Related to the NYT article about Gen X-ers in creative industries that I posted yesterday, graphic design historian Steven Heller explores what happened with advertising—specifically print—creative in the 2000s.

Advertising did not change when the Times Square ball fell at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, but the industry began its creative decline in the early 2000s. Here are several indicators to support this claim: For one, the traditional print outlets for advertisements, notably magazines and newspapers, sharply declined in numbers (some turning to digital-only) during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Major advertisers were cutting print budgets and earmarking creative talent for television work. TV had already plucked away many of the most imaginative ad-people during the preceding decades, and print slipped lower down on the hierarchical ladder.

He continues:

The work of 1960s and 1970s “mad men” smothered conventional establishment agencies at Art Directors Club award competitions, spawning the innovative Big Idea creative dynamic where exceptional art directors and copywriters made witty, ironic and suggestive slogans and visuals. But, by the early 2000s, these teams started to cede their dominance with, among the other social factors, the death of many national print magazines and the failure of television networks to retain large audiences in the face of cable.

In my first couple of years in design school, I was enamored with advertising. It seemed so glamorous to be making ads that appeared in glossy magazines and on TV. I remember visiting the offices of an agency in San Francisco—the name escapes me—and just loving the vibe and the potential. After graduation and into my career, I would brush up against ad agencies, collaborating with them on the pieces my design company was working on. Sometimes it was with FCB on Levi’s retail work, or BBDO for Mitsubishi Motors digital campaigns. I ended up working for a small ad agency in 2010, PJA Advertising & Marketing, doing B2B ads. It was fun and I learned a lot, but it wasn’t glamorous.

Anyway, back to Heller’s article…it’s reinforcing the idea that our—potentially Boomers, Gen Xers, and even Millennials—mental model of the creative and media world must change due to reality. And we must pivot our careers or be left behind.

Steven Kurtz, writing for The New York Times:

For many of the Gen X-ers who embarked on creative careers in the years after [Douglas Coupland’s Generation X] was published, lessness has come to define their professional lives.

If you entered media or image-making in the ’90s — magazine publishing, newspaper journalism, photography, graphic design, advertising, music, film, TV — there’s a good chance that you are now doing something else for work. That’s because those industries have shrunk or transformed themselves radically, shutting out those whose skills were once in high demand.

My first assumption was that Kurtz was writing about AI and how it’s taking away all the creative jobs. Instead, he weaves together a multifactorial illustration about the diminishing value of commercial creative endeavors like photography, music, filmmaking, copywriting, and design.

“My peers, friends and I continue to navigate the unforeseen obsolescence of the career paths we chose in our early 20s,” Mr. Wilcha said. “The skills you cultivated, the craft you honed — it’s just gone. It’s startling.”

Every generation has its burdens. The particular plight of Gen X is to have grown up in one world only to hit middle age in a strange new land. It’s as if they were making candlesticks when electricity came in. The market value of their skills plummeted.

It’s more than AI, although certainly, that is top of everyone’s mind these days. Instead, it’s also stock photography and illustrations, graphic templates, the consolidation of ad agencies, the revolutionary rise of social media, and the tragic fall of traditional media.

Similar shifts have taken place in music, television and film. Software like Pro Tools has reduced the need for audio engineers and dedicated recording studios; A.I., some fear, may soon take the place of actual musicians. Streaming platforms typically order fewer episodes per season than the networks did in the heyday of “Friends” and “ER.” Big studios have slashed budgets, making life for production crews more financially precarious.

Earlier this year, I cited Baldur Bjarnason’s essay about the changing economics of web development. As an opening analogy, he referenced the shifting landscape of film and television.

Born in 1973, I am squarely in Generation X. I started my career in the design and marketing industry just as the internet was taking off. So I know exactly what the interviewees of Kurtz’s article are facing. But by dogged tenacity and sheer luck, I’ve been able to pivot and survive. Am I still a graphic designer like I was back in the mid-1990s? Nope. I’m more of a product designer now, which didn’t exist 30 years ago, and which is a subtle but distinct shift from UX designer, which has existed for about 20 years.

I’ve been lucky enough to ride the wave with the times, always remembering my core purpose.

Such a gorgeous visual essay from Amelia Wattenberger. Beyond being wonderful to look at, the content is just as thought-provoking. Her experiment towards the middle of the piece is interesting. In our world of flat design and design systems, Amelia is truly innovating.