A recent Screens Around Town post prompted a healthy debate about crowdSPRING and designers working on spec. We invited crowdSPRING’s Ross Kimbarovsky to write more about the issue. Below is his response.
For those who haven’t heard about us: crowdSPRING is the creative marketplace, where buyers post creative projects (logos, websites, print design, illustrations, marketing materials, etc.) and instead of receiving bids and proposals, designers from around the world submit actual designs. Buyers choose the design they like. Since our launch in May 2008, 700 buyers from 30 countries have posted creative projects. Today over 6,100 designers from 130+ countries work on crowdSPRING. We’re in Chicago, a few blocks from 37signals. We make products we like (we used our own marketplace to design our site – the designer was a 20 year old student from the Netherlands) and we believe others will like them too.
Our business model differs from offline and online design shops and from other marketplaces. Because buyers on crowdSPRING select from actual designs, designers on crowdSPRING submit work on spec. “Spec” is a short name for doing any work on a speculative basis, without a prior agreement that you’ll be paid for your work.
Some in the design community object to work on spec. AIGA, the U.S. professional association for design discourages designers from doing work on spec. A few years ago, the NO!SPEC campaign was founded to organize people who object to work on spec.
When we started working on crowdSPRING in 2006, we noticed that some companies (iStockphoto, Threadless) were succeeding with business models that allowed professionals and non-professionals to fairly compete against each. Today, we believe even more strongly than we did in 2006 that there is an underground, underdog community of creatives that is shaping the Internet. They are the future. They’re writers and inventors, photographers and designers, musicians and coders. They post videos to YouTube, photos to iStockphoto, t-shirt designs to Threadless. They write great code.
The establishment has long held that these ‘amateurs’ – students and stay-at-home moms, freelancers and fed-up corporate refugees – are nothing more than a novelty and are not capable of competing with the ‘professionals.’ The establishment is wrong. The Internet has blurred the boundaries between professionals and non-professionals. The underdogs are challenging tradition in industry after industry. They are risk takers. They are true entrepreneurs. The underdogs compete on their ideas and their work, not education, training, and fancy offices. They make things they like and they hope that other people will like them too.
The underdogs are a threat to AIGA and the NO!SPEC campaign. There are millions of them. They demand that a level playing field be created to allow them to compete. They demand the democratization of the design industry.
The NO!SPEC campaign has offered a number of arguments suggesting that work on spec is wrong. Let’s talk about the arguments and what crowdSPRING has done to address them:
Most professional-level designers won’t participate in work on spec. Some suggest that designers who participate in spec projects are typically less experienced. This is sometimes true. Yet a less experienced designer is capable of great work while a more experienced designer is capable of poor work. Experience does not always translate into great design. Education doesn’t guarantee great design. Fancy offices don’t ensure great design. Great design is about great ideas. Great ideas can come from anywhere, from anyone, and at anytime.
It is true that experienced designers bring much value beyond their ability to create graphical elements and typography. We’ve never intended that crowdSPRING replace experienced designers or design shops. We welcome them with open arms (many professionals work on crowdSPRING) but do understand that crowdSPRING is not for everyone.
Ironically, even though nearly 500,000 new businesses are started in the U.S. every single month, most “experienced” designers won’t work for such new businesses because most of those businesses don’t have sufficient budgets to afford such designers. While we can debate whether our business model helps or harms the industry, we should be able to agree that alternatives driven by price (where the designers submit bids in an effort to be the least expensive) are far more dangerous and damaging to the design profession.
For those who question whether crowdSPRING represents professional level design – let me offer this: many criticize our business model because much of the design on crowdSPRING represents professional level design.
But we do understand that it’s important to deliver great services to clients. We’ve created a level playing field where experience doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is your work. Buyers pick from actual designs, not bids and proposals. Good designers do very well in this model because, very simply, they are good designers. We’ve also continued to iterate. Last week at the DEMOfall2008 conference, we introduced crowdSPRING Pro. Almost from the day we launched, brands and agencies have asked us if we can give them privacy features and greater control over projects. We responded by building crowdSPRING Pro. Minimums in all projects start at $1,000. In addition to the features we offer in all projects (escrow, legal agreements, etc.), designers must agree to non-disclosure, and clients have full control over privacy in the project. Clients also have full control over who participates in their project. We’ve partnered with Tribune Interactive and Omnicom’s Element79 on crowdSPRING Pro.
No Guarantee. Designers sell ideas and time. When designers work on spec, there is no guarantee that they will be compensated for their time. This is true. But there rarely is a guarantee. Traditionally, institutions take on the risk. Companies make products in the hope that customers will buy them. 37signals invested time and ideas to create software products they thought were great in the hope that others would like them too. Movie studios spend millions on movies in the hope that people will buy tickets and DVDs.
The growing creative movement –millions of people around the world – is changing the risk/reward model in remarkable ways. The underdogs have a high tolerance for risk because they have few alternatives. They develop great software that challenges conventional thinking – before a single customer agrees to pay to use that software. They do this with eyes wide open and hearts exposed. They understand the risk and embrace it. They create not just for the money, but because they have a need to create. Novelists write books before they have a publisher. Painters paint before they have gallery representation or a single commission. Musicians and bands record songs long before a label deal is in sight.
But this doesn’t mean that we should ignore the fact that designers who work on spec take on risk. Here’s what we’ve done to minimize the risk: First, we have a strong user agreement that expressly protects the work of all designers working on crowdSPRING. We recognize this is not nearly enough. Second, we escrow the award(s) offered by clients by requiring them to pay in full before their project is posted. We make no exceptions to this. Clients cannot simply abandon their projects like they do on other marketplaces. Third, we give clients a simple guarantee: they’ll receive 25 entries to their project or they can ask for a full refund (including our commission). This is a two-way guarantee. If clients receive more than 25 entries, we require them to select a winning designer, and if they don’t, a panel at crowdSPRING does and assigns the awards (we’ve done this in about 8 projects so far). Fourth, each project on crowdSPRING is protected by a customized written legal agreement that client and designer receive when the client picks the designer at the end of the project. That agreement specifically states that once the designer provides the final deliverables, we will pay them. All file transfers take place on crowdSPRING, to protect both sides.
Spec work undervalues and commoditizes the design profession. Some argue that work on spec reduces design to a commodity and ultimately undervalues the profession. Design is not like pork bellies or wheat. Design is about ideas and creativity.
Can there ever be too many ideas?
Here’s what we’ve done to address this issue: First, we’ve established minimums in all project categories. Logo projects must be for at least $150. Most are much higher. Uncoded website design (typically single page) must be for at least $400. Most are much higher. Our overall average across all projects is about $350. We’ve had thousand dollar logo projects and multiple-thousand dollar uncoded website design projects. Second, we’ve spent a great deal of time and effort to educate clients about design, including the value of good design. You can see this for yourself by reading our blog. Third, we’ve worked very hard with our entire community to educate designers – about good design, about good communication with clients, about professionalism, etc. Fourth, we’ve given real people real opportunities to find real clients. Half of the designers who’ve received awards are U.S. designers. Some are earning thousands of dollars per month working part-time on crowdSPRING.
Work on spec is often done without contracts. This is true. In fact, we were absolutely stunned when we talked to hundreds of designers and buyers around the world in 2006 about this issue. Every single person with whom we talked said that they thought the protection of intellectual property was very important (we expected this). Fewer than 40% of the people actually protected intellectual property in their transactions (we did not expect this). When intellectual property is not protected, both the client and the designer lose. Here’s what we’ve done to address this issue: First, as mentioned above, we have a strong user agreement that expressly protects the work of all designers on crowdSPRING. Second, we’ve created a unique system of written legal agreements that protect the intellectual property of all designers working on crowdSPRING. These agreements are customized for each project and reflect the relevant law that would apply to the transaction between the client and selected designer. The agreements provide that the intellectual property is owned by the designer at all times until the designer is paid. After payment, the rights to the IP are transferred to the client.
The tension between the growing creative movement on the Internet and centuries of tradition will disrupt and define the creative industries for years to come. It’s a polarizing topic, but an important one because individuals and companies who ignore this creative movement will fail. Those who find ways to leverage this creative movement (iStockphoto, Threadless) will evolve and succeed.
We thank 37signals for the opportunity to start the conversation and we look forward to engaging with you in a further discussion.
Best,
Ross Kimbarovsky, co-Founder, crowdSPRING
Jared Christensen
on 22 Sep 08What a bunch of baloney. All these sites succeed in doing is reducing design to a hobby. For shame.
dave s
on 22 Sep 08Design IS a hobby for me. A hobby that I love and has paid the rent for the past two years.
KLM
on 22 Sep 08This has to be a record for the longest, most buzzword-filled post in the history of svn.
From the tone of the post, it seems that he forgot he was talking to a community of comprised partly of professional designers.
And can we please get this straight: Crowdspring is not similar to threadless or istockphoto! Threadless pays designers more than they would get from regular tshirt work ($200 for a logo on crowdspring? really?) and istockphoto is licensed art not spec work! The correct analogy would be crowdspring is like a prettier version of elance and odesk.
What you’ve done is make it easier for businesses to get cheap logos from designers who don’t know any better. Don’t give the appearance of helping the underdog when you know its crap.
Douglas Neiner
on 22 Sep 08Sites like crowdSPRING don’t hurt my business at all. Clients that are comfortable using a medium like this, aren’t going to be clients that I want to invest in or clients that will invest in us. Our studio almost NEVER participates in spec work… because its wrong? No.. because its a waste of time to work for free when you can instead work for real money. Which is why, less experienced designers work for spec… and those with real work wouldn’t think about working for spec. It doesn’t make financial sense.
Building a product that you love with the hopes of selling it (37Signals) and entering a competition with other designers for one clients approval with hours of work are two different things. To suggest a comparison is absurd.
Thanks for writing anyway. :)
Ben
on 22 Sep 08@Jared
If ‘the pros’ can produce a better product than the ‘hobbyists’, at better value to the client, then let the market decide. Teh fact is that the market is deciding that spec provides value on both sides of the equation.
crowdSPRING and their competitors, like GeniusRocket, 99 designs and XLNTads, are proving that there is a pool of talent willing to participate and clients that are looking for this solution.
It’s not either-or… it expands the pie for all designers and creators.
Keith
on 22 Sep 08People/Companies who use CrowdSpring know they are not getting a full service design firm. You’re not going to walk into CrowdSpring and get something that’s as high in quality as SimpleBits or AdaptivePath for your UI.
However, CrowdSpring isn’t in that market space. The ESPNs, MTVs, etc. of the world can go out and hire world class design firms to revolutionize their brand. People and companies going to CrowdSpring are looking for “just in time design” on a budget. It appeals to the local small business market that has limited budget, but knows enough to put up something visually appealing.
I think CrowdSpring, in that sense, is serving a great need and isn’t threatening the world of design. I fail to see how or why world class developers/designers would feel threatened by a group of Speculative designers serving a market that, quite honestly, a large design firm wouldn’t want to touch with a 10 foot pole.
Chris
on 22 Sep 08Too much talky talky
I’ll pay 14 cents to the editor who can trim this manifesto to 14 words or less.
Jon
on 22 Sep 08I have no problem with the service crowdSpring is offering. If the market supports it, fine.
But wow is this post full of garbage. It talks alot, but doesn’t say much at all. It makes the service feel seedy by association.
Paul Wright
on 22 Sep 08@Chris – it seems Keith’s post above yours has summarised it pretty well. Not 14 words mind, but succinct nonetheless!
Morley
on 22 Sep 08The meat of crowdspring’s argument is that they have strong protections for designers’ legal rights as a way to minimize their risk.
(The pros vs. non-pros stuff is marketing fluff that doesn’t really bear on their argument.)
While this post is wordy, it seems like the commenters above didn’t read the entire post, or are reacting in religious devotion to “no spec only.”
A designer is also a human being with the ability to make choices. You can refuse work on spec, or you can accept work on spec. This service only gives you a way to choose the latter with much less risk than if you were to do spec work without a contract.
Mike
on 22 Sep 08I can’t really knock crowdspring. As a full-time designer, I don’t really have the time or need to participate. But I would have loved something like this when I was an eager college student doing freelance work mainly for bands. All I wanted was the chance to do some real world work. So, I guess I don’t really have anything against crowdspring. I think the people participating are just wanting to get an opportunity.
Tom G
on 22 Sep 08The free market will decide what place in the ecosystem CrowdSpring thrives in. This provide a venue for those new to the industry to get a break based upon their merit instead of established brand name or sales force.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08@Jared – I respectfully disagree, for many reasons (including that “these sites” represent some remarkably different business models). @dave has listed one of those reasons.
@KLM – so sorry about the length. I know full well I was talking to a community of designers – which is precisely why I chose to address the core arguments head on rather than tip-toeing around them. We’ve made it easier for businesses and designers to compete on a level playing field where only their work matters. We know that this will not be received well by everyone.
A few facts for you: In four months, we’ve paid designers $150,000 USD (we receive 15% on top of that – from buyers). Half of that amount was paid to designers in the U.S. Our average project is approx. $350. Multiple designers working on crowdSPRING are earning thousands of dollars per month and nearly 500 different designers have been paid by crowdSPRING since we launched in May 2008. We pay 100% of the awards posted by buyers (we even pay the PayPal transfer fees for them).
As for iStock being “licensed art” and not spec work. I respectfully disagree.
@Douglas – there’s little difference to “building a product that you love” when you can appreciate this from the perspective of the person who’s doing the building. It’s a personal choice – and I certainly respect yours – although it seems you do sometimes participate in spec work.
@Ben – precisely right. And more importantly, “professionals” don’t want to work for the half million new startups started in the U.S. every month because those companies don’t have high enough budgets.
@Keith – Thank you! Very well said and precisely the reason we started crowdSPRING.
Appwerks.
on 22 Sep 08crowdSPRING may be ideal venue for clients who have no compunctions about taking advantage of those willing to engage in spec work and designers, real or aspiring, who do not have a problem with iterative reduction of the value of their time and skills.
Furthermore, there is a fundamental difference between design work and styling exercise in that the latter is more likely a result of spec process and, as such, more in line with proposition of marketplaces like crowdSPRING.
Lastly, it would be interesting to know whether crowdSPRING team thinks their rationale (creativity and heart trump experience and skill) equally applies to other professions (medicine and accounting come to mind, among many others).
gwg
on 22 Sep 08I think that the problem with the NO!SPEC / AIGA crowd (of which I was a member at one time) is that they want two criteria to be met.
