Hasta La Ideas

What do you earn? Is everyone else getting more? Do you charge enough for your work? How much would it cost to set up on your own? Is there a better way of getting paid? These and many more questions are addressed in January’s Creative Review: The Money Issue

We’ve devoted a 15-page section of the January issue of CR to the all-important, yet seldom discussed, topic of cold, hard cash. With the help of the Guardian Digital Agency (who also designed our cover) we begin by looking at the cost of a creative education around the world

Next, we examine the design landscape – what the average UK designer looks like, where they work and what they earn, comparing this to other professions and to US pay

Then, we asked small studios around the world to take part in a survey for us, telling us how much they charge, what it cost to set up and what their outgoings are – as well as how much they spend on coffee, of course

Next, we look at the world of advertising – pay and biling rates, including what a Mad Man (or Woman) costs today

Then, in a series of expert pieces, we cover issues including day rates v project fees, how to price your work, and how to earn while you are sleeping and why usage, not day rates, determine the value and price of photography

And finally, three studios – Karlsson Wilker (shown), Six and Crispin Finn – have shared their secrets with us, discussing their costs, their strategies for bringing in work and working out what to charge for it and how they maintain their businesses. Plus, DBA expert Gary Baxter lists ten warning signs that your studio may be in financial strife

And if money’s not your thing, there’s plenty more in the issue. Gavin Lucas meets photographer Alexander James who has devised an ingenious method for preserving flowers while removing all their colour pigment, creating stunning, ethereal images

Anna Richardson Taylor meets German designer and art director Mirko Borsche, whose work straddles, and often combines, the conservative and the cuttng edge

And Patrick Burgoyne reports on Neville Brody’s progress as Dean of the School of Communication at the Royal College of Art

In Crit, Rick Poynor enjoys a new collection of the cover art of Anarchy magazine

Gordon Comstock leafs through the collected memos, letters and other writings of legendary adman David Ogilvy

John Mecklin of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists no less traces the influence of the atomic age on comic books

In his regular column on art direction, Paul Belford dissects a classic from the great Derrick Hass

And, in his latest Designer’s Life column, Daniel Benneworth-Gray finds that when you’re stuck for an idea, the answer may lie right in front of you

Plus, our Monograph this month features Sam Roberts’ collection of wonderful handpainted sings from Cambodia, a fast-disappearing artform which, as well as advertising local businesses, documents the turbulent history of the country

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