My unexceptional life

Print is dead and I don’t feel so good either.

Print is dead people - there I said it. I realize this blog is going out to people I know in the industry namely print designers, marketing directors and printers.

This begins with my former VP of Marketing, who knew nothing about modern and e-savvy marketing - telling a marketing group with miscellaneous titles and job descriptions, that we were all dinosaurs.

The thing was he was looking right at me when he said it.

Me a dinosaur? What does he know? He fired me and the rest of the marketing staff 6 weeks later. One AE was promoted to another position. But the rest of us sank like a vintage Chris-Craft sailing along the East African coastline in Pirate’s Cove. But I add color merely to distract from the truth. I was depressed and pissed. I filed for unemployment. I took a client from them who still had a marketing budget, I demanded my husband get a job (he was a stay-at-home-dad and fine artist) I cursed the economy. I developed my own blog. I went to many a cocktail hour (and have the bar-marks on my forehead to prove it) and I sobbed to friends: “Why can’t I find a job?” I was after all:

Promoted three times within my marketing group finally becoming the creative director.

I was passionate about my work and its quality.

I worked well with the other marketing folk - and don’t belittle this, we had some real weirdos and pain-in-the-asses there. I laughed and made others laugh. We moved fast and had a good time doing it.

I stayed late and sweated and did way more to make sure the materials and the branding were emotional, memorable and targeted. We made sure all budgets were maintained.

The logos, elaborate materials and beautiful brochures our team created were always, ALWAYS admired by my fellow print designers.

But I was shit-canned without notice, obligation or memory. Granted I was in the housing industry and was not too surprised, right? Not too surprised? Right. I was blown away. But I work so hard?

I realize now, that although I have a craft, I am in fact a dinosaur in this business. My idiot boss knew it and well I guess I knew it too. I need only go to Talent Zoo or any blog or marketing placement service post and realize the geeks have taken over the studio. They are web savvy and certified.

Here is a listing from Jason: Jason S. - website design, html/Xhtml, Flash Animation/Action Script, CSS2,Web2.0 - Freelance Website & Graphic Designer.

Huh? HTML? Action Script? What happened to CS3? I make things pretty, damn you!?!

And you know the response I get from print designers? Oh, but you are a designer, you work WITH programmers. This may be true. I certainly would rather look at a Domino magazine than WIRED. Oh man, “wired”? Really?

But you know how many job interviews I have been on in 6 months? One. ONE. Web is where it is at and the less you know, the less you are valued no matter how talented you think you might be.

This will be an interesting process for me; I’ll keep you posted.