We all know that graphic designers rock. Some even work in the service of rock, designing the best band logos. But are they literally rock stars? If we’re going to be pedantic, they usually aren’t – apart from Freddie Mercury, who had a diploma in Art and Graphic Design from Ealing College and took on the task of designing the Queen logo personally.
That doesn’t stop clients calling graphic designers rock stars, even in job adverts. But, judging by a thread on Reddit, designers are getting fed up with being mistaken for successful performing artists.
Rock star (noun): a famous and successful singer or performer of rock music (Oxford Languages) (Image credit: Daly and Newton via Getty Images)
“Why do companies or clients call graphic designers rockstars?” ProgramExpress2918 asks in the Graphic Design subreddit. “It’s the first industry in which I hear this.” And the question has triggered an intense debate.
Some suggest ulterior motives are at play, and that the epithet is a strategy to make designers feel special in the hope of hiring them “on the cheap”. Rockstar designers rarely get a rockstar income. “Rockstar = prepare to do 3-4 people’s jobs for the pay of a junior designer,” one person wrote. It “means doing the work of a video editor, copywriter, web designer, UI/UX, social media manager etc, etc, all for the rate they pay interns,” was another opinion.
Some commenting on the subreddit have more positive interpretations. It’s “because we do crazy shit and they can’t even fathom how to accomplish it,” one person suggested. “Often times in-house graphic designers are the only graphic designer in the entire company they work for and tend to be higher skilled as they have to fulfill many different design rolls. Also, their skills differ greatly from the rest of the company, so to the rest of the company, they seem special and able to do something others can’t,” someone else wrote.
Some designers do appear to have a rockstar lifestyle. It’s “because some of us do cocaine to work long hours and smash groupies during lunch,” one suggested. To which another designer replied: “The rest of us just take Vyvanse and eat lunch alone in our cars.” Others noted a wider trend at play: as well as rock stars, some companies enjoy referring to design ‘ninjas’ and ‘wizards’. And web developers who also design are ‘unicorns’, apparently. One person described securing a job as a ‘design ninja’ when “in no way am I a 14th century assassin.”
Personally, I’m not sure this is exclusive to graphic design. I have on at least one occasion been referred to as a rockstar freelance journalist, which I thought particularly incongruous. It made it sound like I have a lifestyle like Hunter S Thompson. But whatever the reason, please stop people. Graphic designers have had enough. “I think it’s cringe, like an office calling itself a family,” one person writes. “Dead ringer that the company thinks it’s a ‘fun job’ as opposed to a professional position. Expect to possibly be treated as such,” someone else complains. Yes, graphic designers rock, but they are not rock stars.
