From In-House to Freelancer: 2020 Predictions for the Creative World

The In-House Fat Rolls

Over the last ten years, the creative world has gotten fatter and fatter.

After the 2008 recession, many creative folks who lost their job found the power of the internet, lean startup culture, and started off on their freelancing careers. The freelancers soon banded together to form digital agencies that served these larger companies.

These large companies (we’ll call them client companies) wanting to cut costs and control the creative process started to build in-house creative departments. This is the fat. The in-house creative department starts to require more and more overhead with diminishing returns on its value.

Cue in 2020’s economic recession.

Hitting the Eject Button

The client companies’ hefty overhead of iMacs, Canon cinema cameras, producers, editors, and Adobe Cloud has been sitting around since March 1. And with a lot of content being filmed on iPhones and webcams, executives are infuriated that all their money is tied up in a now-closed up studio.

Over the next few months, we’re going to see hundreds of client companies (and the digital agencies that serve these clients) hit the eject button, sending…