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I'd wager that the margins are diminished because a well-accepted minimum bar has been established that is fulfilled by templates, frameworks, and libraries, th

I'd wager that the margins are diminished because a well-accepted minimum bar has been established that is fulfilled by templates, frameworks, and libraries, that have all reached critical-mass. Also I've spent several months of development time over the course of my life designing and implementing dashboards in angular 1.x and just the other month I googled "angular dashboard templates" out of boredom and frankly I could've saved weeks implementing $10 solutions that ultimately were better then what I came up with on my own (superior responsiveness, better styling, whatever). Oh and finally all the start-up design jobs are tied to start-up funding. If the funding goes south companies in the Bay Area will be much less willing to drop $5, 10, 20k on design work.

kyriakos 10y ago
From my experience Facebook is killing the low-end web design. Smaller companies who would normally need a web site no longer hire an agency for one. They put together a simple one-page landing page using a ready-made template and do all their business through their Facebook page.
- hoof_marks 10y ago
  That's a very good point. Facebook, google+ and twitter, Whatsapp groups to an extent have made a mass market for small business websites. There is a creche (children study/play school) next door and the lady simply encourages ever parent to visit her facebook page which has all photos and information. Consider that it is so easy and fun to create a facebook page for your firm. So convenient to maintain it. On the other hand every time a change is required the firm will have to go through the agency route to update its website. Also if you look at the supply side there wont be as many agencies to take up the work for mass markets considering also the delivery and cost parameters.
- acveilleux 10y ago
  Can't say I blame them either. For a one-person company the minimum fee for a good web design shop might well be a month of revenue. And Facebook is perfectly acceptable these days for consumer focused small businesses like restaurants, salons, bars and similar small-time retail/service business.
  - kyriakos 10y ago
    It's not just acceptable, it comes with built in marketing tools. Rather than spending $2000 on a site and then more to advertise it, they make a Facebook page for free and pay $500 on Facebook ads to get some traction. To me it sounds like a better deal.
xufi 10y ago
I also feel like with the rise of the new Wix like or even Wix is killing the whole concept of making web design what it is. You can just slap stuff on now with 0 effort
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  I did some minor web stuff and found about 5 years ago that local SMEs and charities moved to using Wix, et al., removing my niche. Similarly the web has become more complex and involved and expectations have increased, small scale web design doesn't work any more IMO.
learc83 10y ago
I think too much investor money is actually the cause of decreased work for agencies. Easy money makes it easier to hire in house design teams. When that dries up companies will likely start outsourcing to cut costs.
true_religion 10y ago
At least in the D.C. area, where there once used to be a plethora of design-only agencies, most designers who consult are now folded into traditional consulting groups that serve out a broad base of people from software developers, UX specialists, accountants, scrum managers, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, small business owners (<$1M revenue) who used to hire agencies now simply hire in-house. Web design isn't a niche occupation anymore, so its possible to just put out a listing and hire someone who will give personal service to you. I know of some web design agencies in the area that are currently in hiring mode, but they're all new brands and they're servicing external markets. The rest are long existing, and not really growing very fast--either in terms of client base or staff.
simula67 10y ago
If your company is small and you want to have a website where people can learn about your products/services and call you for more information, these days you can use established tools, templates, frameworks, libraries ( like say Wordpress ) to whip one up quickly. If you consider updating your website quite often you would want that expertise in house and maybe turn your web site into a web application. At that point, I feel that design cannot be decoupled from engineering. Engineers need to understand principles of UX so that they can design good user experiences and designers need to know the constraints of what is possible with the current state of the art and the amount of resources available. Maybe design and engineering is merging into single role and is causing the effects described in the article.
- threesixandnine 10y ago
  The thing with whipping a website with tools, templates, frameworks, libraries - WP is that at the end you don't get any traffic/visitors and it's useless and slow - most of the time. We get so much queries from the small business owners why their site doesn't bring any new customers. It's all because of "templating". They end up pretty much with an "online business" card. The whole thing is a screw up from the ground up. It takes us months to get their website anywhere where it can be seen...most of the time it would be better to just do it from scratch. And at the end cheaper. If you're serious about your business you will hire a team that can do the design, copy and SEO so that you can actually bring new clients at your door.
  - wanda 10y ago
    What do you mean by SEO that isn't covered, at some point, by high quality, well-researched design and copy?
    - lifeisstillgood 10y ago
      I think the parent means that if you want to have a website that ranks well for "southern Texas dog grooming" you should start not from a nice looking Wordpress template but from "I need to produce weekly articles on dog grooming tips, make some videos that are easy to share on Facebook, ensure that the headlines are AB tested and ..." Y'know, an organised approach the beating the competition
neovive 10y ago
Very true. The piecing together of various open source libraries and templates is part of niche being filled by lower-cost freelancers that satisfies the needs of most low- to mid-tier projects that were previously contracted out to agencies.

