Last Friday, S&P downgraded the credit worthiness of the United States for the first time in our history. Unemployment hangs at over 9% (the highest it has been since the Depression). On Monday, the stock market had it largest decline since 2008.

We are facing financial crisis after crisis, and prospects for our economy do not look good at the present. And yet demand for luxury goods has never been higher. Everything ultra-luxe, from shoes to cars to clothing is enjoying incredible growth with little evidence that demand will slow.

Forget about the social statement this implies and your judgment of it—more than a few women will spend more on a dress, handbag and pair of shoes than a lower-middle class family will make in a year (if someone in the family has a job). That is as it is—pro or con.

The thought has to be what it means for your creative business and how you are going to negotiate the dichotomy. Is this 2008 all over again and will you remain an artist or become a servant to those with the means to fuel your business?

Your instinct might be to say this is in fact 2008 all over again and you do not ever want to be back there. You might think that if you make yourself look cheaper than your competition now you will survive better than you did then. You might even start talking about price front and center to drive the point home—the same or more for less. You will send the message that you will do whatever it takes to keep your client’s business. Except your instinct is not instinct at all. It is panic.

For those of you who are focused on the corporate market, your panic might be justified save for the fact that most of these corporations are very lean at the moment, sitting on a lot of money and have adjusted to the reality of our economic situation long ago. What further adjustments corporate clients might make will be incremental in terms of spending on creative services. In other words, while there might be a dip, it will not be the close of the floodgates that happened in 2007-8.

And for those of you focused on the social market, if you buy into the panic, erase your boundaries and your value as an artist, welcome to servitude. You will be at the mercy of those clients who will treat the work you are doing for them as a favor to you as opposed to value to them. I fear that many creative businesses and business owners will act like stampeding buffalo heading for the cliff. I pray you walk another way and live on the other side of the dichotomy.

Art is a splurge. Nobody needs what you do. We can all live with Arial font, ceremonies at City Hall, Ikea furniture, cellphone pictures, and template business cards. Your clients hire you because they want something more; something only you, your art, and your creative business can give them. At all times, especially these, your mantra has to be about the value you provide relative to the vision and budget a client has, not about doing it for less.

You should never apologize for (or compromise) the value you deliver or its cost. Yes, clients might choose to splurge less, but to assume they are no longer splurging is fool’s play.

A client’s splurge—be it a wedding, a new kitchen, beautiful photos, shiny stationary or an updated logo—is a reflection of their desire to make a statement about themselves. This desire is not going anywhere and is intrinsic to our culture if not our nature. Whether that desire costs $2 or $2 million to create is only a function of budget, not art.

In these unsettling times it is so easy to confuse the two. Please do not.





Sean Low is the Founder and President of The Business of Being Creative, a consulting firm focused on providing practical advice to those in the business of being creative. Prior to founding The Business of Being Creative, Sean spent six years as the President of Preston Bailey Design, Inc. representing Preston in his business endeavors around the world. Sean has a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his twenty years of business experience ranges from law, investment banking, financial executive to small business owner.