Creative Industries Master's Research Survey

Student Forum
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Hello!

I’m a master’s student at the University of Glasgow studying Creative Industries and Cultural Policy, with an interest in highlighting graphic design within creative industries scholarship. I’m also a professional graphic designer, and if there’s one thing I’ve noticed - it’s that graphic design is not taken seriously in academia and there’s not enough research on the creative lives and work practices of graphic designers. I’m trying to change that.

I’ve been reaching out to all possible platforms to hear from graphic designers in the UK and I’d really appreciate if you could fill out this 10 minute survey to help me research design software use among freelance and formally employed graphic designers in the UK. I’m also happy to schedule a more detailed interview on top of the survey if you’d like. Thanks in advance!

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Filled out - not from the UK though - but hope it helps

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The opening statement of your form, while possibly intended to be cute, indicates extreme bias.
That’s not good for a research design.
It signals to your respondents that perhaps you may not consider their input seriously if it conflicts with your bias and may actually cause some not to answer the survey.

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I didn’t read the opening statement - dreary and contrived come to mind.

I’ve never encountered software that didn’t annoy me in some way. That’s just part of working with software, you either work around it, adapt, or move to something else.

As for Adobe’s subscription model… it is what it is. A client asked me about it recently. They charge their own clients for amendments, so I asked how much a typical amendment costs. The answer was around €50 and up. One amendment in a single day effectively pays for an entire month of Adobe for one seat.

It’s the same logic in everyday life. I’m currently focused on clearing a pile of loans, and simply cutting out two takeaways a month frees up around €50–€60. Add in cutting back on alcohol and Lotto tickets and suddenly there’s enough money to aggressively pay down debt by the end of the year.

Everything is relative. If you want Adobe software, you pay for it like any other professional tool. Sometimes that means giving up something else in your budget to justify it.

And if Adobe isn’t worth it to you, there are alternatives, Canva, Affinity, Inkscape and others. Some are cheaper, some are free, some have limitations depending on the workflow.

Nobody is forcing anyone to use Adobe. But it remains the industry standard for a reason. When clients, print shops, agencies, or collaborators expect native files, they expect industry-standard formats and workflows. If you move outside that ecosystem, the cost doesn’t magically disappear, it usually comes back later in file conversion, compatibility fixes, production issues, or extra compliance work.

And that usualy bites the client in the backside costwise, which puts the originator in a pickle with them.

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Thanks for your thoughts. To be honest I was worried about that from the start. I want to clarify that this is a supervised dissertation at a university with a high standard for academic rigor, and my supervisor is quite senior in academia. I ran it by him and he said he liked it, so this was put out after a feedback process.

It’s not my intent to make it seem like Adobe is forcing anyone, or any other software for that matter. If you’ve had positive experiences that’s also something I want to capture. I’ll amend the opening statement, but I hope my intent is coming across. ‘People being frustrated with Adobe’ or ‘chilling with canva’ isn’t something I’ve made up out of nowhere - these are opinions you’ll readily find anywhere. Expressing an opinion is not automatically bias.

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I’m totally hearing your feedback about the opening statement as PrintDriver has pointed out as well.

But about everything else - that’s kind of the whole point. Research doesn’t have to mean “I’m trying to prove XYZ is bad and evil!”, it can also just be “what’s everyone doing in this particular group”. Part of my research aims is to find out if complaints about Adobe are from a vocal minority and actually everyone is perfectly happy with them, or if, in fact, it’s not such a clear cut picture.

I hope that makes sense?

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The object of research is to be objective. A Masters dissertation (I’m in the US) usually starts with a question to be explored. I’m not sure what your question is.

I’m willing to bet your advisor is an Art Department person, not a research person. My first career dealt with a lot of botanical research. Maybe that’s why the statement raised hackles.

I’m not sure where you came up with “chillin with Canva.” Canva is eating the bottom end of the Graphic Design industry. I do a lot of print, probably considered the higher-end one-off part of the industry. Not one of my clients uses it. I’m hoping to retire before one does. It’s probably totally fine within its own little ecosystem if you don’t mind what plops out the end of their printers (that’s another whole pet peeve about what “acceptable quality” is these days.) Just don’t try to run exported files through a local print shop without expecting issues, some of them catastrophic.

Adobe has its faults. But I’ve been using it since around 1992. Pre CS.
The whole experience with Adobe, IMO, boils down to this: Don’t let your laptop/desktop OS get ahead of the Adobe updates and don’t do ANY updates until at least the .1 or .2 fixes come out (and even then, make sure your hardware drivers are compatible and backup backup backup!) The people who complain the most are the bleeding-edgers that have to download the latest, maybe-not-so-greatest, then wonder why things break.

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Like the others, I’m not in the UK either. This forum has members from the UK, but its members live and work in countries around the world.

If your questionnaire is specifically targeting UK residents, most respondents from this forum won’t qualify. If your questionnaire accepts responses from around the world, you missed an important question: where respondents live. There are vast differences in education, work habits, software used, employment, and clients from one country to the next. For example, a YouTube-trained designer in Pakistan working online through crowdsourcing contests is in a very different situation from a formally trained designer employed at an agency in London.

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I have asked where respondents are located at the end in the demographic section. And yes this is targeting the UK precisely because I am aware the context changes from place to place. Also it’s in the title lol :sweat_smile:

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I think the tricky part about researching this is that software gripes are just the loudest thing on the internet but they aren’t the “heart” of professional design.