1. No Ugly / Bad Design / Logos created from Word Art etc.
2. They want everyone to spend good money for good design.
The reality of the situation is that you can’t really have it both ways for 90% of organizations out there. Organizations who use sites like this are often stretching their budget as it is to have someone else do the work. These organizations can’t typically afford the resources (cash, time etc) to hire an AIGA member company.
I’ve actually heard members of AIGA say things like: “Well, if they can’t afford it, then they shouldn’t get a great logo.” Ok, that’s fine, but a business needs some sort of logo, and many AIGA-type folks just rip on business with bad logos.
Part of what gets the NO!SPEC crowd up in arms is that many of them were either taken for a ride by spec work, or they’re still getting Spec projects pitched to them now that they’re a real biz. Both items chafe, and it annoys them.
IMHO major problem with Spec work is when it’s a done as a dangling carrot. “Do this ONE logo cheap, and I PROMISE we’ll have a lot more work for you later.” This is the one issue that still irks me and I think it’s where most young designers get killed. They’ll take a project and get paid x, when it should cost 10x on the promise that they’ll get paid 30x later.
I agree that Spec work can be terrible and does happen sometimes with organizations who are just trying to be cheap bastards. Sometimes, good designers get cheated. However, there's a sliding scale of price for quality. Sites like this one can hit the sweet spot of both for both designers and clients.I also agree with the above commenter; the comparison to stock photo sites and threadless is absurd. It’s Elance, plain and simple.
- former member of AIGA and NO!SPEC
ep
on 22 Sep 08How can a guy supposedly in the design field write so many BS words? Design is an attitude. It happens between human beings in real life.
Charles
on 22 Sep 08I happily use Crowdspring and 99designs because, quite frankly, for the size of the projects I’m doing on the web I can’t afford a super-high end designer to do an outstanding job.
I’ve had really great results from crowdsourcing my design. Not amazing, but great. Which is enough for now. Once my business is bringing in fat checks then I’ll upgrade my design.
And don’t think that crowdsourcing a design is all about cheapness. There is a lot of work for the client too having to rate, review and discuss each design as it is posted. 95% of the designs posted in the contests I run are total garbage. Stuff that a 5-year-old child would do. But the other 5% are great. That’s a lot of time sorting the wheat from the chaff. But I’m money-poor, so I have to offset that with time.
Seriously though, most of the replies on SVN are designers who are coming off sounding like snobs. The crowdsourced design isn’t likely to eat into your business so just ignore it if you don’t like it. Don’t declare war on it.
Simon
on 22 Sep 08I’ve been a buyer of many designs on 99designs and other spec sites. And honestly, if I had to go to a design firm I would of had none of them done. I got one for every little project I did, and $200 – $500 is the most I was going to recover for the logo ever. I think that is the real key, people are getting designs/logos for things that they would normally let go with just text.
Derek Scruggs
on 22 Sep 08I haven’t used crowdSpring, but a couple years ago I used DesignOutpost for a logo and was very pleased with the results. The winning logo was done by a doctor in Turkey. If his work is just a hobby, then the world could use more hobbyists.
JD
on 22 Sep 08I would have participated in something like crowdspring when I started out doing graphic design. It would have given me some solid practice in visual problem-solving and communication. Crowdspring is a forum for designers and clients that don’t really know where to start. I think that’s the key.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08@Chris – I’d pay more than 14 cents.
@Jon – sorry you feel that way. The point of the post was to talk about what we’ve done to protect buyers and designers.
@Paul – I agree – @Keith did a really nice job summarizing.
@Morley – well said. There’s much more than contracts, but you are right that we’ve worked hard to build strong protections. It really is about personal choice – we present designers with an alternative and they can choose not to work on crowdSPRING. In four months, we have a really talented community of nearly 6,300 designers from 130+ countries working on crowdSPRING.
@Mike – absolutely correct! We have many younger designers just starting out in their careers. Our site design was by a student from the Netherlands, for example.
@Tom – very true. The free market will decide for sure.
jan korbel
on 22 Sep 08Let’s not forget the global aspect of such marketplace. For example, there are quite a number of good designers here in the Czech Republic who are more than willing to work on spec for money you would not move a mouse pointer. $200 for logo? You betcha. And thats still nothing in comparison to say India or China.
David Newbury
on 22 Sep 08The difference between iStockPhoto and crowdSPRING is that if you take a picture and put it on iStockPhoto, there are a large number of buyers who can then choose to buy or not buy it. If a particular buyer rejects your art as inappropriate, there are still other potential clients out there.
On crowdSPRING, if a particular logo or design is rejected, there’s no chance for another buyer to come in and buy it. You’re designing for an audience of one.
It is as if 37Signals designed BaseCamp to be used only by IBM, and if IBM didn’t like it, they didn’t get paid. Contract work for clients is a totally different market than creating products that can be sold to anyone.
Kyle
on 22 Sep 08May the best design win.
It’s a great concept, and only those who doubt their own design skills or have bureaucratic “design authority” should oppose it.
The buzzwords in the post aren’t that bad, nor is the length of the article. The typical SVN reader (I assume) has been trained to write-off content that spans more than three paragraphs. To the majority of the planet, what Ross has said has a lot of value.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08@Appwerks – I respectfully disagree. Fact is “spec” work is part of virtually every industry, including design. As for whether there’s a difference between “design work” and “styling exercise” – that’s the beauty of our model. The work speaks for itself. Crappy design is crappy design, whether done by a “professional” or a non-professional. And good design is good design. Period.
To answer your question – medicine and accounting are regulated professions. Design is not a regulated profession. And great ideas can come from anywhere and from anyone.
@gwg – very well said. In fact – while believe we’re different in many ways from Elance – there is one difference directly on point to your note. We encourage buyers to work with designers on follow-on projects (Elance strongly discourages this). In fact, even after only fourth months, some of the designers working on crowdSPRING have built nice design practices solely by virtue of follow-on work they’ve received offline through their contacts on crowdSPRING. I agree that the “dangling carrot” isn’t particularly good and we do our best to educate designers to ignore such offers.
And so that we’re clear – we are not embarrassed to be compared to Elance. We respect what they do for businesses and for freelancers. We simply think we offer a better alternative where it’s not about price (as it often is on Elance), but is solely about the quality of the work.
@ep – for the thousands of designers working on crowdPSRING – it’s as real life as real life gets.
@Charles – thanks for providing a client’s viewpoint. We’re Ok with the contrary views – it’s really one of the things that’s always amazed me about the SVN community – particularly when people are able to express disagreement constructively.
Simon
on 22 Sep 08@David Newbury – I’ve bought at least 20 different things from logos to templates from people who lost a contest.
Jimmy G
on 22 Sep 08I find it hard to believe that large companies feel threatened by sites like CrowdSPRING. CrowdSPRING is offering designers who are most likely holding down jobs and/or in education the ability to earn money from their talents.
Sure, the major companies aren’t going to go to CrowdSPRING to gain a major re-brand, but that’s not what cS is about.
It’s all about companies who need design at a lower price (because they can’t afford professional design firms), and giving that work to designers who need money (because they don’t yet / can’t work at professional design firms).
CrowdSPRING has helped hundreds of people earn a lot more money by selling their talent than would have been possible before.
Without CrowdSPRING, the creative community would be weaker.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08@Simon – thanks for providing a client’s point of view. There are lots of businesses working on tight budgets, especially in today’s economy. Their alternatives are very limited.
@Derek – thanks for sharing. The world could use more hobbyists for sure.
@JD – thanks so much for contributing to this discussion. You’ve hit the nail on the head – crowdSPRING is a great place to start. We welcome ALL with open arms but know that it’s not for everyone.
Marc Köhlbrugge
on 22 Sep 08For me, as a student, crowdSPRING is a great way to both improve my design skills and earn a little money on the side. I am very picky when choosing a project to work on since there are tons of them and I don’t have much time.
This way I can work on the type of projects I like and get feedback from a real client which in my opinion is one of the best ways to learn.
I agree crowdSPRING might not be an alternative to a full-time job (not for me at least), but it does offer some great opportunities.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08@jan – good point. The world is small. We have designers from 130+ countries. And incidentally, we’ve had buyers from 30 countries. Ironically, we’ve had numerous buyers from India buy design from U.S. designers.
@David – You are partially right. Nothing stops designers from re-using elements of their unsold designs for other projects (and many do). But this argument holds little water when you consider it’s an individual’s choice. The “pro” photographers made similar arguments about iStockphoto when it first came to the scene and now many are selling work on iStock. Here’s one important difference: we pay 100% of the awards to designers.
@Kyle – thanks so much for the kind words. I’m not the best writer in the world or on our team. Even in my own family, my 10 year old does a better job. :)
@Simon – thanks for that insight. We’ve found that many clients do this.
@Jimmy – thanks so much for the kind words. My only observation would be to push back just a little about “professional design firms”. Lots of professionals and professional design firms work on crowdPRING. Even the NO!SPEC articles are careful to talk about “professional-level design.” In fact – I wrote about this today in our blog, following-up on a nice post Jason Fried made several years ago!
Matt
on 22 Sep 08crowdSPRING’s argument sets up a bunch of straw-men arguments, so of course it’s easily able to knock them down.
OF COURSE amateurs can produce great designs.
OF COURSE hobbyists and underdogs and entrepreneurs should be able to compete with agencies.
The trouble is, that’s not the argument that AIGA or NO!SPEC make.
I work on the client side, and I frequently hire designers. It’s a tricky process – I want to hire the best, most qualified, most creative designer, but they’re hard to identify. The designers want to get hired, but they don’t want to invest too much time or effort, unless they have a reasonable likelihood of getting a return on that effort.
So, the best solution is one that has us share the risks, and share the cost. We’ll often pay for a designers time when they present, and we’ll often pay for a first round of preliminary creative. That way, we both have “skin in the game” – designers know we’re serious about hiring, and we know the designers are serious about competing. When we don’t pay for their time, we only expect them to compete on the basis of work they’ve already done – we don’t expect them to invest effort on OUR project.
crowdSPRING puts ALL of the cost, and ALL of the risk on the designers. As a potential client – it doesn’t cost anything for me to post a job request. Designers have no idea what chance they have of getting a job. Nevertheless, they need to make a significant effort of doing the work in advance.
I don’t see how crowdSPRING’s rant above addresses this.
Jon Moore
on 22 Sep 08My name is Jon, alias “Jabraulter,” and I am a designer on crowdSPRING. I have read most of the comments made thus far on Ross’s post and I’d like to provide my two cents.
First off, I would like to respectfully say that I am slightly irked by those comments suggesting that crowdSPRING boasts no so-called ‘professional designers’ and only those pursuing design as a hobby. Unlike medical fields and the like, a client could care less whether or not you have a degree from SCAD or 3 years of noodling on your home PC; all they care about is whether or not you can produce an aesthetically-pleasing and market-competitive design. I openly admit that I am 19 years old, a college student pursuing a double major in computer science and mathematics, and have “only” 7 years of graphic design experience. Nonetheless, I would challenge just about any self-proclaiming “professional” to a design project. Yes, I would consider graphic design a hobby of mine; notwithstanding, I definitely think that I have a great wealth of knowledge and a trained eye for good design. I have made contributions to buyer and creative guides on crowdSPRING, several times being quoted exactly on my ideas and thoughts. Sure, there are definitely those designers on crowdSPRING who are just beginning in the field. However, there are countless “professional” designers who own their own graphic design firms and have incredible portfolios and websites dedicated to their art.
Ross’s description of crowdSPRING as tapping into the wealth of talent is a great summation of what they offer. Not as a non sequitur but merely presented as a comparison, consider other industries such as the music industry. I can guarantee you that a great percentage of those “professional” musicians you hear on the radio, if not the majority, weren’t professionally trained. So don’t discredit designers or the work that they produce on cS, 99designs, or the like.
I hope this hasn’t come off as a rant. I’m just passionate about what I do and I’m glad that I have been able to present my opinion on the matter. Keep designing.
Cheers, Jon
Dhrumil
on 22 Sep 08If crowdspring doesn’t provide a honest service that works for both clients and designs, it will fail.
If it is successful at providing a solution it will win.
I have a feeling it will win.
Don’t blame another business’s success for your short falls. Be better, do better and – most importantly – stop complaining. You’ll find an extra 3 to 4 hours in your day once you learn how to stop blaming others.
Don’t forget that all new business models and services have haters when they start. Even the industry that you now are fighting to protect once was a threat to a previously established collective.
Big ups to Ross for his well written explanation.
Josh N.
on 22 Sep 08@Matt : I think you hit the nail on the head. The work vs. risk angle is the fatal flaw of sites like this.
The buyers have absolutely no risk. Why would they? The buyers pay the bills at crowdSpring, so I don’t really see them sharing the risk.
That’s where iStock Photo works. You own your images and if someone passes on one, there might be someone else who’ll pick it up. If it’s popular, you can sell it more than once.
At crowdSpring, you do work for a one-time, specific job and then roll the dice to see if you get paid. The rejects get nothing and aren’t really useful for any other project.
I’d rather see a different solution. With a designer, you can tell what kind of work they do by their portfolio. (That’s why we have them.) Why not create a portfolio site for designers that show off their skills. Buyers solicit a select few they like and hire those designers for a solution at a set price. The designers can accept or decline based on type of project or budget. When the design is done, the designers who submitted work can get paid.
Buyers have a choice, designers get paid and underdogs/amateurs get a chance. No spec, shared risk.
Appwerks.
on 22 Sep 08@Ross – You are right as far as my use of medicine and accounting is concerned. I should not have used regulated professions to make an example. Apologies for that.
Ben Stedman (stedben of crowdSPRING)
on 22 Sep 08I agree, shouldn’t the free market decide what is best for the free market? If sites like crowdSPRING are a bad idea, then let them die off naturally.
It seems to me, marketing campaigns like NO!SPEC are the handiwork of nervous designers who have invested years in the design industry. Their world is changing, and we know that can be unnerving. But change is inevitable, there’s no use in getting cranky.
In the comments, I didn’t hear much solid objection to the spec model. (And the two-liner replies merely sound like knee-jerk reactions.) I’d really like to hear a solid rebuttal to Mr. Kimbarovsky’s stance on the entertainment industry, that it is based largely on spec work, proving that spec work is a natural business model.
I read in the comments “reduce design to a hobby” and “make it easy for businesses to get cheap logos designers who don’t know any better.” I doubt Nike is going to be hopping onto crowdSPRING for their next campaign, so ‘professional design’ is safe. It’s true that cS makes it easy for young companies with tiny budgets to get a logo, but I’d wager that the creatives there know exactly what’s happening (even if they don’t work in New York, LA, or Chicago).
