Hello;
I’m wondering which specific design field to focus on in the future. The industry keeps changing and some roles may no longer exist; so I want to invest in skills/career that wont be considered ancient in 10 years.
I’ve worked in a team responsible for almost anything from digital to print, but likely I will want to move on to a bigger role at some point, so would like to know your opinion on this matter. :)
In 10 years’ time, everything could potentially be considered ancient, or not.
These are volatile times. Nobody knows.
I think the human-centred areas, where you want a real human, will prevail.
If there are still CEOs, they probably don’t want to make prompts to an AI, they want someone to understand and feel them. And I think creativity at a high level will still need consciousness and a soul.
Striving for a greater role sounds like a good plan to me.
You could learn a bit about psychology, marketing and communication.
Don’t prioritise how to use new software, but do that too.
But what do I know? 
What area are you excited about?
My answer would depend on whether you’re already a working professional, a student, or someone trying to break into the business without an education.
If it’s the latter, I suggest enrolling in a respected university design program or finding another field. The future doesn’t bode well for the self-educated in this field.
Since you’re a junior designer, I’ll assume you’re an educated working professional.
As @Joe alluded, there is no segment of the field with long-term job security. Ten or 15 years down the road, everything will be different. It’s always been that way, and the timeline for change is constantly accelerating. Plan on changing your design career path and emphasis several times during your career.
The most important part of an education is the basics, which won’t change. Learn how to think critically. Learn how to be creative. Learn how to analyze. Learn the elements of design. Study typography. Foster a neverending sense of curiosity about everything. As Joe also mentioned, study psychology, marketing, business, and every other discipline somehow related to design.
Everything is important, and the more of these ideas and disciplines you incorporate into your design thinking, the better off you will be in having the flexibility to embrace
the inevitable change that will occur throughout your career.
Even when I was learning over a four year course, times changed so much, the course was reduced to two years, and now it’s 1 year as far as I know.
Went from camera, film, manual plate imposition, to computer to plate. And that was just the prepress equipment. We went from 10 in the department to two in space of 4 years.
Went from photographers, illustrators, to stock books then later stock image websites.
The other day I generated a very realistic video with text prompts. It’s unbelievable how it’s moving.
But if you’re on the tracks you better keep moving.
At least moving faster than the locomotive bearing down on you…
Good point, I agree!
Probably new software wont be difficult to learn if one knows one’s way around the current ones… but I might be wrong.
At least the software changes come along at a rate that doesn’t make it too difficult to keep up. I’d hate learning it all from scratch, though.
Yes, and I think 4 years in university is absolutely not enough, especially that we were unfortunate to spend most of it online, because of pandemic.
But then how do I confront recruiters who think constantly changing makes you unreliable and at the same time, doing one thing means you’re not good enough for other things -_-
I will!
Thank you for the thorough answer!
1 year?? But how can they teach anything more than the basics during that short time? :/
I’ll try to do a better job explaining.
Diving head-first into the newest and most promising technological changes will make you more employable, not less. You’ll be ahead of the curve and ahead of the people who wait to be dragged and kicked into doing something different.
The problem with waiting until it’s a do-or-die situation is that the market is glutted with those who jumped in sooner. Being in the small pool of first adopters means the recruiters come looking for you rather than vice versa. Once everyone else catches up, it’s usually time for the next big jump to the next big thing. You get rewarded for being first, and not for being one of the also-rans.
The industry changed so much even in the few years I was learning. We went from using a manual process camera to a film setter, then to a plate setter, and before we knew it, digital processes started replacing analogue ones. What I learned in four years was already becoming obsolete by the time I finished the course. The industry moves fast.
My Inner Dialogue—Enjoy:
When I started, I was told straight up if I didn’t know how to do everything by year two, I wouldn’t be kept on at the print company. The government-backed apprenticeship programme was officially four years, like all apprenticeships in my country at the time, but in reality, the learning curve was steep, and expectations were high.
I worked while going to college, and the curriculum wasn’t just about design. It covered everything plate making, drum scanning, illustration, photography, and using process cameras. Prepress was hands-on, and understanding the technical side was just as important as design theory.
This is a process camera in a darkroom every prepress department had one back then (not me in the photo).
Back then, learning prepress wasn’t just about clicking around in software. It was a full-on dive into the entire printing process. You had to understand how everything worked, from halftone dots and plate making to colour separations and the chemistry of developing film.
For example, we had to learn halftone theory, how tiny dots arranged in patterns could simulate different tones in an image. You had to know about dot gain (how much those dots would spread when printed), screen angles, line screen frequencies, all things that could make or break a print job.
Oh, and when I started (IMAGINE THIS) the internet wasn’t even a thing. Well, it existed, but we didn’t have it at work. I started my apprenticeship in 2000, and by 2004, only the estimators and sales team had email access. There was no learning about digital design, web, apps, or UX/UI. Back then, if you were learning design, you were learning it for print.
