphic design. However, there will always be a market for really good craftsmanship. Maybe, not a mass market, though.
tl;dr
Do not love or hate products because they are disruptive. If you’re a creative worker, it’s your job to outline the benefits of your work to your customer.