Design studios are not coming to an end anytime soon, no matter how well domain knowledge is packaged up and sold off as competency. We've given people better t

Design studios are not coming to an end anytime soon, no matter how well domain knowledge is packaged up and sold off as competency. We've given people better tools and guidelines to improve their day to day presentational communication skills, not "made them designers" – it's like saying that buying a new plug-and-play faucet for your shower and installing it yourself has made you a plumber, to use a cliche'd comparison. Years of study, work and research has made this a relatively simple thing to do, so let the layman handle it. Let them pick a style, it's a small job, who cares? This production work is coming to an end, the value of a design agency in their years of experience working in the field in practises too many mention here is not being given the shoulder in favour of inexperienced word processors, unless it's Ralph from accounting making a so-so boilerplate christmas card for a law firm. When you want to reposition your firm as a leader in immigration rights cases and communicate that effectively, who you gonna call? Classically trained designers and alums from design masters courses offer a skill set outside of basic production. Take a look the design maturity scale [0] to see what I'm taking about. Valued designers have moved on to (like the OP article mentioned) applying design principles and design viewpoints to affect structural, organisational, long-term change across a wide number of industries and social endeavours. Choosing a nice grotesque for your h1 is not on the same level as designing a conceptual poster to rouse the heartfelt concern for audiences you're trying to make take action on a social issue. I'm sorry David, but for you to come here and ply you're wares of "Top 20 Typefaces To Use" and herald it as the downfall of the independent design industry is shortsighted, ignorant and quiet frankly insulting. You're marketing here, so by all means work away – but I'll not have that spiel stand un-countered, where design skills are the equivalent to a new swish suit some wall-street head is showing off to his friends, pointing out the finer details of his cuffs. Jesus wept. /rant [0] http://www.sjef.nu/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/design_maturity.png http://www.sjef.nu/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/design_maturit...