Graphic designer, eh?

Dear Hipster:

More than once, you’ve referred to “hipsters” and “graphic design” jobs. Is there some sort of mystical connection between hipsters and Photoshop that I didn’t get the memo on? Is that the only job suitable for hipsters other than yourself?

— Evan

Many jobs suit hipsters just fine, but design work is one of the most agreeable stereotypes. These days, you can’t swing a cat in a room full of hipsters without hitting a few who list “graphic designer” on their résumés. But that wasn’t always so.

Long ago, in the dark age of hipsterdom, hipsters with inclinations toward the visual arts lived impoverished lives, emulating the way of the starving artist as they vied for gallery spaces. The hipsters of olden times labored in vain, for no gallery owners would showcase ironic collages of video-game art, pog sculptures of the Virgin Mary, or lithographs of celebrities encased in bacon.

Then, magic. The rapid price decline of consumer electronics and software opened the world of computerized graphics to anyone with a few hundred dollars and the ability to torrent the penultimate versions of Adobe products. In a matter of years, any art student could direct his artistic visions toward the wide-open field of graphic design.

Instead of failing as artists — as most artists must do, for the art world is cruel, unyielding, and no kind of meritocracy — young hipsters could make something like art. The work more or less satisfied their creative impulses. Best of all, people would pay them for it. In their spare time, they could design posters for their friends’ bands or flyers for a local alleycat race.

As irony would have it, gallery owners these days will display a show of celebrity bacon lithography. Unfortunately, all the attendees at the opening will be hipster graphic designers, bartenders, baristas, artists, and musicians, so they won’t be able to afford the artwork.