AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2010 is the most comprehensive annual survey of compensation data for the communication design profession in the United States. It reports the actual 2009 salary ranges for design positions among AIGA members and related professionals in the United States.

In 2009, the design profession experienced the same devastating disruption that hit the economy as a whole. Designers were certainly among the more than eight million Americans to lose their jobs, and that, in turn, has influenced both the demand for labor and compensation patterns. However, by all indications, this downturn in employment for the design profession has been more selective than sweeping.

Anecdotal evidence and industry data indicate that corporate design departments and advertising agencies suffered the most employment losses. At the same time, the broader discussions about adaptive strategies for corporations often hinged on innovation, design and design thinking. Hence, demand for design was not eliminated, and business at many independent studios remained active. Those studios were not necessarily hiring, but they were very busy picking up newly outsourced work from corporate departments and other clients seeking competitive differentiation for their products.

For recent graduates, the opportunities, where available, often consisted of low-paying or unpaid internships, without benefits. In some fields of design, “permalancers”–those freelancers who are retained indefinitely, with no security and little chance of becoming regular staff in the foreseeable future–had to simply appreciate having work when so many others did not.

What we have heard from design-studio heads is that they are working harder, but margins are smaller. Hence, the productivity gains that individual employees are contributing are not being rewarded because clients (internal or external) may not be paying for those gains.

The good news is that the Design Leaders Confidence Index for the third and fourth quarters of 2009 has shown that the profession’s leading designers are confident that the design economy has hit bottom and will be recovering over the coming months. The index held at 98, up from 51 in October 2008 and consistent with designers’ attitudes between 2005 and 2007.

The way for individual designers to increase their value and compensation is through consistent training and professional development that allows them to move up in the range of responsibilities they assume. This is not unique to design–for all professions, continuous learning is critical in our rapidly (and we mean rapidly) evolving business environment. It is also important to begin to apply design-thinking skills in solving clients’ more complex strategic problems as well as their fundamental communication problems in order to demonstrate the greater value that designers can create for clients–warranting greater compensation.

In this year’s report on designers’ salaries, we have asked a number of prominent design professionals to offer the following advice: If you could recommend a skill (or skills) that a designer today should develop for success within the next three years, what would that be? We hope their insights will be useful to designers at all stages of their careers.

Richard Grefé
Executive director