Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
To OP:
Go with your initial hunch. A career in any role in banking, even ops and support, is more stable and pays better than an average designer. I can think of two reasons:
- Singapore is a very well-established banking and financial centre. While designer roles are needed in all industries, there is nothing in Singapore that particularly makes designer roles special here (in short, we are not Italy).
- People still have the idea, whether rightly or wrongly, that design tasks can easily be outsourced to other countries. For example, it is a common practice for startups to outsource screen designs of their apps to countries like Philippines, where talented freelance designers charge almost 10x lower than local ones. You should know. I bet you had classmates or even lecturers who outsourced their work. As such, the value of design work here is unfairly depressed compared with other types of work. (Programming used to suffer from this as well, but due to the Smart Nation push recently, it is enjoying some form of renaissance. Not sure when designers will get lucky.)
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lucrative careers in the banking sector = RMs = SALES
designers = craftsperson
what u are trying to achieve is totally different. designers or people in the creative field (like myself) are being squeezed left right centre. our wages are stagnant and truth be told, most of my graphic designer friends in my batch (I'm 40) ended up abandoning their graphic design jobs. why? coz u literally slog for minimal pay. it's art. not science. and beauty is in the eye of the wallet-holder. your client will, in one way or another, dictate how your art will look like else he wont pay up. also, even if u win this round, it is likely he wont engage your services or find ways to fire u (it happened to my friend recently). so, who lose big time in the end? the graphic designer leh.
the creative arts space is not appreciated in SG, unlike in say, the US or other eurpoean countries where the creative arts is thriving due to their historical and cultural appreciation for the arts. i have a cousin who is a high level ballet teacher and she is also suffering.
finally, with free design software like canva and design automation,
IMHO, the path of a graphic designer is very bleak and has no future in SG.