Corporate America makes quite the living off of paying the people who work for them very little while keeping most of the profit to themselves. There is no exception to this rule when it comes to their relationship to artists. In fact, in some cases, huge wealthy businesses get away with not paying their artists at all. Granted, artists shouldn’t even put themselves in a position to allow this kind of nonsense.
This isn’t a matter of the position being frivolous or unimportant. Businesses would largely be lost without the use of graphic designers, web designers, song writers, and others who can help with music marketing strategies and the marketing of logos and images. If they didn’t have musicians, indie musicians and graphic designers, they wouldn’t have fresh new material to offer their customers to show off their products and services.
It’s a matter of the material being extremely accessible at cheap or no price, and it’s a matter of having a culture that allows this to be the case. As long as it’s typical behavior for businesses to hold graphic design and jingle contests to get free material in exchange for “artist exposure”, the fewer jobs there are for artists. Free material in exchange for “exposure” is real asinine and no artist who takes their craft seriously and sees themselves as a professional should entertain such a silly idea.
The list of creative material that businesses need to get their name to the public goes on and on. Business cards, flyers, brochures, banners, billboards, websites, and more. All of these materials requires the eye and touch of an artist, and too many artists are going unemployed or underpaid because of the lack of value placed on this important work.
Art should not be considered nothing more than a lowly hobby. Art should not be devalued and given so little compensation by the richest companies in our country. These indie artists have worked tirelessly at recording their own music, becoming web designers and website builders, learning how to be graphic designers and learning the ins and outs of artist marketing.
They have put forth as much effort or more than any other worker, and the product of their work is priceless in the eyes of society. Corporate America and the business world must change this culture of paying those who help market our businesses with art little to nothing for their invaluable contributions. Art is an extremely important contribution to the flow of society and really, society in and of itself. Artists need to stop allowing pompous, arrogant corporate assholes to continue to engage in capitalizing off of their talent and making tons of money off of it while they make scraps. Artist professions deserve more respect and need to be valued more in the job market and the marketplace overall.