At crowdSPRING, designers are judged by the quality of their work, in an environment of open competition. How does that devalue the potential of design? If anything, it pushes it to new heights.
I also thank Mr. Kimbarovsky for writing. :)
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08@Matt – thanks for providing your perspective. I agree with you completely that the best solution may very well be one that has client and designer share the risk! That’s a very intelligent way to look at this issue. But that solution unfortunately isn’t available to everyone. Designers working on crowdSPRING often don’t have access to clients – they’re stay at home moms, students, retired designers, designers just starting out, disfranchised designers from the “corporate” world, etc. They have difficulty competing on Elance because there it’s about the price and it’s tough to compete on price with $25 logo design from India. And who’s going to hire a student in the traditional model?
The practice you describe is commendable. Most firms don’t operate that way. But again – it’s about individual risk.
To balance the risk – we require escrow in every single project. We won’t post a project until we hold the funds. Is this a complete solution? No – it’s a start. We do guarantee 25 entries to each buyer – but as noted above, it’s a two way guarantee. If a project has more than 25 entries, we require buyers to award to a designer (or a panel at crowdSPRING will do so – and we have).
@Jon – thanks so much for providing your perspective. Diversity of ideas and vies is one of the reasons we love the creative community on crowdSPRING and one of the reasons we’re huge fans of 37signals and the SVN blog.
@Dhrumil – thanks so much for your kind words. We’re very happy to have the free market decide our fate. We work really hard every day because we love what we do. We’ve got an exceptional team that’s passionate about our community and about helping clients and designers around the world. And we have a passionate community of really talented designers who let their work speak for their talent.
@Josh – There are many exceptional portfolio sites. Let me know if you’d like some links. But those sites don’t help all designers get noticed. Our logo was designed by a night janitor, for example. We would have never hired him if we knew this and handn’t seen the logo first. crowdSPRING’s business model provides a level playing field for buyers (small and midsize businesses) to compete against larger companies who can afford to pay more for design. It also allows designers from around the world to compete against anyone – regardless of education, experience, or fancy offices. At the end of the day, good design is good design.
I don’t completely agree with your discussion about iStock. iStock is a great service and has benefited many people. Over 50,000 photographers sell photos on iStock. But iStock makes 2-3 times in revenues MORE than it pays to the photographers. We pay 100% of the awards to designers on crowdSPRING (our 15% fee is paid by the buyer). And as discussed above, designers can reuse elements of unsold designs for other clients.
I also respectfully disagree that the “rejects get nothing”. If you look at our forums, you’d see that there are many benefits to working on crowdSPRING beyond getting paid. I assure you that at first, I was dubious about this myself. But having personally talked with many designers, I really do understand why so many come to crowdSPRING to learn.
@Appwerks – no worries. Let me offer a parallel. Prior to crowdSPRING, I practiced law (as a partner in a Chicago firm). Most lawyers market by talking about how great they are. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Typically, instead of talking about my successes, I’d spend an hour or two, gratis, with a potential client, working through their problems and offering solutions. I billed at $500 per hour, so this was real value, and my message to the potential client was simple: if you like what I’m doing and how I’m working with you, consider hiring me, because you’ll get more of the same. This was “spec” work for sure, but I would rather spend a couple of hours helping someone with their problem than singing my own praises. Clients appreciated this. There’s nothing wrong with letting an individual decide for themselves how they choose to work. Many of my colleagues didn’t think what I did would work for them. And that’s OK.
Patrick Algrim
on 22 Sep 08I was the person in the other thread who was having this discussion with Ross. I think everyone has their view point on the ethics – in which some of them I will still stand by. You can see everything I said in the previous thread so I won’t continue to repeat myself.
But mainly, art is an expression, and art is something unique. I don’t want to see people competeing based on their art. I think Web and Graphic Design are defintely more treated as an idustry now and not as art. Which saddens me a little bit.
I think the main point here is that Ross and everyone at crowdSPRING do see everyones point. Me and Ross had some great conversation that lead me to believe they see these matters, and they are doing their best to approach them. With the internet, we can’t please everyone, so let’s try and give crowdSPRING a tiny break. Even DIGG has issues pleasing all of their users.
But JD said it right, if you are starting out, this is probably a great place to be. crowdSPRING does allow you to remove the people who shouldn’t be doing Web or Graphic design as a profession (which sometimes can be the case). There is a good amount of opportunity in crowdSPRING, but I would still love to see the entire industry (not just crowdSPRING) move towards better learning of the theories behind design, and allow employers and the general public to approach the industry as an art and science than “just another job everyone does.”
Sarah Urbanak
on 22 Sep 08I am also an active designer on crowdSPRING (29design), and would like to throw in a few words….
A degree in fine art, an honors degree in graphic design, and ¾ of a master completed, I feel that I am a “professional” in my field. After working many years as an in-house designer, my entrepreneurial drive kicked in, I moved to a very rural area and started my own freelance design business. I have chosen a lifestyle away from what you would call a design “hub” and crowdSPRING has allowed me to stay connected to my career and potential clients. There are no fees to contribute, and if my work is awarded – it is because of my talent in one particular instance, rather than a cheap price tag I have put on a project.
I have never once felt that my talent has been abused by this site, or I have been underpaid for my creative work. I choose what projects I participate in, those that align with my values. Many of the “buyers” I have met through crowdSPRING are now regular clients of mine.
The competitive nature of this site has not hindered my design, but driven me to improve my techniques, thinking, and skill.
I have nothing but praise for this site and those that are behind the scenes keeping it afloat… I am grateful to be part of this community of designers, professionals and hobbyist alike, and will continue to use this site as an inspiring income supplement.
Ben Stedman
on 22 Sep 08Wow. A lot people commented since I started my first post.
Guess I should type faster.
PS It’s ridiculous to comment on the length of the post, and completely fail to make a point about the content of the post.
Warren Benedetto
on 22 Sep 08I think crowdSPRING is doing professional designers a favor. Why? Because they’re filtering out all the crap clients.
Think about it … as a professional designer, do you really WANT to work for a client who is only willing to pay $200 for a logo? If that’s really how much they value design work, they’re not going to value it more by paying more for it.
They’re going to come to you, and say “Hey, we need a logo for $200 bucks.” You’ll say, “Sorry, logos are at least a $1000 minimum.” What happens?
A.) They go find someone cheaper. Who cares where they find them? The point is, you’re not getting the work.
B.) They try to negotiate with you. Either you bite on the negotiation and do the work for less than you want, in which case you’re bitter and resentful. Or you don’t budge, they hire you anyway, and then they’re a pain in the ass because they feel like for that price they can be.
They’re going to feel resentful that they have to pay so much for something they value so little, and that will come out in how they deal with you. It may be by giving you attitude on the phone, or by making unreasonable demands for revisions or changes, or by defaulting on the invoice or paying late. It’s not worth it - to me, at least - to diminish my quality of life over a few hundred bucks extra.
Wow, I totally just sounded like DHH with that last sentence. You guys hiring guest bloggers? :-)
Personally, I’d much rather let all those clients go somewhere else. Don’t even call me. Seriously. I’m not interested. I’d rather lose 20 clients to crowdSPRING in favor of one client with an actual budget and a healthy attitude towards good work done well.
Josh N.
on 22 Sep 08@Ross Kimbarovsky : So, iStock doesn’t have the same rate model as you do. I would expect them to take more of a cut because the artists just load up the assets and wait for payments. iStock does a lot of the work, but if a piece sells, the artist gets paid. If users don’t like the rate, then there’s opportunity for the free market to fix that problem and come up with a new site. I don’t see how that has anything to do with the ethics of spec, though.
So, the rejects “might” get work in the forums. I see. I’ll revise what I said before. Designers get the chance to roll the dice again in the forums for another opportunity to roll the dice. With the law of averages, it should work out for them. :-P
The free market argument doesn’t work when you’re talking about ethics. We make laws and rules that the market must follow based on ethics. Without it, we wouldn’t have minimum wage or unions. If people will work for $1 an hour, why not let them? If we don’t like traditional means of media distribution, why not just download it for free at the Pirate Bay?
Just because people will design on spec doesn’t make it ethical. There are plenty of ways to get new talent and good design noticed without resorting to spec. Before, I simply gave an idea of a scenario that would do what crowdSpring does in a more ethical way.
Patrick Algrim
on 22 Sep 08@Warren:
You are almost on the same track I was. The point of the entire discussion was to say – “Why contribute to the people who don’t understand design and just want the $200 client?”
You said it yourself, you would rather have a client that understands the nature of design, treats it as an art, and values the branding. The outside discussion came in with me and Ross because I felt like it might have been contributing to the downfall of this. Good companies don’t know what good design is, they don’t undersand the theories, and they want to pay cheap amounts. But who is out there to teach or help the industry change? Without sounding a promotion – I hope the discussion on my blog helps. But Ross and I discussed that he understands this situation and are doing their best to asses it (don’t quote me on that).
But Warren you are very close to the previous ethics discussed before, you may want to go check out the other thread.
drew
on 22 Sep 08It’s supply and demand, folks. Get over it.
SuperB
on 22 Sep 08CrowdSpring is introducing “design” to a much larger audience of small business owners, which only benefits the graphic design profession as a whole. In the future, perhaps these businesses will spend more on design…
My only problem is when the small businesses themselves decide which logo “wins”. Often times the client does not have the perspective and experience to know which logo will actually work best for their business goals. I go to a doctor for his/her advice. One thing experienced designer bring to the table is understanding how a logo will reach out to target customers.
P.S. I’m surprised how many people refer to clients with small budgets as “crappy”.
Appwerks.
on 22 Sep 08@Ross – Your law analogy would be more appropriate if the situation was such that a client had, for example, 5 attorneys, each charging $500 an hour, in the same room giving 2 hours of their time for free explaining/showing how they would address the client’s problem/issue in hope they will be selected to do the work.
The total available money, however, is limited to $1,500 that the client is committed to paying to the selected attorney.
In such a scenario, each participating attorney is committed to losing (or giving away, as preferred) $1,000 of their time and not being allowed to use any of their work for any other client (granted, the law analogy may not be quite perfect here). The winning attorney, would be guaranteed $1,500 regardless of how much time, and therefore money, it takes them to do the work.
Given the above, it’s clear that the client has all the advantages (variety of opinion and expertise and known maximum cost) whereas providers are only certain of being out $1,000 at least and a chance to repeat process again in the same way with someone else.
To be fair, the attorneys in the above example are totally free to not participate as well as give their time away so the client need not be bothered with how skewed the system is from the attorneys perspective.
SuperB
on 22 Sep 08Actually, its worse for the lawyer… In the lawyer example, the lawyer must do more than explain/show”. The lawyer must actually complete the work (write up a contract, go to court, etc.). Then, the work is judged by someone who has no idea how to judge this work – the client.
This situation, referred to as “contingency”, does work when lawyers take on a case in exchange for sharing the potential judgement. However, the contigency cases are usually much larger in dollar amounts…. Perhaps the designer should get a percentage of any increase in sales due to the new logo?
Matt
on 22 Sep 08I’d write a lengthy reply to this, but I’m too busy working on projects that are contractually guaranteed to make money.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08@drew – in a pure sense – you are correct. The market will decide whether long-term, it’s a good solution for many.
@SuperB – brilliantly said on all counts! In fact – one of our greatest wishes is to “graduate” clients on crowdSPRING to more traditional design firms. Let’s be realistic – there are limits to online creative marketplaces. We’re not blind to this and no online business model can fully resolve this. But as the businesses who use crowdSPRING grow and become more sophisticated, they’ll need more help. In fact, we’ve already been assembling and recommending traditional design firms to some clients that need more help than crowdSPRING can provide. At the end of the day – we want the best for the clients. For real. There are about 30+ million SMBs in the U.S. and half a million started every month. These numbers are much bigger when you consider the whole world. There’s plenty for everyone.
And you are so right about perspective and experience. This is an issue with which we struggle every day. We’re working on numerous other resources to help designers learn, including podcasts, videocasts, tutorials, and more guides. If any of you are interested in helping educate thousands of designers around the world, give me a shout – ross at crowdspring dot com.
@Appwerks – but that’s precisely what happens sometimes! These analogies are tenuous because they compare apples and oranges. I offered it to show only that even in a regulated industry, it’s not unusual for a “professional” to offer some work on spec.
And you are so right – it is about individual choice (and risk). We make these decisions every day. I’ve heard Jason Fried speak many times (all of you have). During the Chicago New Media Summit last week, Jason spoke right before we did. He talked about sharing with others – and those are both smart and powerful words. They’re smart because it’s incredibly rewarding personally when you can help someone else. They’re powerful because that’s a sign of a true professional. There’s nothing wrong with giving a few hours of your time – in any profession. True professionals do this all the time.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08I don’t know that I’d say it’s worse for lawyers. It’s comparing apples and oranges. At the end of the day, being a professional is more than the label. Jason Fried was right when he said in 2006 that the term has become a “buzzword”. How we act, what we do, and our ethics define who we are, not a label.
@ Matt – :)
Graham
on 22 Sep 08Interestingly, I had visited the cS site after seeing it in the original post and clicked away after about a minute because I didn’t immediately understand what the hell the site was about ….
Now that I return, the first project I clicked on was a logo gig for a yacht firm with a price of $600. That’s pretty good $$$ as far as I am concerned, having been asked to do several different entire web sites for that amount (or less)
The simple fact is that professional designers are intimidated by the prospect of proving their worth against an army of hobbyists and designers working in lower-cost areas. I count myself in that first group, and am not afraid to admit it.
Douglas Neiner
on 22 Sep 08@Ross Kimbarovsky
When I was getting started, I did do some work on spec. Your venue is much better suited to it than individual clients contacting one designer as was the case with me. Almost immediately after launching my business, I had more work than I could handle so I didn’t have to continue doing spec. Sometimes I will do a short proof of concept for an existing client to sell them on an idea, and I suppose that is considered spec as well.
It was actually funny, I turned around from posting my comment and immediately recommended that our intern look up your site as a way of breaking into graphic design/logo design. He promptly wrote down your site address and will be looking it up later.
I apologize for being harsh, I will definitely be recommending your site to those getting started as a way to produce income.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08@Graham – You are right that some are intimidated by the prospect of competing against others – but yet we all do this every day. And such competition is a great way to test our skills and to learn new things. It’s not only about lower-cost areas – although there is certainly some truth to that. One half of the designers who’ve been awarded projects on crowdSPRING are U.S. designers.