When you’re starting out, it feels like the big showdown is Adobe vs. The World. But after you’ve spent enough years juggling client demands, print specs, agency handovers, and tight deadlines, you realize the logo on the splash screen is actually the least of your worries.

Professional teams usually stick to whatever causes the fewest headaches. It’s not just about “liking” a tool; it’s about, predictable output, the handover, reliability etc.

A free tool isn’t automatically better just because it’s $0. In this industry, cost is just one variable.

If we’re being honest, the bigger issue is that the barrier to entry is basically non-existent. Anyone can jump into the market overnight without knowing the first thing about print production or accessibility standards. When you have people competing for the same jobs without that technical foundation, it drags down the pricing and the perceived value of the craft for everyone.

Instead of asking “Why do people hate Adobe?” which, let’s be real, people love to complain about everything, the more interesting research is in the fragmentation of the industry.

We should be looking at how much of our work is now driven by “content churn” and platform convenience rather than the long-term technical expertise that used to define a “designer.”

I think a lot of the hate towards Adobe comes from people who just aren’t willing to buy the software to use it, yet they’ll charge clients. We had that through the 90’s and 2000’s where people could easily pirate software, and use it in professional settings without ever paying Adobe a penny.

But now it’s subscription based, and sure you can probably get cracked versions of any software. But most Adobe users are pros and the cost of software use is baked into the cost of the business.

I find it amazing people will spend 2-5k on a Macbook - and pay 2-3k for a monitor - but when it comes to paying for Adobe software it’s a rip-off… that doesn’t make sense to me.

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Instead of asking “Why do people hate Adobe?” which, let’s be real, people love to complain about everything, the more interesting research is in the fragmentation of the industry.

^ This.

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True. :smiley: I answered the questions, anyway. You can disregard them, of course.

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For the record I don’t hate Adobe any more than I hate any one of our print machines. Things break. As Smurf said though, it’s all about getting things done and through production and out the door on time and on budget. Adobe is industry wide standard. If a designer came to me with a Canva file that goes toes up in the rip, they lose their place in the print queue for whatever machine the were booked for, and would likely have to pay my hourly system time rate to fix whatever went wrong. We charge $$$ per hour, Yeah three figures ,for my production expertise. We ask first. :innocent:

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In addition, they don’t need to know anything about design. I spent six years in university classes studying design, and not once did I take a software class. They should have been part of the required curriculum, but the school regarded them as things to learn on the job or to learn on one’s own. Then again, software wasn’t as essential as it is today when I went to school.

As for print production, an appreciation for it was gained through the required internships, where real-world problems complemented the academic classes (sometimes in contradictory ways).

I’m not a fan of Adobe’s subscription model for various reasons, but I understand the business model behind it that makes sense for them. I pay more for my internet connection and considerably more for the new computer I just bought. They’re business expenses that factor into determining fees. For that matter, the expenses of owning our dog exceed any of these.

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First off, I want to really appreciate everyone’s perspectives. I agree so much with everything you’ve all said. In fact in my bachelor’s design course a shocking proportion of my tutors weren’t at all concerned with print readiness or file optimization, and the one faculty who was well trained in designing for print and was super passionate about teaching it was appalled that no one else had taught us anything like that. The emphasis on ‘content’ as Smurf2 says really shows in how design is taught these days. It’s really frustrating because I felt completely unprepared when I had to start internships and then full-time work.

I also want to point out that considering how strongly we have opinions on the subject you’d think graphic design would get corresponding attention in creative industries and cultural policy research but that really isn’t the case. And that’s what I’m trying to build contributions to, a little at a time. And if anyone disagrees about the lack of research, please feel free to send me existing research that matches mine lol I’m only too happy to add to my literature review.

Research in the humanities can be from so many angles - I’m not solely looking to say expensive = bad = problem. I’m interested in people’s relationships with their tools, the way they interact with them, the way they perceive their usefulness etc. The reactions from more experienced designers to Canva being brought up, for example, is itself noteworthy. Similarly those of us who see the value in Adobe - that’s also worth studying. I hope I’m making sense. The point is that all of these opinions pretty much only float around online or among conversations at work. But when policy is framed that affect the entire creative industries academic scholarship is really important.

I have to admit I was a little disheartened by the earlier comments critiquing the research design (I’ve clearly been away from design work too long haha used to be able to take complete lambasting without issue) but ultimately, I’m new to this and I only have a short time window to conduct this research. There’s so so much more that can be studied about graphic design and you better believe I mean to tackle as much as I can - I’m hoping to carry on into academia! Thanks for all the opinions everyone! I was initially worried I would get no reaction at all but I’m happy there’s lively discussion :smiley:

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Are you saying you want to become a university professor? If so, fantastic! More good ones are needed to keep up with the rapidly changing AI-driven landscape.

I spent ten years working in design before heading back for my Master’s work. Once there, I found the professors woefully behind or detached from the realities of how the profession works in the real world. They were far more interested in unconstrained creativity, aesthetics, and academic politics, as though design was a type of fine art. They didn’t see strategizing to solve visual communication problems as a primary goal of design. Instead, the number of awards they could win at design shows seemed to motivate them. As a result, I constantly argued with my graduate committee.