And that’s where prepress came in. Designers could make something look great on screen, but that didn’t mean it would work in print. We were the ones who stripped artwork apart and rebuilt it properly so it would print the way it was supposed to.
Courses and apprenticeships back then covered a ridiculous amount of ground. It wasn’t just about making things look good you had to know the technical side and how to physically produce a job.
We used process cameras in darkrooms to make large negatives or positives for printing plates. Operating those cameras meant knowing how to handle light, exposure times, and the chemical developing process.
Then there were drum scanners for scanning images at high resolutions, film processors to develop the negatives, and RIPs (Raster Image Processors) to convert artwork into something a plate setter could understand.
For example, we had an art gallery want to make a catalogue. They had to get a photographer to take a picture and make photographic transparency - also known as a reversal film or positive film - and the industry called them ‘trannys’ (not sure they could still call them that these days YIKES!
I’d take those ‘trannys’ and mount them on the drum scanner, and they had to be meticulously scanned and colour corrected, this meant the Art Gallery had to bring the Art to the printing company in a specially controlled room for light conditions, so that the image could be colour corrected - and let me tell you, security was HIGH that day.
But these days there would be no need for any of this - a digital photographer would go into the galery, create their own light conditions, photograph and colour correct on the laptop there and then. Process got easier, no need for drum scanners or anything I mentioned.
Platemaking which is now done CTP (computer to plate) no human interaction required (mostly) - and more recently CTD (computer to drum) - directly to the printing press - so even less human intervention. And of course digital printing negates platemaking altogether.
Platemaking was a step-by-step process:
Prepare the metal or polyester plate
Coat it with a light-sensitive emulsion
Expose it to UV light through a film negative or positive
Develop the plate to reveal the image areas
Apply gum arabic to protect the non-image areas
Rinse and dry the plate
Punch the plate for grip on the printing machine
Mount it onto the press for printing
It was all very manual, and you had to know what you were doing.
As digital took over, the workflow became less about film, plates, and darkrooms, and more about computers, PDFs, and colour management software. But even though the tools changed, the need for technical knowledge hasn’t gone away.
Today, prepress is all about digital file prep, colour management, and automation. Designers focus on digital publishing and creating for multiple formats, print, web, mobile, social media. It’s more about file formats, resolutions, and ensuring designs look good across screens and printed materials.
But here’s the thing while software has automated a lot of the old-school processes, it hasn’t replaced understanding them. A bad design file is still a bad design file, and if you don’t know how print works, your work is going to cause problems.
Back then, you had to understand halftone dots, dot gain, trapping, overprinting, and how inks physically behaved on press. You worked with film and chemicals, stripping artwork by hand.
Now, it’s more about ensuring digital files are correct resolution, colour modes, bleeds, and file formats. A lot of the hands-on, tactile learning is gone, but the core principle remains you need to know how to make something work.
The industry has changed, but prepress is still the bridge between design and print. The tools are different, but the goal is the same, get the best possible result on press.
So I guess with all the mechanical guff basically gone - you can learn it more quickly.
Never even mentioned impositions, manual imposing to learning PREPs - preflight management and all other sorts of things.
And had to walk to work in the snow with no shoes - we sure had it harder back then.
While in my university program, I interned at a place with three of these gargantuan, room-sized process cameras. I wish I had a photo of them, but this one will do.
We did learn about principles in print (except it wasn’t deep technical knowledge) and pretty much bits about this and that; which is why I think 4 years of studying isn’t particularly enough, because it only gives one a general idea of the field - so one can pursue a more specified path later.
Yes, I respect that. So much hard work and not everybody would bother to put the dedication.
Every granny when we complain about anything:
(justkidding)
Edit: typo
This looks like it could transfer you to another universe
Yeh, we definitely didn’t sit in front of a computer all day.
Everything was designed with pencil and paper first, meticulously drawing out the layout/designs and then only after approval would we be allowed on the computer - this was in college.
Everything was ruled out with Pica/Points ruler - I remember having to buy a calibrated steel rule - kinda like this
Then the computer representation had to look exactly has your hand drawn draft.
To be honest, I think the software portion of it was only a couple of hours per week. If that.
Most of it in college was theory, study, papers, essays, manual make-up, the software learning was probably the easiest portion of it - at least for me.
For me starting most -if not all- projects with pencil and paper has been the way to go :) but yes in the end it had to be in digital format in order to get printed for approval.
Edit: I also remember some of our professors encouraging us to do the pencil & paper first… but I don’t know whether if it’s changed now.
One of my print vendors still had one of those when I visited their shop nearly 30 years ago (but a little bigger and on rails embedded in the floor,) and it was a relic then! Now they have, I’d guess 15 wide format digital printers of various flavors in the space that one thing took up.
I worked in a silk screen shop back in my 20s, this is the stuff I used on a daily basis, shooting negatives and positives in a dark room (orthocromatic film, red-light safe)…
I spent 80% of the day in them and 20% hunched over a light table touching up the negatives.
Fun times!