@Douglas – thank you for your kind words. In fact – we know that some of our designers will ultimately find plenty of work and will leave us. We’re OK with that. We think that’s one of the values we provide to them. We’ll be super proud if we can point to various parts of the world and proudly say that the designer used to work on crowdSPRING before they got super busy. And thanks so much for recommending crowdSPRING to your intern and to others. Whether one agrees or disagrees with what we’re trying to do, I hope that the discussion has shown at the very least that we’re trying hard to improve things for clients and designers alike and that we care about them and about the industry. Perhaps that simple fact makes our community so special (and explains why it’s so rewarding for us to come to work in the mornings).
Jimmy T
on 22 Sep 08I find nothing wrong with any business that can potentially hurt another business, business model, or freelancer. Protection from competition in the market place exists only for despots in the top 1%, so us creative types don’t qualify. If customers want to buy cheap, average, or below average work, no one has the right to deny them, and those that meet the demand are not “hurting” the better designer.
Take tattoo artists. Lower cost studios do not command the same rates as top artists. Customers’ criteria for price versus product is a personal decision that has the right to be met, and no one has a natural right to deny. Some people wear $30,000 tattoos, other wear $300. Imagine if top artists marched around trying to shut down studios that offer cheaper prices and less than superior work, or cried for protection.
It’s up to every artist employed or freelance, to reach the peak of their ability, and ask whatever price they want. If the customer or employee is not willing to pay it, or turn to a competitor, getting bitter about it and complaining how it’s hurting you is pathetic. It’s time to ween yourself from mom’s tit.
Even if you are an artistic genius that mere mortals just do not recognize and pay you instead of the generic tool next door, then such is life, and this is the world you live in, and everybody is a moron, and you’d still have no right to dictate who customers CHOOSE to give their money to in exchange for ugly logos, no matter how many no!specs you pledge allegiance to.
All I have to do is look around, and I see that great talent is recognized, and payed for. Not everyone who recognizes the superior exterior of a BMW 300 series can afford one, but those that do and can, buy it.
Josh N.
on 22 Sep 08Harlan Ellison – Pay the Writer
autumn
on 22 Sep 08Thanks to this thread I will now start using crowdSpring to bid for my projects. I didn´t know this service existed before and it is the perfect solution for discovering new designers to do projects for my organization.
We are a non profit and we have a limited budget so when we look for designers we never use a design firm. We have a few freelance designers that we use but we are always interested in expanding that pool because we sometimes like to see what is out there. We still use our previous designers because they each have a specific style that we like so they aren´t losing out.
I´ve used Craigslist to find designers before and the results have been less than good. I´m normally not a supporter of spec work but I think that crowdSpring is addressing a lot of the issues with spec work and is doing a great thing for designers and clients alike.
Totoro
on 22 Sep 08The funny thing is Ross Kimbarovsky’s initial post totally failed to convince me, but replies from both people who work with crowdSPRING and pros who don’t like it helped me understand where it could have a real value.
A lot has already been said, anyway…
What is “professional level design”? Is there such a thing? It’s a marketing buzzword, it hurts my ears, and usually means “slightly better than dreadful”. We’ve all seen too many “1500 professional clip arts” packs for $9.99. But I like how Jon Moore described it: “market-competitive design”, because that’s what “pros” do. They have a set of skills and target the adequate markets.
If I had more time I think I’d try to participate in crowdSPRING projects (I’m a designer with 10+ years of experience), dedicate like 2 hours max to create a logo, and see what comes from it. It could be funny, because sometimes a good logo could be totally misundestood by the client. I don’t mean clients have no taste or are dumb! But take flickr’s logo, can you imagine presenting such a thing on crowdSPRING? “The name set in Verdana with a red last letter, WTF does it have to do with photos??”. You probably need some design education to understand how brilliant the wordmark is.
Jay Ehret
on 22 Sep 08I have now used crowdSPRING twice with great success, and am about to use it again for a new client logo. It is a Godsend for small businesses who otherwise would not be able to afford a new logo design.
On the other hand, I also just used a local designer for another project because it required some conversation and back and forth.
I will continue to use both crowdSPRING and local designers.
Quinn Weaver
on 22 Sep 08What a mass of hot air. I’m reminded of On Bullshit (also of Floyd Landis’s "Wikipedia Defense").
I don’t think 37signals should run content like this. It dilutes their no-nonsense brand.
Tom H.
on 22 Sep 08I’m a buyer (with a 2 day old project) on crowdspring and the idea that folks are even questioning the validity of crowdspring seems quite ridiculous to me. Whether I want an over styled mess of graphics or a simple dot in the center of a page is decision only I can make and I’m the only one who is really qualified to judge the quality. Its our buck up there and if someone provides something we like, that’s it. Done. The rest of you whiny designers can keep on bitching but it won’t stop the exchange of dollars for design and the value we get from crowdsourcing.
If the designer is making it is his profession… hey, he/she is a pro. There’s not much more to it.
My project is two days old and I’ve had 22 entries… 22 in just 2 days! We’re offering $700 ($805 including the fee) and that is MUCH lower than the thousands per project paid to the “pro’s” in the past. Get an agency on board and you end up with what… a couple iterations and a couple revisions for $3K… maybe $7-10K for a basic site. We did that, one firm took the $3K and bailed when we rejected their vision for our site. Another charged $2500 for crap. The last one soaked us for $7500 that wasn’t much more than outsourced CSS code he plugged into some boxes for a WordPress design.
If this goes as well as I think it is, we’re done with snotty, overpriced designers that ignore our wishes and implement whey they think is better. To hell with that stuff.
Graham Smith
on 22 Sep 08I am a professional and highly experienced creative living in the UK. I have worked in the industry for over 20 years, working in most sectors including design, commercial print, repro graphics, advertising and marketing.
I have worked within companies that have teams to create a brand, I have also worked on my own within a small agency to achieve the same. I have worked for companies who’s morals are more than questionable when it comes to treating clients with respect in terms of the gross overcharging that can occur. I have had to sit back whilst this goes on in supposed established agencies and studios.
Now, because of health issues, I am unable to be an employee within a company, however, I can and do work from home. This allows me to treat the client in a more genuine and sincere way, the way I feel is right, and offer a level of service that would leave my previous companies staggering for balance.
CrowdSpring and sites like it have allowed me to establish myself as a professional in my own right, a semi career as I try to make a living as a freelancer.
With successful projects from CrowdSpring under my belt, I have been able to forge deeper professional and often social relationships with these clients. Clients I would not ordinarily have come across, I am now receiving repeat work from. This is because of my professionalism, not just as a creative, but as a person. When the client chooses to continue to work with me rather than a local designer or agency in the same country, then you know that something positive is occurring.
I am content because I am doing what I am good at, I am also earning a living that otherwise may not have been possible without ‘work to spec’, CrowdSpring etc. I am adding quality, experience and professionalism to the industry, all be it from my home studio.
It would be prudent for people in the design industry to consider all the possibilities before passing judgment and assigning labels to those that use such services.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08@Jimmy – I might have used slightly different words, but well-said. :)
@Josh – thanks so much for the link to the video by Harlan Ellison. A nice view! If we all were paid as much as Harlan Ellison (or were as talented), we too could sit on our high horse and set terms. But this is not reality for most people. And even if it was, every person decides their own fate. Harlan Ellison says in the video that he wouldn’t “so much as take a piss without getting paid.” That says to me pretty much all I need to know about him. :)
@autumn – thanks so much for your kind words. We’ve been very fortunate to have been able to help a number of non-profits. In fact, I recently interviewed one of the designers working on crowdSPRING (we do this every few weeks in our blog). We picked her specifically because we were so impressed with her commitment to helping non profits! I’m really glad that this discussion has introduced you to crowdSPRING.
@Totoro – I’m always accused of failing to persuade. :) But I’m really thrilled that you’ve kept an open mind. If you do find some time, we’d love to see you on crowdSPRING. Even if you don’t participate in projects, it would be great to have a designer with 10+ years experience contributing on our forums, for example.
@Jay – thanks so much for offering your perspective. Since your business focuses almost entirely on representing small businesses and helping them with their marketing challenges, it’s a really valuable perspective for us.
@Quinn – sorry you’re unhappy. We’re very thankful that 37signals has allowed us to engage their community in this discussion. Rather than diluting their brand – it shows that they are a true leader – and a role model to others. Not too many companies would have been comfortable to open up their blog to a stranger on such a polarizing topic.
@Tom – it’s great to have this insight from a buyer – particularly since you’ve known us for such a short amount of time. Thanks! You’ve expressed sentiments we’ve heard from many others who’ve had difficulty with designers. In fact – my own personal experience with nearly the same problem was one of the catalysts for us starting crowdSPRING.
@Graham – thanks so much for your kind words. We’re really proud to have Graham working on crowdSPRING. He’s been a true leader with his work, actions and words. We had the pleasure of featuring an interview with Graham last month in our blog. As I mentioned above, we do these interviews every few weeks and it’s pretty amazing when you consider the diversity of the people who are involved with creative work, not just on crowdSPRING, but everywhere.
Tammy Collins
on 22 Sep 08My name is Tammy C, aka moonwelldesigns @ crowdSPRING. I don’t have a degree in graphic design and I don’t have a fancy office. Also, I must admit, I’m not as talented as many creatives @ cS and I may not be as eloquent as many posting here. But I want to include my thoughts.
What I do have is a love for creativity, and now, thanks to crowdSPRING, opportunities I otherwise wouldn't have had. I am a stay-at-home grandmother, trying to help ease the strain of the expense of childcare for my daughter, which of course causes a bit of financial strain at home. cS has given me multiple opportunities. I'll start with the opportunity to learn. The cS community is abundant with intellegent indiviuals who are happy to share their knowledge. Their forums and blogs are excellent venues for me to learn about the graphic design industry. Participating in contests pushes me to constantly to strive for improvement.Secondly, the opportunity for income. Some of the negative posts here, speak of creatives at cS almost as if they are mindless drones who have no idea what they are doing. On the contrary, we all know there is no guarantee that we will win a contest. It isn’t for everyone, that is agreed. But for those who choose to participate, such as myself, the opportunity is enough. My first point makes it worth it. I can’t put a price on everything I have learned since I joined in July. I have won a couple of contests, and have also received follow-up work worth way more than those two wins. It has made it possible to continue to stay home with my granddaughter a little longer, and hopefully will continue to do so, as my skills improve. But the money was a pleasant surprise bonus. I’m in it for the learning.
For some of us, it’s as simple as – we love what we do. We have a choice to participate, and choose to do so because it’s a passion, not because we expect to get paid top-dollar.
@ those who think there aren’t any real “professionals” at cS. I absolutely must disagree with that point. I have seem some genius minds at work, and some extroadinary talent when it comes to executing those genious ideas. I can only wish to one day possess the skills that some of these creatives do. For anyone doubting the skills of this pool of creatives, I suggest taking a glance at a few portfolios Some of the creatives whose work I admire are: FRDK, Imjustcreative, 29designs, Monsterleo, and Lightbox. Their sheer number of wins while competing with 6000+ creatives speaks for itself. Wins aside, I admire them because their work is always top notch. It stands apart from the rest of the entries in the contests they participate in.
Crowdsourcing design work is inevitable. This isn’t the first industry it has affected, and won’t be the last. It isn’t surprising that there are so many opposed to it. Though I feel many view it with a closed mind. As the point has been made several times, most of the buyers taking advantage of this solution, aren’t buyers that the “professionals” of the industry are interested in serving in the first place due to their tight budgets. In my honest opinion, I don’t see much merit in those opposed to this model. I don’t intend to be disrespectful to anyone. I just feel the benefits to so many creatives and buyers alike, completely outweigh any disadvantages to either, and at the same time are not threatening to the design industry. It’s only serving to expand it in my opinion.
@Matt: I respectfully disagree with the comment: “crowdSPRING puts ALL of the cost, and ALL of the risk on the designers. As a potential client – it doesn’t cost anything for me to post a job request.”
cS doesn’t put all of the cost on the creatives. Yes, we know the risk is great that we won’t earn a dime. Refer to my first point. :) cS pays every penny of a posted contest prize to the winner. They even foot the bill for the paypal transactions, as was noted in a prior comment. And it does cost a buyer to post a project. They pay in advance the appropriate amount of their choosing.
Granted, the guarantee that a buyer recieves 25 entries, or gets a refund if he/she so chooses does mean there is a chance the buyer foots none of the bill. Thought I certainly haven’t seen this happen very often. When it does, it’s usually due to lack of participation/feedback on the part of the buyer.
The way I see it, the buyers make up for their benefit of lower priced design work, with their time. Some of the contests with extensive feedback, I have seen easily produce more than 400 entries. Many of these buyers try to respond to each creative. I can only imagine the amount of time they spend on this.
One more note. Yes I know I’m long-winded. I’m a grandmother… I figure I’m allowed. :) Choosing a professional with a degree and AIGA backing, doesn’t guarantee I’ll get talent, or even a satisfactory design for that matter, as was mentioned in previous comments. Also I’ve witnessed so-called professionals in the design industry, treat their clients disrespectfully, in a very nearly obnoxious and arrogant manner. I don’t care if I had millions to spend on design work, if I was the buyer, I would take a respectful and considerate “hobbyist” with talent, over an arrogant “professional” anyday.
My apologies to anyone I’ve offended with the length of my post or any of its content. It wasn’t intended as disrespectful, only to speak my “14 cents worth” I certainly missed the “three paragraphs”, and botched the “14 words concept” in the first one. :)
Tammy
Cibi Perez
on 22 Sep 08Hello, I am monsterleo, a designer @ crowdspring. I went to a graphic design school 5 years ago, took illustrator as a course integrated with Quark and Photoshop for one semester. I dropped out, and in early January of this year, I enrolled again at another school for a semester of Illustrator 101.. the basics if you will. I had not touched a keyboard using illustrator once since I dropped out.
Ok to make my point, I fell inlove with designing again. Am I good at it? Maybe. Maybe you may think im not. But in less than two months I sold 9 winning logos at crowdspring. Nine. Worldwide. And I could care less about all the rambling and fussing in this blog. I do it because I love designing. I do it because I get lost when im designing and I enter a little world that no one can take me out of. Its the same little place in my head when I visited the Art institute at Chicago, and literally just sat and stared at works of art for hours. Not really noticing anyone else or knowing sense of time. Remember that feeling?And before I know it, two days have gone by without me getting any sleep. But I dont care. I just love doing it. Like the kid who loves playing ball then realizes how complicated it gets when you are REALLY good at it and colleges start pulling you in every direction. I guess i am a total newbie. Some of you are saying “what a naiive guy, he ll learn”. But I do know this much about myself. I AM good enough to have caught the attention of currently 9 buyers, and I have less than 6 months of experience of using Illustrator. Am I a professional? Heck no. But I will try to give professional designs and service as much as I know how to. Remember that commercial… for the love of the game? Well, for me its… for the love of design. Nothing else matters to me.
