AIGA Design Leaders Confidence Index

In April 2005, AIGA began conducting a quarterly survey of design leaders to assemble an authoritative statement on the current conditions within the design economy.

This Design Leaders Confidence Index is modeled on the confidence indices developed by the Conference Board for private sector corporate leaders.

Each quarter we obtain the answers to a few simple questions from several hundred design leaders—the possible responses to the following questions are: substantially better, moderately better, same, moderately worse or substantially worse.

• How do you rate present business conditions for the economy as a whole, as compared with six months ago?
• How do you rate present business conditions for design, as compared with six months ago?
• In looking ahead six months as compared with today, do you think business conditions for the economy as a whole will be:
• In appraising the prospects for design, do you think business over the next six months, as compared with today, will be:
• Compared to [three months ago], are the chances of hiring additional staff:
• Compared to [three months ago], are the chances of purchasing additional hardware and software:

Over time, the responses enable AIGA to develop a confidence index of conditions in the profession that will be helpful to members and their colleagues in judging current conditions nationwide. The index will also help us in advocating the interests of the design community in Washington and with sponsors.

The quarterly index for April 2009 has gained slightly from the previous quarter, increasing from 54 to 67, suggesting a bottoming out of the profession’s concerns over the economy. The benchmark for judging this index is 100, where the confidence level was when AIGA began tracking this information, in April 2005. The current confidence level mirrors the attitudes of a year ago.

In terms of the design economy, 56 percent feel the economy is worse now than it was six months ago, yet they are slightly more optimistic about the design economy than the economy as a whole. However, only 14 percent believe the design economy will weaken over the next six months and 48 percent feel it will moderately or substantially better. Thirty-seven percent believe it will be about the same. This is very similar to their perception of the potential performance of the economy as a whole.

Two out of five design leaders believe that their likelihood of adding new staff is less than it was on January 1, 2009; only 14 percent feel they are more likely to add staff now than they had anticipated at the start of the quarter.