kyriakos 10y ago

From my experience Facebook is killing the low-end web design. Smaller companies who would normally need a web site no longer hire an agency for one. They put together a simple one-page landing page using a ready-made template and do all their business through their Facebook page.

hoof_marks 10y ago
That's a very good point. Facebook, google+ and twitter, Whatsapp groups to an extent have made a mass market for small business websites. There is a creche (children study/play school) next door and the lady simply encourages ever parent to visit her facebook page which has all photos and information. Consider that it is so easy and fun to create a facebook page for your firm. So convenient to maintain it. On the other hand every time a change is required the firm will have to go through the agency route to update its website. Also if you look at the supply side there wont be as many agencies to take up the work for mass markets considering also the delivery and cost parameters.
acveilleux 10y ago
Can't say I blame them either. For a one-person company the minimum fee for a good web design shop might well be a month of revenue. And Facebook is perfectly acceptable these days for consumer focused small businesses like restaurants, salons, bars and similar small-time retail/service business.
- kyriakos 10y ago
  It's not just acceptable, it comes with built in marketing tools. Rather than spending $2000 on a site and then more to advertise it, they make a Facebook page for free and pay $500 on Facebook ads to get some traction. To me it sounds like a better deal.

xufi 10y ago

I also feel like with the rise of the new Wix like or even Wix is killing the whole concept of making web design what it is. You can just slap stuff on now with 0 effort

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
I did some minor web stuff and found about 5 years ago that local SMEs and charities moved to using Wix, et al., removing my niche. Similarly the web has become more complex and involved and expectations have increased, small scale web design doesn't work any more IMO.

learc83 10y ago

I think too much investor money is actually the cause of decreased work for agencies. Easy money makes it easier to hire in house design teams. When that dries up companies will likely start outsourcing to cut costs.

true_religion 10y ago

At least in the D.C. area, where there once used to be a plethora of design-only agencies, most designers who consult are now folded into traditional consulting groups that serve out a broad base of people from software developers, UX specialists, accountants, scrum managers, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, small business owners (<$1M revenue) who used to hire agencies now simply hire in-house. Web design isn't a niche occupation anymore, so its possible to just put out a listing and hire someone who will give personal service to you. I know of some web design agencies in the area that are currently in hiring mode, but they're all new brands and they're servicing external markets. The rest are long existing, and not really growing very fast--either in terms of client base or staff.

simula67 10y ago

If your company is small and you want to have a website where people can learn about your products/services and call you for more information, these days you can use established tools, templates, frameworks, libraries ( like say Wordpress ) to whip one up quickly. If you consider updating your website quite often you would want that expertise in house and maybe turn your web site into a web application. At that point, I feel that design cannot be decoupled from engineering. Engineers need to understand principles of UX so that they can design good user experiences and designers need to know the constraints of what is possible with the current state of the art and the amount of resources available. Maybe design and engineering is merging into single role and is causing the effects described in the article.

threesixandnine 10y ago
The thing with whipping a website with tools, templates, frameworks, libraries - WP is that at the end you don't get any traffic/visitors and it's useless and slow - most of the time. We get so much queries from the small business owners why their site doesn't bring any new customers. It's all because of "templating". They end up pretty much with an "online business" card. The whole thing is a screw up from the ground up. It takes us months to get their website anywhere where it can be seen...most of the time it would be better to just do it from scratch. And at the end cheaper. If you're serious about your business you will hire a team that can do the design, copy and SEO so that you can actually bring new clients at your door.
- wanda 10y ago
  What do you mean by SEO that isn't covered, at some point, by high quality, well-researched design and copy?
  - lifeisstillgood 10y ago
    I think the parent means that if you want to have a website that ranks well for "southern Texas dog grooming" you should start not from a nice looking Wordpress template but from "I need to produce weekly articles on dog grooming tips, make some videos that are easy to share on Facebook, ensure that the headlines are AB tested and ..." Y'know, an organised approach the beating the competition

neovive 10y ago

Very true. The piecing together of various open source libraries and templates is part of niche being filled by lower-cost freelancers that satisfies the needs of most low- to mid-tier projects that were previously contracted out to agencies.