Crowdspring has been the building block of rediscovering what it felt like for me when I was ten years old and I drew because I just liked doing it. It reminds me of the innocence when friends and family told me “Wow! You are really good!..) Whether they knew if it was really good or not. But when my logos get picked as a winner to represent a company,... well quite frankly I feel like a kid again.
So all this mumbo jumbo and complexity on this issue to me is just bs. Ill keep doing it for the love. And if you think Im an idiot for being taken “advantage” of, so be it. I wont be on crowdspring forever. But I am a student of learning yet. And someday soon I hope to accomplish all the wonderful things Ross has accomplished over at Crowdspring.
ep
on 22 Sep 08Can we close the comments now please? This post is like debating about corrida. Long life to CrowdThing, and personnally I’ll stick with opinion of Aaron Drapling:
America Is F*cked…....(Graphically at least)
Val
on 22 Sep 08The price of creative work is largely a function of reputation. Crowd sourcing provides a market-based mechanism that lets newcomers establish this reputation on merit. They can then later charge higher fees if warranted.
Crowd sourcing is just another result of the intersection of globalization and technology. It’s here to stay. Get used to it. All arguments that crowd sourcing somehow “undermines” the industry show a lack of understanding of economics. In this case, AIGA is acting just like the RIAA.
Josh. N
on 22 Sep 08@Ross Kimbarovsky : I posted the video mostly as a joke (but what he says is pretty true), because no one is addressing the ethical component of spec work. All I hear is how the buyers love to get stuff on the cheap (with no risk) or how grandmothers like to have fun and be creative with the off-chance of making a buck (not that there’s anything wrong with having fun and being creative).
There are plenty of people in this country who would gladly work for less than minimum wage, but it is unethical and illegal to pay them less than the minimum wage. How is spec work any different?
David W. Nees
on 22 Sep 08I think it is possible that the field of graphic design can sustain both types of work situations. Traditional firms are always needed – for example, I was at a university that underwent a huge re-branding. It took almost a year and cost hundred of thousands of dollars – would crowdSpring be able to do that, probably not. A design firm would be better suited for such an undertaking. Then there is the upstart business that needs a logo – for even as much as a decent business proposal, are they going to spend even thousands of dollars on a logo? No, so that is where cS comes in and it gives the option of good design to those clients. Designers working there way up get the experience working in real-time and a chance to hone their creative skills – so they win even if they do not get selected. Also, it is a bit naive to think that there are tons of options for designers who are working to get the experience so heavily demanded by firms and in-house jobs in this lackluster US economy. So again cS offers a way to build experience and a portfolio that goes beyond school work. It really can be seen as an online internship of sorts and although AIGA (which I am a proud member of) and other organizations do not like designers “working for free,” check out how many paid internship positions have been cut out of the market place – leaving junior design positions being posted asking for 2-5 years of experience. So again, cS fills a space that has been created – not by the diminished value of designers but a dismal economy that is the bigger problem. But in the end it comes down to this, as Ross always says, you can participate or not – the choice is up to you.
Shawn Oster
on 22 Sep 08I think it’s a grand idea. As someone that moonlights web development vs. web design I often just need a non-code website design that I can turn into XHTML+CSS. I’m doing work for non-profits that already have a tiny budget and I just don’t have the time to search out a design firm, haggle about rates, develop the contacts, etc. all for a site that’s only going to pay $800.
It’s also a great way to build up a body of work. Even if your spec doesn’t get picked you now have something in your portfolio. Most beginning designers end up making up fake company sites and logos anyway, having an actual requirement in front of them frees them to just create, they get their portfolio rounded off and they may even get some cash out of it.
Tammy Collins
on 22 Sep 08For years I have chosen to create designs for friends and family, and friends of theirs… for free or very nearly free. Now I choose to do it a cS. It is my choice, plain and simple. I participate only in the contests I want, spend as much time as I want, when I want. I fail to see this as unethical. I still do what I love to do, and would do anyway, only now I am earning income doing it.
As far as the buyers out for “stuff on the cheap” I feel it has been addressed. Buyers make up for this with their time. The more time they spend on their projects with feedback and input, the more outstanding the entries to their projects become. Doesn’t the buyers time spent account for something? Isn’t their time as valuable as the time of creatives? With spec work, buyers aren’t providing feedback to one or a few creatives, they are often providing it to hundreds. “You get what you pay for” still holds just as true @ cS as anywhere. If you offer $150 for your project reward, spend little or no time on feedback and give little input in your brief, you will get limited entries, some of which may not be any good, some may have possibilities, and a couple might be a great concept, but only it its first draft form to show the concept.
I just don’t see it as unethical for buyers, anymore than I feel it is unethical for me to participate on my own terms. I see nothing wrong with a company on a budget or a start-up bootstrapper, choosing a solution with benefits such as this opportunity, and as several do, make up for the difference in price with their time.
From what I have witnessed at cS time and time again, buyers that contribute a huge portion of their time, and a decent prize for the project, consistently get large numbers of great entries.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 22 Sep 08@Tammy – thanks so much for contributing to this discussion. I am certain that the 37signals community will cut you some slack…
@Cibi – thanks for giving your perspective. It helps illustrate something we’ve been talking about and perhaps in a small way – answers something @Patrick talked about above in the comments. Your passion for what you are doing is admirable – I wish every designer (actually, every person) had such passion for what they do. Incidentally, Gary Vaynerchuk talked about having passion for what you are doing during his recent Web 2.0 Expo talk in New York. It’s well worth a listen!
@ep – I don’t know that I’d compare what we’re discussing to bullfighting. Thanks for the video from Aaron Draplin – it helps to illustrate that crappy design is crappy design, even when done by a professional sign company.
@Val – well said!
@Josh – What Harlan Ellison says is true about his perspective and maybe the perspective of some other people. It’s highly unlikely he speaks for designers around the world, even if most of them would love to be paid for taking a “piss” – and I’m quoting here.
You’ve asked a fair question – but you haven’t explained why you believe spec work is unethical. There is also a broader question. Buyers on crowdSPRING have come from 30 countries. And those buyers have chosen designers both from the U.S. and from other countries. Whose ethics should apply? And what are those ethics?
As for people who’d gladly work for less than the minimum wage – there are lots of them. Waiters and waitresses, actors and actresses, entrepreneurs of all kinds – including those who start technology businesses, the list goes on. And they do often work for less than the minimum wage. This argument holds little water because it ignores the fact that people have plenty of other reasons for designing. If it were only about the money, I’d have serious concerns for this entire industry.
@David – thanks so much for contributing to this discussion. It’s particularly insightful to hear your thoughts given your background (B.A. Graphic Design, B.A in Art History and M.A. in Art History).
@Shawn – well said. There’s another benefit too and that’s communicating with real clients. Doing fake designs is OK, but you don’t get real feedback to those. Doing actual designs, for real clients often results in real feedback and a good reality check about your skills as a designer.
Jimmy T
on 22 Sep 08@ Josh N.
What is more unethical than paying less than minimum wage is telling a person they can’t work AT ALL because they don’t have enough skills to get paid what some politicians decided SHOULD be the minimum. You can’t legislate poverty away. Nor can you compare someone using a computer to create a logo to the voiceless folks who resort to “illegal” survival tactics, such as washing dishes and mowing lawns.
There are things about spec work that I don’t like either, but there is a market for everything, and that’s a good thing, even if you don’t agree.
If you feel that out there, there exist people who are chipping away at the profits of real professionals, I’d like to tell you that it’s not the end of the world.
In front of my favorite lunch places, there are street meat guys who sell bigger portions for half the price. Maybe there should be legislature to protect the profits or real restaurants against those squirrel meat selling bastards.
If enough professionals worry about grandmas stealing their meal tickets, than it’s practically guaranteed that on a long enough time line, that will in fact happen, and will be completely justified.
brandufacturing
on 23 Sep 08Why is this post even on SvN?
What does this have to do with the suite of products or the areas of work that 37signals is an expert in?
Jason Fried spoke so eloquently last week of the power in held by truly great curators…experts in their field that know that the ability and perception to say no is often what truly differentiates. So in my view, not only is this a poorly curated blog post, but the vehicle it is endorsing goes against the core tenants of Jason’s argument and some additional core values of 37signals. That is, crowdSpring gives otherwise uninformed and uneducated clients a “menu of options” to choose from, allowing the “best” design to “win.” Customers are put in the position of curators without the expertise or insight necessary to make a decision appropriate for their product/brand/users. This system completely shifts design decisions to choices completely predicated on taste…I like that one, I don’t like that one – imagine if basecamp were designed as such?! This is so entirely divergent from the position of 37signals it is absolutely confounding to me why they would choose to endorse crowdSpring in this fashion.
oh yeah, and something about “charging for your product” that I seem to remember as well…
J
on 23 Sep 08brandufacturing, 37signals isn’t endorsing anything, they are giving someone a platform to speak. If a university invites a controversial speaker to speak at a forum does that mean they are endorsing them or does it mean they think it would be an interesting experience for their students or audience? A big part of learning is being exposed to ideas you disagree with.
Reader
on 23 Sep 08I’m sorry but I forgot to bow before posting before. I didn’t realize how pompous members of 37signals were. I’m sorry, but “professionalism” comes with being respectful. It’s incredible how condescending “real designers” are. I hope i never become a real professional designer.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@Jimmy – the “squirrel meat selling bastards” line was a favorite in our office, and prompted much discussion about whether squirrel meat tastes like chicken – apparently, yes.
@brandufacturing – I’ll leave alone your comments directed to 37signals, but I do want to respond to your comments about “otherwise uninformed and uneducated clients”. While this is sometimes a true statement (sadly), it’s not universally true. Moreover, you are presuming that the designers working on crowdSPRING are similarly uninformed and uneducated. That presumption is wrong. Additionally, while we all want to think that design decisions are not driven by taste – there’s the reality and the fact remains that most design decisions are driven by taste. Design is subjective. You can wrap all sort of objectivity around design, but at the end of the day, it’s as subjective as subjective gets.
As for your comments about 37signals products – those are very fair comments, but I think the analogy misses the point. Compare 37signals’ products to those made by other companies. There’s a reason why our team uses 37signals products every single day and not products made by other companies for our development efforts. We subjectively think they’re better, simpler, more intuitive, and make us a better, stronger, more agile team. Maybe we’re uneducated and uninformed, but we vote with our checkbook and gladly pay for software we like. Shouldn’t every buyer be entitled to the same opportunity? Are you really generalizing to say that you know better than every other buyer what’s good for them? That you’re a better curator?
As for charging for your product – let me offer this: every single 37signals product has a free account. Every one of them. While we’re not privy to the statistics, I would venture to guess that there are far more free users than pay users. We admire 37signals for this – and in fact, in more ways than most other examples, 37signals’ business practices helped us to formulate in 2006 and 2007, before we launched, many of our own ideas about what we’d charge, whom we’d charge, and when.
@J – well put. This is one reason why we’re so thrilled to have this opportunity to talk to all of you.
Zinni
on 23 Sep 08This statement is soo flawed that I don’t even know where to start. The users of crowdSpring are in no way entrepreneurs or risk takers. An entrepreneur would take the initiative to find their own clients, ones that are able to afford an appropriate market rate for their services.
crowdSpring is also not for risk takers. In fact these users are most likely avoiding risk by using the system. They are avoiding developing actual client relationships, and avoid putting faith in their work. In the crowdSpring system almost no risk is taken, if the designers work is not up to par, then they are ultimately not responsible.
Either way you look at it, this statement is fundamentally flawed.
cibi perez
on 23 Sep 08Zinni, I created a logo for Stephen Nash, founder of The playboys Lounge, who was so thrilled with my logo that we exchanged phone numbers, e mails, and if I am ever in the New York area wants me to contact him so we can meet. Mr. Nash runs a very successful company How to get a girlfriend.com and has been a “character” in Neil Strauss’s best seller, The Game. Why dont you shoot him an email an ask if we have a relationship.
Matt Schenck, founder of AQrtQuiver based on Charlottesville, VA, has been contacting me by phone and email regarding my winning entry. Im proud to say we are now contacts and soon I will be doing other work for his company outside of Crowdspring. And I am now in contact with the prining business that will run his logo and Josh and I are now contacts and answers question regarding any printing aspect of Graphic design. Also, he has asked if he can ever “give” me a referral… isnt that what a successful buyer-seller relationship is all about at the end of the day?
Randy Pearlstein- actor, writer and director who has appeared in the Chappelle Show and wrote Cabin Fever and Cabin Fever 2 wrote me a personal email thanking me for my time i devoted to his project. Although I did not win, he asked if I would mind if he could use me for any projects that may come up outside of Crowdspring. Email him and tell him Monsterleo sent you.
Briarcliff Animal foundation and I have been still contacting each other regarding shirts, mugs and other apparel that will come out via my winning logo and am happy to say we are still in contact for future work.
I could keep going but Im sure youve stopped reading by now.
Josh N.
on 23 Sep 08@Jimmy T : You make a lot of assumptions. I never brought up anything about “amateurs” taking profits from “real professionals.” I’m also not debating immigration policies either, so check that baggage at the door.
I have a problem with people not getting paid anything for doing work. Period.
crowdSpring takes advantage and profits off of “underdog” designers. This is evident in the way they structure their business. The buyers hold all the cards and the designers take all the risk for the potential of little reward.
There is nothing about their business model that justifies spec work and most of their arguments in the long-winded post above do not hold water.
crowdSpring’s model is nothing like iStock photo and should not compare itself to it. The asset creators keep ownership of all works and there is no risk. That’s why the fees are high. iStock is taking all the risk, so they should have the reward for success. crowdSpring and the buyers dump all the risk onto the one doing all the work. Small businesses have small budgets? Then hire an inexpensive designer. Do a little research and look at portfolios. You’ll find the right fit. Want exposure to new designers? Maybe try local art/design schools. Young designers will work for less or they might even barter. New business can afford to pay them. Compare designer’s risk to a movie studio’s? WTF? Do people who work on a movie not get paid? Is their salary dependent on the movies success? No. The movie studio has the budget to take the risk. That’s why the movie studio reaps the rewards of a blockbuster and they can continue to make money from it from DVDs and merchandise. They own it. crowdSource has done nothing to minimize risk on the designers. The target market who really don’t have the budget to take those risks. You said it yourself, “The underdogs have a high tolerance for risk because they have few alternatives.” That sounds like a nice way of saying you take advantage of the underdog. How is participating on this site anything like the risk of software creation? Sure if the software flops, you’ve lost, but if it’s hugely successful, the reward is huge—and you still own it. On crowdSpring, if the work is not chosen – the designer is not paid. If it is and the business becomes a huge success, the designer gets a flat rate and they don’t own a thing. The risk vs reward is way off balance.So, again, how can this type of spec work be ethical?
