Can’t retire because I have no savings (financial crisis of 2008 - thank you bankers) and the state pension won’t be enough. I’ll be 60 next year so I’m just hoping to keep on working as long as possible. Already living on one third of what I was earning 10 years ago and still have debts from 2008 with no hope of clearing them, and the interest is taking 45% of what I earn.
If I was on my own and the time came I’d try robbing a bank - if I succeed I’d be set, if I get caught at least I get fed + housed, and lots of new friends . . .
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I think a lot of people who work in visual media never fully retire. Saul Bass was working up until the end. Milton Glaser is still going and he’s 90. The photographers Alfred Eisenstadt and Andre Kertesz were still working when they were pushing 100. I guarantee if I get to 90, I’ll still be putting in at least a few hours a week. My output will slow, but I’ll always be working. It’s mentally and creatively stimulating and I know I wouldn’t be able to completely walk away from that.
My bigger concern is walking into meetings and pitching my ideas while being the oldest person in the room. At 54, the implications of this are starting to be real.
Yup, I agree with you Mojo. Most of us started out in this field (while passing up more lucrative careers) because we feel driven to express our creativity and problem-solving abilities. I’m certain that personality trait won’t disappear when I hit 66 (or whenever) and decide to quit my 9-to-5 job of working for other people. For that matter, it might give me the freedom to be more selective about what I choose to do. Many people, for whatever reason, lack that drive. They retire, sit on the couch and watch TV. I’d get depressed and probably go nuts doing that.
All that considered, though, what I’m finding is that people start taking us less seriously as designers after about the age of 50. It’s bassackwards because that’s about the time when a good, motivated designer can finally state with confidence that he (or she) really does know what he’s doing. Everyone in their 20s and 30s, though, just wants us to get out of their way. Hit 60 and they think you’re so far over the hill as to be irrelevant. Ten years ago, I received calls from headhunters about once every week or two. Today, I have a hard time landing a simple interview.
People like Milton Glaser, however, have their considerable reputations to keep them going. I won’t mention his name, but I sometimes work with a designer who has that same kind of reputation. He retired a few years ago, then moved to Utah where I live. Within months he got bored, started up his own agency and, relying on his reputation, seemingly had clients waiting in the wings. Is he a great designer? Well, yeah, but probably no better than lots of others (including me). The difference, though, is he’s reasonably famous whereas the others aren’t. So I guess my advice to other, younger designers is to make sure you get famous before you get too far into your 40s. 
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There’s no Off Switch for people like me …sigh.
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"Old designers never die, they just fade away. "
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The impact of age in this industry is something I think about.
There are older designers that seem to be irrelevant, and there are designers like Paul Rand that could go into a room full of young people (including Steve Jobs) and own the place.
Ageism in our industry drives me crazy. I’m not saying it’s indicative of every situation, but we briefly had a smart and pretty talented designer on our team a little while back who was in his early 30s. Nice guy. not pretentious, asked questions, etc. … but what floored me was how little practical design knowledge that he knew. Don’t get me wrong, he could do the job and to most non-designers he did well.
But here I am in my mid 40s, and yup, I get worried that I’m already being viewed as “non-hirable” if my job goes belly up. It makes me start thinking about moving more into a managing role which age is considered more of a benefit. Ugh.
Try being over 50 and someone who never, at all, ever bought into social media.
That equals not only unhirable, but almost a commitment-worthy offense in some folks’ eyes.
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Again, though, I think Paul Rand’s already existing reputation is what wowed Steve Jobs into giving him carte blanche with the NeXT logo. When I was in my mid twenties, I met Saul Bass, and was equally wowed, but looking back, I’m reasonably sure it was his groundbreaking work in the 1960s that established his reputation that wowed me.
At work, the social media people fall under my supervision, and I largely set their agenda and priorities, then let them run with the ball on implementation. In client meetings, however, when social media is part of the equation, I’ve found that I absolutely must bring them into the room because clients invariably assume that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing and that all social media wisdom resides in the minds of young 20-year-olds. It’s weird.
The fact that these 20-year-olds know very little about strategy, tactics and the bigger picture of how everything fits together goes unappreciated. The clients don’t know that after the meeting I typically spend another 30 minutes in a follow-up session answering questions about what just took place, what it means and how we’ll go about developing a social media strategy around it.
Yes, did that without trying.
Age is definitely the reason I’m freelancing instead of looking for jobs. I’m older than, ahem, many of you.
But I’m waiting until 70 to officially retire, because the monthly social security benefits really jump at that age.
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You’re assuming there will be any Social Security left at that point.
I have a spare shopping cart you can have… 
B, I was talking more about something like this phenomenon.
Does GDF count?
Well, if you can believe the government, Social Security should remain to payout 100% benefits through 2034 and then if nothing is done at that point, it can payout 75% benefits more long-term.
So, for about 16 years, we’re good. My only problem is my retirement is coming in after that … sigh. I would hope, perhaps, that before that there will be enough of a public outcry to hopefully resolve the funding issue. If not … well, watch out for PD and his shopping cart.
It seems that the younger people are, the less distinction they make between strategy and tech-savvy. And now we are entering an age of technocracy. We will be replacing people with machines for all the wrong reasons.
Well, I’ll likely be housed in a dirty room inside the Alzheimer’s unit of a public rest home by then, so I won’t know the difference anyway. Getting my diapers changed and my catheter adjusted will be a bigger priority.
Having seen the inside of a relatively nice nursing home when my dad was sick, that is the last place I ever want to end up.
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Retirement/Nursing Homes are so incredibly insulting (and so too is 99.9999999 % of residential (and institutional) architecture in general, and yes that leaves just .0000001 % …and no I’m not exaggerating …I’m being generous!).
Life is a celebration of living … living is a celebration of life.
To gang / mass rape the aged is nothing short of a heinous criminal act perpetrated by what has been allowed to culturally pass as ‘architecture’.
I’m a product of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural schooling so don’t even get me started. There’s very little else that can get me more upset than the wanton manipulation of the essential elements which we need by NATURE to exist … nothing … architecture is one of those elements.
For ever corporations have puked up vile architectural residential structures cookie-cutting short your natural celebration of Life … through PURE ignorance and contempt.
Harsh words?
Not even close … note that not one swear word was used … I must softening/maturing … either that or I haven’t had enuff to drink!
Even becoming Soylent Green gives you that long lasting moment of happiness at the end.
It haunts me to this day that on one visit to my dad, a woman was sitting on a bench by the nurses’ station, all prettily dressed with nice shoes, hat, coat and white gloves, her purse in her lap. A nurse told her it was nearly suppertime, time to go back to her room.
“But I’m waiting for the bus to take me home,” she said.
“Honey you missed the bus,” said the nurse.
OMG, the chin quivers and the tears in her eyes, but not crying out loud, as she got up and slowly walked back down the hallway…
I can only hope she lived in the moment but I can’t imagine doing that every day.
I hated that nurse.
Did you actually study at Taliesin?
Yes, Taliesin West. I started off here in Ottawa at Carleton’s School of Architecture and during my first semester it was recommended that I apply. So I did … Class of '93. Back then it was called the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.
Let me say much about pure Architecture … Architecture is a life force on to itself.