Web Design is a Dying Profession (From a Web Designer)

What exactly are we supposed to be doing?

Last week, I went to a meetup at a local bar for digital nomads. There are, one might imagine, a good number of them here in Bangkok, and this particular meetup packed the second floor of a Western-style bar with an unfortunate pool table smack in the middle of the room.

Source: Adobe Firefly

Meetups in Bangkok are interesting. Back in Chicago, you’d get a ton of people who responded, and then like four people would show up. But in Bangkok, the reply rates vs the attendance rates are usually pretty decent. People — or at least, expats or digital nomads — have come to Bangkok to socialize, however awkwardly.

I don’t mean to say that everyone’s awkward. You get a few of them, mostly at the language meetups, but when it’s tech-oriented, you get people who actually have something to talk about. (At the language meetups, there is absolutely nothing to talk about)

The digital nomads I’ve met are often software engineers or data guys. There have been quite a few supply-chain dudes. They are usually not YouTubers or podcasters or bloggers. But they do understand the general lay of the technical land, and there is absolutely no one who is not keeping track of the AI stuff.

And was here, at the meetup, after telling these guys what I did (“So who are your clients?” “Oh, they’re like, nonprofit organizations, or small businesses”), where I realized suddenly that, even though I had sort of seen it coming, my days were critically numbered. Like, my career was already dead. As a doornail.

I mentioned this to them. There were silent nods of agreement. The words I actually used were “I’m in a dying profession.”

So … why’s it dead?

1. It’s never been easier to make a website. You can use Squarespace, Wix, or any number of other website builders.

2. My usual clients (nonprofits and small businesses) usually don’t see the value of paying for something they can make themselves for vastly cheaper. Most of the time, they’re not really interested in having a significant web presence — their main goal is having a web presence at all, and to make sure that it doesn’t suck, at the very least.

3. This has usually meant that I make a nice but not especially creative website, because nobody wants to frighten the horses.

This has led me to a little crisis because I now I have to figure out exactly what I want to be doing in order to make money. It’s not UX, it’s not coding, and it’s not a Thai job, either, because even though I can technically get one of those I’m not sure I want to enter the Thai workforce, such as it is.

Add that to the fact that my Twitter feed is mostly full of observations about fashion, film, and culture, and you have one extremely unfocused individual who’s very publicly not building any kind of personal brand.

But, I still like writing. And even if nobody reads this (I’m not even convinced my mother reads these), I know I can keep doing it, and it’s free, and at some point I will inevitably hit on something that makes sense for me.

Isn’t that what they say? You just have to keep doing the thing, even if you don’t know what the thing is, and eventually the thing turns into something.

Because, god dammit, I’m building a personal brand.