Josh N.
on 23 Sep 08Oops, my bullets, above, went away. Sorry.
Jimmy T
on 23 Sep 08@Ross Kimbarovsky
I’ll take your guys’ word for it. I never tried squirrel or it’s street meat relatives!
Jimmy T
on 23 Sep 08@Josh N.
Fair enough about taking profits, but as far as the structure of their business, just don’t forget that no one is holding a gun to anyone’s head to join, and you can’t protect those willing to take the “risk” from taking it. When I used to design websites, I remember quiet a few deals falling through, many of which I’ve risked (and wasted) a lot of time on. Where were you to protect me then? I would have hired you.
At least as far as this site goes, these risks/investments (depending on your perspective) are public, documented, and consentual, even though the buyers have the upper hand, as they always do in a market economy. Only under socialism does the seller have the upper hand, and only when it comes to natural resources, since he is usually the exclusive provider under one protection or another.
Anyway, the point is though that I agree that an artist ought to charge the market value for their product, but that value is largely subjective in those that hold the shekels, and contingent on their willingness to pay for it.
Only individual trial and error eventually brings a designer to find his price level, whether he likes it or not is a different story. Sometimes people are willing to pay more for an inferior product, and as unfortunate as it is, it’s not the rule but the temporary exception.
Some people willingly work for free, but it’s their choice. Neither you nor I have the right to stop them, nor should we shepherd them to greener pastures. Each individual works this out on their own, but if Warner Bros. asked me for a freebie like the writer in the video you posted, I’d tell them no, if that makes you feel better.
Fred K
on 23 Sep 08@Josh N. I’m not going to debate the validity of your statements regarding getting paid, spec work and the Crowdspring model, but I will offer this point: the folks who work at Crowdspring (a.k.a “the designers”) have a choice. We can choose to put in time with the possibility of getting a disclosed sum of cash money for that work, and we can choose to not put in the time. There are no secrets in cS projects (competitions, if you will), the prize is posted on the bulletin board, it’s easy to gauge the expected turnout of good designers vs ‘fledgling’ designers, and it’s easy to assess how much time you’d need to invest in order to crank out something reasonable. And we all know the premise: even if my proposal is supafly, there are no guarantees that I’ll get the cash reward. So there is basically no “risk” for the designers at cS because everything is out in the open. Well, almost everything. That’s not always the case in RL.
Some time ago I did some contract work for a couple of clients that were referred to me by a good friend, a person whose judgement I trust. In the course of the projects, both clients decided to go back on their initial brief, cut down on the work they wanted done and - naturally! - expected me to reduce my fee accordingly. I said we have a contract, wtf. Now, both these clients are holding out on payment. I am a professional, I design …stuff… for a living. I don’t collect outstanding debts for a living. At the same time I have “sold” a number of designs at Crowdspring, and got paid promptly every single time. No renegging on deals, no skirting the bills, no grumpy or complaining clients. Job done, money in the bank, thank you very much. And I get a nice swell of follow-up work to boot. Guess who I like more at this point—Mr. Kimbarovsky and his team or my friend whose judgement I trust(ed)?
I’d also like to stress one point that’s been raised already in the comments. Crowdspring isn’t restricted to the U.S. It’s a global marketplace with buyers and designers from many corners of the world. Personally, I’m from Sweden. So using AIGA as a bat in this discussion doesn’t really work, even though AIGA’s stance on spec work is the same as that of many other countries’ design and arts guilds. Spec work in its true form is not good. I personally don’t regard the Crowdspring model as true spec work (yes, there are elements of it in there), mostly because we do have a choice.
I also hear that chicken tastes like everything, which could explain some things.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@Reader – Words may be hurtful, but they are mere words and we must always remember that they often don’t represent the views of many – they represent the views of a single person. Ironically, the “attitude” perhaps speaks far louder to indict itself than any response ever could.
@Zinni – Anthony, I’‘m a bit surprised. Frankly – your comment leaves me smiling because this is a great example – as I just wrote in response to Reader – of a comment plainly and simply undermining itself and exposing the commentor- in plain sight for all to see. No response by me would do this one justice. I marvel at your Luddite attitude.
@Cibi – thanks for providing the examples. You’ve done a great job finding clients and showing by example how to work, act, and talk like a professional. At the end of the day, our acts speak far louder than the labels we might wrap ourselves around.
@Josh – question for you. How do you feel about 37signals giving away all their products for free? What about other companies that have a freemium business model?
On iStock – the asset creators keep ownership of all works. This is the same on crowdSPRING. A buyer doesn’t acquire the IP to the work until the designer is paid.
You say iStock takes all the risk. Really? This comment puzzles me. What risk does iStock take?
Your comments suggest that you deeply misunderstand risk. Movie studios are institutions and they do take on the risk. You are right that they have the budget to take this risk. Automotive companies, and most companies, in fact, similarly take on the institutional risk. So what? That’s been a historical fact. Risk is individual (whether to an institution or to an individual). Help me to understand why you should decide whether someone could take on whatever risk they want to take on.
As for your last comment about ethics – I am not sure how to respond because your note demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of ethics. Saying something is unethical burdens you to explain why – and you’ve not done that. If the risk/reward ratio is off balance to you – don’t do it, since nobody is forcing you. I’m very curious about your age – because your comments suggest you haven’t had much experience hiring “inexpensive designers”.
@Jimmy – I had to take their word for it too. Not about to eat squirrel.
Your comments in response to @Josh are spot on. It’s an individual risk/reward ratio and those who emphatically would decide for others what that ratio should be merely expose their own insecurity.
@Fred – thanks for providing your perspective.
Adrienne Adams
on 23 Sep 08Designers are vulnerable folks. All we have to sell is what’s inside our heads. It’s easy for clients to take advantage of this fact, and hard to ask for what we’re worth. We’re constantly on the lookout for low-ballers, “designers” who try to steal our work, clients who won’t pay, clients who wouldn’t know a good design if it bit ‘em on the foot, and on and on.
The Ten Reasons of NO!SPEC are valid. Part of the education of a designer is learning why they ARE valid.
Because design isn’t a “real” profession, just about anyone can call him/herself a Designer. That fact doesn’t mean that there isn’t a level of professionalism necessary to being a good designer.
One crucial difference between a professional and a amateur/hobbyist is that the professional needs to make a living at what she does, the amateur/hobbyist does not. It’s not possible for someone who needs to work for a fair wage to “compete” with someone who doesn’t need to work for money.
I need to charge a certain amount of money for my time or I will go out of business, period. I need to work a certain number of billable hours per week or I will go out of business, period.
I CHOOSE to do pro-bono work in my community, because I feel it’s a worthwhile thing for me to do. If a new designer wants to do real work to gain experience, there’s plenty of worthy causes to help out by doing design work for free or at a reduced price.
cS and similar sites may well help marginal designers such as students, hobbyists, and the like, but I can’t image that it would do much for a professional’s reputation to participate in a design auction.
I’m wondering about folks like @cibi perez who have done work and are making contacts. What are the chances that these contacts will decide that you are now worth professional designer’s rates? Or will they continue to purchase design services at auction because the price is so low? I can’t imagine that designers who work for auction will ever make a real wage at it. You might make some money, and you might not. It MIGHT lead to a real design job, and it might not. It’s all pretty much a crapshoot.
Which is why I’ll keep doing business the old-fashioned way—by building real relationships with my clients.
Tammy C
on 23 Sep 08Ross…try the squirrel.
Josh N.
on 23 Sep 08@Ross Kimbarovsky : What does “freemium” have to do with spec work? It’s basically a software service demo of a finished product. If you don’t buy it, maybe someone else will. Even if you do, the developer still owns it and can sell it to someone else. Now if 37Signals built custom Web apps for spec, then you’d have an argument with that.
“A buyer doesn’t acquire the IP to the work until the designer is paid.” That’s the difference. If that IP work goes on to make more cash, the designer sees none of it. With iStock, they take all the risk of paying for a ton of bandwidth, site maintenance, promotion, asset management, payment and so on. The artist uploads already existing work and has an opportunity to have a passive income as images sell. They take no risk and wait for the money to come in.
I understand risk. I just think it’s silly to compare an “underdog” designer to a multi-billion dollar movie studio.
How old am I? I’m old enough to know that it ain’t hard to have someone do a decent logo, page layout or illustration. Do a little homework, review some portfolios and you’ll have a fleet of designers ready to make you a logo, layout or cartoon. Again, if crowdSpring starts having people build Web apps on spec, you might have something to talk about in this area.
I have explained why crowdSpring is unethical. It takes advantage of desperate people by having them work for no pay. Just because they willingly do it, doesn’t make it right.
If the site were set up, like I explained earlier, so that a selected few designers, chosen by the buyer, were hired to create a solution and all of them were paid an agreed upon price, then I wouldn’t have a problem.
Evan Stremke
on 23 Sep 08I want to first say that, above all, respectful and passionate debates on any topic are always worth participating in because of the invaluable insight we are able to take away from the experience when it is all said and done. It gives all parties involved a clearer frame of mind, and allows opposing sides to view the situation from a contrasting perspective.
The debate that has stemmed from this article is relevant to the current state of not just the design world, but to the overall global marketplace as a whole. ‘Spec’ work (or ‘Freechance’ work as I like to call it) is an erupting trend in the increasingly unstable climate of online business. Just as the foundation begins slipping out from underneath the ‘usual’ methods of conducting business online, sites likecrowdSPRING are building a more contemporary process on which the world’s small business are able to better establish themselves.
Being a member of crowdSPRING since May, I have competed in roughly one hundred projects, and have ‘won’ only five. I have collectively spent over three full days working on designs I eventually posted in projects. To most, this would seem as though it had been a waste of time. Time, easily one of our most valuable resources. However, those who are looking in atcrowdSPRING from the outside (the AIGA’s and NO!SPEC’s of the design community), most likely fail to see the worth in competing in Spec work. Claiming that spec work depreciates the designer and his or her efforts is callow to say the least.
By pushing away the ever-popular trend of crowdsourcing and spec work, they are only helping to establish it as a legitimate form of business. Knowing that AIGA is ‘the place design professionals turn to first to exchange ideas and information,’ only helps to prove my point. It’s the ‘professionals’ that oppose this change. It’s the ‘professionals’ that are unwilling to accept a form of business that has left millions of individuals gratified. And it’s unfortunate, and perhaps even entertaining, to see that ‘professionals’ are clearly intimidated by this trend.
I am a student. That is my official occupation. I am currently enrolled in my third year in the College of Design at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. I am still learning about the world of design. However, I learned in my first year that you do not need an education to be a ‘professional’ designer. My girlfriend however, who is in thePre -Med program at the U of M and is hoping to become a Pediatrician, cannot simply walk into a hospital and show the Chief of Medicine what she knows and obtain a job without a formal education and degree.
I have been doing contracted design work since I was fourteen. I had learned how to use Microsoft’s ‘Picture It!’ Publishing, and designed a logo for an international non-profit organization. I will be the first to admit that it was not my best work, but it was a rewarding process that has had a perpetual effect on the way I work now. In seven years, still not being old enough to drink legally in the states, I have expanded my client base to over forty different for-profit organizations, non-profit organizations, corporations, educational institutes, student groups, athletic groups, musicians and bands, and small business ventures. Being a student at the largest university in the nation has given my work more exposure than I could have ever hoped for. Tens of thousands of students, professors, and citizens of Minneapolis/St. Paul have seen my work. Work that has been displayed in venues as large as the Minnesota Historical Society, the Minnesota Science Museum, and even the United States Holocaust Museum, as well as in venues as small as our many libraries on campus, ‘Mom & Pop’ restaurants in ‘Dinkytown,’ and the student union. And to be completely honest, I get a greater sense of satisfaction from seeing the work in the smaller venues.
One must also agree that a ‘professional’ can be a student. My father did not graduate college. He and a group of fellow students in their third year at the Milwaukee School of Engineering designed a medical device which, at that time, had completely changed the landscape of medical engineering. He was offered several jobs, and has been working as a ‘professional’ medical engineer for thirty years. However, in order to earn a pay increase, my father went back to school to not only earn an official degree, but to also learn about the new technologies that are shaping how those in the medical engineering field conduct their work. Clearly he is a ‘professional,’ but no one can argue that he is not a student. His loan money alone is proof enough.
I apologize as this response has turned into more of an auto-biography than anything else. Nonetheless, I feel that my experience, and the experiences of others, serve as great examples of how a student can be a ‘professional,’ and that a ‘professional’ status does not necessarily guarantee quality work. Having a degree in design does not make you a professional. Working in the design field for only six years does not make you a professional. Working in the design field for over sixty years does not make you a professional. Belonging to an ‘official association of professionals’ does not make you a professional. Having business cards does not make you a professional. Having the word ‘Professional’ on your business card does not make you a professional.
The way you conduct yourself when interacting with others, whether it be your friends, your siblings, your parents, your grandparents, your children, fellow students, fellow co-workers, fellow parents, neighbors, professors, business clients and other market clientele, and most importantly yourself, makes you a professional.
If something makes someone happy, (and it’s not illegal) then who are we to discredit that? Why is it not wholly possible to accept things for what they are? If you are a ‘professional’ designer, then you should not have any problem finding work. And while I do consider myself to be both a student and professional, I still enjoy participating in projects oncrowdSPRING . It provides me with an avenue on which to better hone my design skills, and develop communication skills. Building skills is something that everyone, designers or non-designers alike, should continuously strive for. It’s certainly something that will make me endlessly happy. And you cannot take that away from me.
Thanks to Ross, Mike, and everyone else at crowdSPRING for this opportunity. Also, thank you to 37signals for hosting such a worthwhile debate.
All The Best, -Evan
Evan Stremke
on 23 Sep 08@Josh N.
I wish to respectfully disagree with you when you call cS ‘unethical.’ You back up your point by saying that it takes advantage of ‘desperate people.’
I’m sorry to inform you, Josh, but I am by no means desperate. Also, it’s fairly difficult to take advantage of someone who is willing to do something knowing full well the only two possible outcomes of their actions.
