FREELANCERS UNION BLOG

  • Community, Advice

Too Old to Be a Designer?

It must be something in the (youthful, spring) air that had both our policy guru Gabrielle and Creative Freelancer Blog's Laurel Black thinking about age on the same day. Gabrielle noticed some trends being reported in the news showing that older workers are facing particular employment challenges recently, and Laurel found herself wondering about the future of her own career for these very same reasons. Here's part of Laurel's story, "Too Old To Be A Designer?": "I am 61 and I have no intention of retiring. Let’s face it, design isn’t strenuous and after 30 years of working hard to get better, it’s more fun than ever. Milton Glaser is 81 and still works, so why not the rest of us? ... I don’t count on that lasting forever, though. At some point some new person, undoubtedly younger than me, will decide that this would be the perfect place to establish a design practice, and will aggressively go after my market share." Get the facts, read Laurel's story and her questions about the future, and share your thoughts. There's already a strong conversation brewing in the Creative Freelancer Blog comments!