On cS, you either win and receive a payment, or you lose and do not receive a payment. It’s pretty straightforward, and I have never felt as though cS has taken advantage of me.
Now it may certainly be possible to take advantage of someone addicted to Black Tar Heroine in that you overcharge them for a given amount of the substance knowing that they will pay it because of their addiction. That would definitely be an example of taking advantage of someone.
While I will concede that I am addicted to design, I have no uncontrollable, compulsory yearning to post submissions on cS. If I think I have a chance at winning, then I will post a submission. And the whole experience is so valuable that I don’t feel as though I’m losing anything from it.
Just something to keep in mind.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@Adrienne – the NO!SPEC reasons are valid to a very small, minority group. There are certainly a number of principles expressed in those reasons that should be valid to everyone – such as the protection of intellectual property, as an example. Importantly, those reasons don’t talk about professional vs. non-professionals. They talk about professional- level design. I am confident given your well written comment, that you know the difference.
And you are absolutely right that a level of professionalism is necessary to being a good designer. I agree with this statement 100%.
And while I also agree that a crucial difference between a “professional” and hobbyist is that the “professional” needs to make a living at what she does – this statement is very incomplete. It presumes that one is a professional merely because one needs to make a living at a trade/skill, and we know that’s not what defines a professional.
It also presumes (incorrectly) that most of the designers who work on crowdSPRING are not making an effort to make a living at design. That’s a tall presumption.
I certainly understand that you must work and charge for your time to make a living. And having looked at your portfolio – it appears you do really nice work and have a great attitude about helping smaller businesses and non-profits. That’s really commendable.
Whether or not crowdSPRING helps a professional’s reputation is really up to them. At the end of the day, thousands of professionals compete on crowdSPRING. The comments you’ve written were almost verbatim made by professional photographers challenging the need for iStockphoto when it was launched. They were made countless other times, in many industries, challenging change. The reality is that change is here and time after time, the tide has turned industries inside out.
As for folks like Cibi – our job is to educate and present designers with opportunities. As you know, each designer must build their own path and take advantage of those opportunities. I am not sure what “professional designer rates” mean. They could mean many different things to people in different countries of the world. At the end of the day – there’s little need to imagine. Designers working on crowdSPRING are earning thousands of dollars per month (each). Not all of them and not most of them. Some. You are right that it MIGHT lead to a real design job and it might not. It’s a crapshoot. Much like real life – as it should be. There are no guarantees in life.
I do respect that you’ll continue to work in the way that’s worked for you. And judging by your good work, I am sure you’ll continue to be successful.
@Tammy – Don’t know about squirrel. Haven’t even had frogs legs yet…
@Josh – freemium isn’t a direct parallel to spec work, but it’s illustrative. 37signals and other companies choose to give away their product for free to some people. It’s their choice. Designers choose to work on crowdSPRING. It’s their choice. It’s all about personal choice.
I am scratching my head about your IP comment. If the IP work goes on to make more cash, it means the buyer purchased it and the designer was paid for the work. Surely you’re not suggesting the designer is entitled to royalties? I’m sure we’d all want that, but how many designers are so lucky?
Your discussion of iStock continues to puzzle me. crowdSPRING pays for a ton of bandwidth, site maintenance, promotion, asset management, payment, and so on. So what? Surely you’re not serious in suggesting that photographers on iStock sit around drinking martini’s waiting for the cash to roll in. If you are – you don’t know too many selling their work there. My photographer friends work as hard as the designers on crowdSPRING. Call it “passive income”, but I assure you that to them, it’s pretty active.
As for your comments about ethics – it’s very clear that you don’t understand ethics. I’ll let my prior comments and those of other posters stand in response to that statement.
@Evan – beautifully said. Thanks so much for contributing to the discussion and recognizing the value of the debate.
Brenton
on 23 Sep 08Most good businesses aren’t created ‘on spec.’ You go out, meet real people with the problem you are solving, and interrogate them. You get market validation before you invest your resources on a hunch.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@Brenton – I am surprised by your statement. I couldn’t disagree more. While you do your best to get market validation, virtually all businesses are created on spec. Google? YouTube? 37signals? Threadless? Flickr? iStockphoto? Twitter? Facebook? MySpace? Amazon? The list is endless.
Philippe Rivard
on 23 Sep 08This comment is not really directed to anyone, it’s simply what it is, a comment :)
So let’s get right into it: Everything in this world is in competition with something else. The designers of “a” car maker are in competition with other designers of other car makers. Anything being designed is – or will be – in competition with something else… and that’s the very reason why we design, because we want to make something better – or simply make it to HOW WE see it. What is wrong with competition, it’s a fact of life.
We could debate for more then a year on the subject and it wouldn’t be closed. I think cS is such a good idea, I don’t see what the fuss is all about? If you don’t like the idea of posting a project before being paid, by all means, don’t do it. But if someone else is doing it for the love of design or simply because he thinks he might get the contract and make some money that others are spitting on, don’t be mad at him. Are you mad at the guy who won $30 million dollars because he played loto for $2? If so, why didn’t you buy a ticket. And if you did, don’t be mad, you knew the chances of winning were mere to nothing. Still, people play loto all the time for a chance to win. cS comes down to helping both sides of the medal; be it starting designers looking for some experience and comments on their work or “professionals” looking to perfect their art and trying to make contact with possible buyers. Same thing goes for the buyer, either trying to save some bucks on a design, or simply having no ressources and turning to the web for help. Everybody “applying” on cS is well aware of the facts that the business is built on. Some designers don’t agree with spec work and I didn’t see anyone of them posting a project mockup on cS. And if one did, he might not totally disagree with spec work or he might be trying a shot at luck – see it as you want.
I am an entrepreneur myself and when I make contact with a client, I like to be able to show him what I can do for HIM, and not what I have done for others before – even though it gives a good idea of what you can do.
Anyways… 90 comments is a lot of comments… let’s see what the rest of the world has to say :)
Giggler
on 23 Sep 08“Being a member of crowdSPRING since May, I have competed in roughly one hundred projects, and have ‘won’ only five. I have collectively spent over three full days working on designs I eventually posted in projects.”
100 logos/whatever in 72 hours? One design in every 43 minutes? Boy oh boy, they must be masterpieces…
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@Philippe – thanks so much for contributing to the discussion.
@Giggler – the arrogance in your response speaks for itself.
Phillip
on 23 Sep 08Ross, by your own words “While we can debate whether our business model helps or harms the industry…”
THIS is the ethical issue that I think was valid to raise against your company. I think you can see and fully understand that by offering drastically reduced wages for your website users through facilitating these low-end deals you ARE in fact damaging the creative industry piece by piece.
I am a professional Designer. I finished a 4-year degree on the subject and have been practicing professionally for 6 years this December. In addition, I’ve freelanced the for this period and some time before.
I think that the internet is changing the way we do business, but I also believe your model is simply damaging the industry by building a perception that a designer should do work based entirely on spec.
Your comparison to movies and the like is preposterous to me because the nature of the end “product” is so different.
First, to truly understand the mission and goals of a company, service or product for identity work as a singular example, you have to do research and a creative brief in addition to having hands-on meeting time with the client to discuss their resolutions for the project. A well-done logo will stand with a company for a long time and is the very seed from which the brand grows. By this knowledge, you are already offering a lesser service to your clients. To say, “I have a pet store. Make me a logo” shows ignorance on the client’s part and that of the process you have developed for your site.
Logos are worthless if they are not procured by a professional brand manager and designer who works with the company continuously to keep the brand growing and on track. A company will only achieve a temporary “trick” on their customers by purchasing a professional logo if the customer quickly discovers that the other collateral is unmatched and communicates differently in addition the the culture and service the customer experiences upon interacting with said company.
If you truly wish to educate your buyers about the importance of design through your blog, you would do yourself a favor by letting them know that they are getting a lesser experience and service not to mention, end product, by using your site.
In closing, I do not fault your for what you are doing. This phenomenon of quick turn, creative work has existed long before I had ever heard of Crowdspring and will exist after your site is no longer the flavor of the month. That, to me, is the irony of it all.
You have chosen to belittle the importance and craft of IP by the very model of your business and in turn, have offered nothing that can not be syndicated and improved upon by your next competitors. You mentioned the 500,000 new businesses that start ever year, but failed to add that 90% of them will fail within 2 years. Using services like this to procure their identities, in my opinion, will certainly put those entrepreneurs in the 90% not the 10%.
Josh N.
on 23 Sep 08@Ross Kimbarovsky : ”... virtually all businesses are created on spec. Google? YouTube? 37signals? Threadless? Flickr? iStockphoto? Twitter? Facebook? MySpace? Amazon?”
CrowdSpring is not the same as any of those things. Your analogies are weak. People aren’t creating businesses on cS, they are doing little bits of grunt work to create IP that they don’t even get to own if they win the buyer’s lottery.
With the examples you state, the creators own them - even if they sell the service - and can continually make money off of their IP. That’s how iStock photo works. That’s how illustrators work. The money is made from passive income (royalties from publishing a book or from licensing a patent or other form of intellectual property). The business model for cS is completely different.
You act like I don’t understand what ethics is. I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand what your talking about—or you just don’t have an argument, so you’re dodging the ethical concerns.
But, since you like analogies so much, here’s one:
I see cS and the design industry much like P2P networks and the music industry. The business model needs to change and the old boys don’t want to budge so, people challenge it by creating their own means of P2P distribution. Unfortunately, it involves less than ethical means and music artists don’t get royalties. Eventually, the old boys, out of necessity, change and have their own similar system that can collect royalties.
Brad
on 23 Sep 08@Ross you have stretched the definition of spec to fit your needs…
You said: Ross Kimbarovsky 23 Sep 08
@Brenton – I am surprised by your statement. I couldn’t disagree more. While you do your best to get market validation, virtually all businesses are created on spec. Google? YouTube? 37signals? Threadless? Flickr? iStockphoto? Twitter? Facebook? MySpace? Amazon? The list is endless.
Spec work is when you create custom work FOR ONE POTENTIAL BUYER without guarantee of payment.
A business venture, while speculative, is not spec work because the risk is mitigated by the potential market of purchasers/users being larger than 1 (if one person rejects it the effort is not wasted).
Barney
on 23 Sep 08The potential negative impact of crowdSPRING is two-fold as far as I’m concerned:
1) Naive designers or wannabe designers might feel this is their only chance at getting any experience and could potentially waste loads of time and effort on it. The more I think about this the less I see it as a real problem: Even if you work 60 hours a week trying to get paid for something on crowdSPRING and don’t get selected, it’s still some form of experience. If you feel sorry for these people working so much and not getting paid for it, this isn’t the only place it happens – at the end of the day it’s the naivety of the average man you pity and that’s another issue. Better to try and end the institution of legalised gambling than crowdSPRING if this is your angle.
2) Cheapening design. In the real world prior to crowdSPRING, someone looking for a designer’s services would have shortlisted a small group of candidates and paid them for pitch work to see what their angles were. In this circumstance the client has to respect the value of any design work and will carefully consider approaches that are not the finished product per se, and decide among this small selection which approach is most worth investing in. If this then turns out unacceptable, they have spent a lot of money and will need to start again. With crowdSPRING, the client does not need to invest any effort, insight or real appreciation into the craft being offered them. With this set up, the client decides what they want to see, and waits for the right one to show up. This is harmful because it creates an environment where a large part of what I consider design is invalidated by the casual whim of the client, who naturally feels they have a certain authority in design matters over the designers, and exerts it (after all, hundreds of cretins are going to produce work for free on the tenuous chance that they may eventually see some small amount of cash – the client lords it up over these desperate little creatures and decides what’s best based on their unsympathetic mind, according to their ideas of what works best design-wise). In short, the client never has the chance (or is never forced) to really listen to any designer’s perspective.
And that’s what irritates me. The fact that quantity prevails over effort and quality overall. As a result, design in general is now something that costs less, is less considered, is the mass product of a market of amateurs, and invariably has less value.
So in the end I don’t mourn the subscribed designers – they will have to decide for themselves if this is really the best use of the time, and I’m in no position to say whether or not that’s the case. I don’t feel sorry for self-respecting designers, whether amateur or professional, who don’t participate in crowdSPRING – this isn’t the first trade/craft to take a massive blow from inventions in economic globalisation and it won’t be the last. If more potential clients think we’re less of a credible choice, that’s something we have to either evolve with or just be pitied for our inability to deal with. I almost feel sorry for the clients – but if you think you simply can’t afford proper branding what with everything being so tight for your start up, it’s your bloody funeral.
I /am/ saddened by the poverty of design that will rise up from this.
Robert
on 23 Sep 08I have a number of issues and critical questions about services such as this, but wanted to address one specific point from the article (I tried to read through all of the responses so far, but may have missed if this was covered before):
Ross, you compare speculative design work to the movie industry, the fine art industry, the music industry and the literary industry.
This comparison is as unfair as it is inaccurate.
In ALL of those other industries, it is not the creative that takes the risk.
For example, when a writer completes a novel, he/she shops it around for a publisher. A willing publisher then assumes the risk by gambling that the novel will sell a certain amount, and PAYS the author. Even if the book never sells a single copy, the author has been paid.
But the important point here is that the writer is creating under his/her own terms and the publisher didn’t come up to the author and say, “hey buddy, wanna spend the next year of your life writing a book according to my specifications and if I like it, I’ll pay you for it?”
If a movie never sells a single ticket, the screenwriter(s), the actors, the director, and on down the line all the way to the janitor sweeping the set are all paid. In many cases, screenwriters have been paid for scripts that will never, ever see the light of day.
Musicians are paid an advance upon signing and it is the studio/producer that assumes the speculative risk as to whether or not the music will sell.
In other words, the creative process starts first. Be it writing, music, painting, etc., the artist creates on his or her own terms and NOT at the request of someone else. The exception being commissioned work—in which case there is a contract and the artist is still paid.
In the crowdSPRING model - right or wrong, disagree with it or love it - the process begins with a client requesting specific work be done before it is paid for.
For your comparison of crowsSPRING to the other creative industries to be accurate, designers would have to be creating a design merely because they were inspired to do so (“hey, it’s a nice day, I think I’ll randomly create a logo appropriate for a coffee shop”), then crowdSPRING would assume the risk by purchasing that design in the hopes they could then find a market for it.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@Phillip – crowdSPRING doesn’t build the perception that a designer should do work based entirely on spec. To the contrary – we’re very clear that it’s a personal choice. Most designers working on crowdSPRING have regular clients too. As you’ve seen in comments from a number of designers who work on crowdSPRING, they’ve received direct follow-on work from clients.
You say that a designer must research. I agree! Frankly, I don’t understand how one could design without research. We’ve spent much effort in helping to drive this point and to educate the designers on crowdSPRING – particularly the younger designers. As I mentioned above, we interview a designer from our community every few weeks – and this is an important area for each interview. Your comment assumes that the designers working on crowdSPRING don’t research. I don’t know why you make that assumtion. It’s wrong. I hear daily from clients who are impressed with the amount of research designers are doing in their projects – including direct commnunications with clients, industry research, etc. Are they doing the level of research that one would do if they were being paid $10,000 for a logo? I doubt it. But I suspect that most people would devote more time to research for a $10,000 logo than you would for a $1,000 logo.
You say “logos are worthless if they are not procured by a professional brand manager and designer who works with the company…” Really? Surely you’re not suggesting that every start-up must hire a brand manager as their first key hire? After all, the logo is one of the first things they must acquire. Let me offer this: logos are worthless if the brand is worthless. The Nike swoosh logo isn’t much to look at, but the brand is so powerful that it’s made the logo an icon. Small businesses don’t have the money to pay for a logo, much less to hire a “professional brand manager”. They don’t have the money to retain a “professional designer” to continuously work with them. It would be great – for sure. But not realistic.
The correct figure for new startups in the U.S. is 500,000 every MONTH, not every year. Your suggestion that 90% of them will fail because they obtain a logo from crowdSPRING is odd. I would submit that there are far more important reasons why a business might fail. Moreover, we’re quite confident to stand behind the work of the designers working on crowdSPRING.
I do thank you for taking the time to contribute to the debate. I’ve looked at your portfolio and you’re got great work in there. You’re very lucky to be able to practice an art you love. Not everyone is so fortunate.
@Josh – I continue to be confused by our discussion. I am sorry. I am not comparing crowdSPRING to those businesses. But you are 100% wrong to suggest that people aren’t creating businesses on crowdSPRING. Don’t take my word for it – it’s happening every day and we’ve written about it in our blog. You are correct that if a designer sells their design, they transfer the IP rights to the client. So what? Any sophisticated client would insist on this – and all sophisticated clients do. Shouldn’t smaller businesses have access to the same protections?
I spent 13 years representing companies and individuals around the world on intellectual property matters (as an attorney). I am familiar with how IP is licensed and sold. Some owners license IP and some sell it. To compare a logo to a patent shows a deep misunderstanding both of intellectual property and the value of that property.
And I think we’re off on a tangent here. The point is not whether IP creators sell or license their work. The point is whether non-traditional creatives, such as the hobbyist photographers working on iStock – were given a chance to compete only 3-4 years ago. The answer is NO. Today, iStockphoto has leveled the playing field for all. That’s the comparison we’re talking about and that’s the comparison I suggest is relevant to our discussion. The arguments you make are identical to what the professional photographers said about iStockphoto when it was launched. It’s the same arguments made by the music industry against innovative acts (like Radioheads decision to change the revenue model for record sales), and it goes back throughout history. There’s always a resistance to change and incidentally – that resistance always fails. Always.
You compare crowdSPRING to the P2P networks and the music industry. It’s apples and oranges. The IP creators on crowdSPRING own their IP and are always compensated for it when it’s bought. Your analogy continues to demonstrate your deep misunderstanding of ethics.
Evan Stremke
on 23 Sep 08@Giggler – Actually, I have participated in roughly 100 projects, and have submitted three logos per project on average. So that means I designed one logo every 14.4 minutes.
I don’t know if I would call them masterpieces, but they have made the clients happy. And as a designer, that is all I could ever ask for.
@Phillip – Logos are not worthless without continuous branding oversight. Some even benefit from lack of control by the designer, and a firmer grasp by the company. And the fact that you would lay claim to such a statement is appalling given your self-proclaimed ‘professional’ status.
Von Glitschka
on 23 Sep 08Congratulations Evans, you’re self defined hack.
Don’t bother replying, I wouldn’t want you to waste time that could have gone towards developing a few brand identity solutions.
CrowdSPRING is to design what McDonalds is to culinary arts. They’re both fast food.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@Brad – the definition of spec has nothing to do with custom work for one potential buyer. If you look at the blog article – the definition I offered is: “doing any work on a speculative basis, without a prior agreement that you’ll be paid for your work.” However you cut it – that’s spec work.
You say that a business venture is not spec work because it’s “mitigated by the potential market of purchasers/users being larger than 1”. There are 6.5 billion people in the world. I am pretty confident that 6.49 billion would disagree with you. It’s semantics.
@Barney – thanks for contributing to the discussion. You are absolutely right that even when a designer doesn’t get paid, they learn. For many, this is a primary goal. Remember too, however, that there are many designers who have difficulty competing in the traditional model. They’re super talented, but for one reason or another, don’t have the ready access to clients that could support them. Surely you are not suggesting THEY are naive and wannabes?
Your comments about cheapening design resonate with me a great deal because I too fear this. But not from crowdSPRING. Clients are fed up with the arrogance from the design community. We hear this not only from the small start-ups, but from the Fortune 500. We hear this from small and large agencies. This arrogance cheapens the design industry far more than a small start-up that’s been in business for 4 months could ever do.
Don’t be confused – quantity NEVER prevails over quality. While it’s commonly thought that clients are dumb – I assure you that they’re smarter than you think – and there’s little need to “feel sorry” for them. They understand very well that anyone can create a design. The “market of amateurs” you so casually dismiss is talented, hungry, and working. The beauty of our model is that the work speaks for itself. If the quality sucks, it sucks. And far more often than not, it doesn’t suck. I feel thrilled that the design industry will be infused with so much new talent.
@Robert – I strongly disagree. I think you and I have a fundamentally different understanding of those industries. Unless the author receives an advance, they wrote their book on spec hoping to get a publisher to accept. I’d suggest far more authors fall into this category than those who get advances. Moreover, plenty of authors write a chapter on spec and then shop it around to get interest in a full book.
You are correct that the author is creating on their own terms. So does every designer. They can choose to work or not to work.
You are absolutely correct about the movie industry taking on institutional risk. People working in that industry get paid, and the institutions take the risk. But then you have the Blair Witch Project, made with family and friends money for $35,000. Plenty of filmmakers, actors, and others take on individual risk in the movie industry. Long ago, the movie industry stopped being only about the major studios.
If you think musicians are paid in advance, you may not know many of them. They are paid in advance upon signing by a label (sometimes, peanuts), but 99.99% work on spec in the hope they’d be signed.
Forgive me for disagreeing. Virtually every single industry, not just the creative industry, has elements of work on spec. Music, movies, photography, fine art, writing, architecture, etc. I know people who work in all those industries and they all talk about having to do spec work for clients. Those who have not are either very lucky, very successful, or have been living in a cave.
@Von – not sure how to respond other to quote from an interview I watched last night from 1957 with Frank Lloyd Wright: “Arrogance is something a man possesses on the surface to defend the fact that he hasn’t got the thing that he pretends to have.”
Brad
on 23 Sep 08@Ross If you want to get into semantics then you should be calling the designs submitted to crowdspring speculative proposals not speculative work.
Really I’d love to discuss this all day but I’m just not entirely sure how worthwhile it will be when you make statements like: “There are 6.5 billion people in the world. I am pretty confident that 6.49 billion would disagree with you. It’s semantics.”
You’ve polled those other 6.49 billion? You’re including the portion of the world’s population that’s too busy trying to survive poverty to care about this crap? You’re including the portion of the world’s population thats under the age where they could have reasonably formed an opinion about this? Come on now, please don’t abuse statistics like that, its offensive to everyone’s intelligence and reflective of your combative discussion style.
As for what you should take away from this little “discussion” I think its that you’ve violated some pretty core ideas of the business philosophy you’re espousing…
“Its not for everyone” ... then why argue with us all day trying to convince us that it is, focus on the people who actually like what crowdspring does, they’ve proven they’re out there from some of the comments now make things better for them…. 37signals wouldn’t care if there was a group of “feature bloat advocates” and JF certainly wouldn’t spend 2 or 3 days in a discussion forum arguing with the feature bloat guys, he knows his time would be better spent making life better for the people who love his product.
Tammy C
on 23 Sep 08Strapped for time, but have to respond to Barney.
Regrading the comment: “the client lords it up over these desperate little creatures and decides what’s best based on their unsympathetic mind, according to their ideas of what works best design-wise). In short, the client never has the chance (or is never forced) to really listen to any designer’s perspective.”
I’m not saying there aren’t any clients with this mindset, but after participating in 119 projects, I can tell you this. The buyers at cS are more intellingent and considerate than you give them credit for. The majority of them DO care about the designers opinion. Yes, they have more control, and in my opinion, it’s about time.
I've even had buyers invite me, along with a large number of other creatives on the site to review the entries in their project and give them my honest opinion on some of the best entries...in a project I didn't participate in. In my experience, most of the buyers at cS DO consider the opinion of the creatives as valuable. And with cS, they aren't forced to rely on the opinion of the one creative/firm they chose, they have a pool of 6000 plus creatives to turn to. Pretty nice tool if you ask me.Tammy
You referred to the creatives as “desperate little creatures”. Personally, that’s quite amuzing.
I participate because I want to…I am by no means desperate, nor have I ever been tricked, lied to, abused, used, or any other nonsense that cS has been accused of within this debate.
I am thrilled That Ross and his crew took the time, effort and initiative to create such an opportunity to learn, communicate with buyers, and other creatives. I take away an experience from each contest that is worth more to me than any prize attached to it. Belonging to this amazig community of buyers and creatives alike has been a blessing to me.Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@Brad – you are right – the 6.49 billion comment was an exaggeration. It doesn’t change the fact that your conclusion – business ventures are not “spec work” – is flat our wrong.
I don’t have a problem calling designs speculative proposals. I don’t know that there’s a practical difference between calling call it speculative proposals or speculative work. Aren’t proposals by their very nature speculative? I’d be interested in your thoughts if you believe there is a difference.
I certainly agree that JF might not spend the same length of time in a discussion as I have – and perhaps that alone makes him smarter (there are many more reasons). But having been presented with an opportunity to engage the many readers of this blog in a conversation (and let’s not minimize how important this is to a company in business for four months!), I certainly don’t think it would be proper to walk out on the conversations. crowdSPRING is not for everyone, but even in these comments, it’s clear that the conversation has introduced us to people who haven’t heard about us. And that’s important to us.
If people take the time to comment, we take the time to respond. It’s an investment of time that for us, makes sense.
Tammy C
on 23 Sep 08@Ross…the froglegs are even better.
Robert
on 23 Sep 08Ross, you really like to “strongly disagree”—that doesn’t make your position right.
You’ve missed the point, which is that in those other industries, the creatives are not asked or directed to create their works.
A writer writes. I know, because I write. I will write if I never sell or publish a word. I will illustrate for the same reason. I will continue to take photos if no one else hires me ever again to do so.
I never said in my comments that these artists always get paid, because that is irrelevant to the point.
I’ve never known an (honest) musician (and I know quite a few, as I photograph bands) who performs solely because they hope to get signed. In fact, most of them that I talk to don’t ever expect to get signed. The mere fact that most musicians, writers and artists continue to create despite not getting paid for it is evidence that there is something else going beyond a mere paycheck.
(By the way, I’m not even entirely convinced that you actually read all my comments before deciding that you “strongly disagree”, as I did specifically say that musicians are paid upon signing. Kind of impolite, as I made sure to read all of yours before disagreeing with you.)
The point that makes those industries different from yours is that those artists are not given specific directions for their creativity and then still, after having created something for someone else, are not guaranteed payment for their efforts.
You are trying to compare two completely different forms of spec. Though it uses the same word, there is a universe of difference between a writer (or insert any other industry) shopping around their own work to find interest, and someone else saying “hey, create this for me and if I like it I’ll pay for it.”
Even your example of the Blair Witch Project proves my point more than it does yours, because whether or not they hoped the make any money from the film or not, the point is that they created it on their own terms, to satisfy their own whims, and in answer to no other entity dangling the “hope” of a paycheck in front of them.
To fit your model, someone would have to come in and tell a bunch of different filmmakers to each go out and use their own resources to make a film about people lost in some creepy woods with a witch chasing them, and then this person would choose to pay for only one of the completed films.
It’s really not that hard to understand the difference—if you want to.
Brad
on 23 Sep 08@ross
robert covered the difference between spec proposal and spec work pretty well even if he was a little heavy on the art side of things… Google was speculative but they didnt build it because some professor at Stanford said hey build me a custom branded web search engine that only i can use and I’ll pay you if I like it.
Now back to the original discussion and off the definition of spec tangent….
I guess to further clarify the general point to your frame of reference… imagine if the output of crowdspring was not design but legal documents…
Many people know enough law to write an LLC operating agreement or a real estate contract but are not lawyers, they could compete to submit the best document for someone who would choose the one they thought was written best with only a partial knowledge of what was actually correct… imagine the implications of that to the legal profession and legal system…
Now you’re probably thinking that the law is more important to society than design so you’d think that company to be preposterous and would lobby for the regulation of such services or something to that effect (being from a family with 7 lawyers in it I’m almost certain thats the response they’d have :-) ).
I however place a pretty high premium on aesthetics and design and believe that its often crazy for lawyers to bill what they do for what they actually do…
This fundamental difference makes it so we will never agree yet in your “discussion” you are calling me (and others) wrong on things that are opinions and not facts.
If your goal is to engage in the discussion and grow your user base then it seems like you should be more considerate of what people are saying and less combative and work towards improving your product based on what was said and whats reasonable…
Adrienne Adams
on 23 Sep 08@Ross,
You are eloquent in response to criticism, as well as in defense of your business model. I suspect that your career as an attorney was a very successful one.
Your response to my comment about the need for income misses the point. I didn’t say that that was the only distinction between pro and non—merely that it’s a very important one—as we who need to pay the bills well know.
@Ross, in your response to my post you say “I am not sure what ‘professional designer rates’ mean. They could mean many different things to people in different countries of the world.” That’s exactly my point. If a design job is posted at $400 USD, and it is “won” by someone in the US, then they have $400 to spend. Those same four hundred US dollars are worth something else entirely to someone living in Indonesia or Sweden. Those dollars are also worth more or less depending if you live in Topeka or San Francisco. Thus, the fallacy of any sort of “level playing field” in the labor market.
Due to concerns about price fixing, it would be impossible to find out exactly how much the cS designers make for their work. On that count we must trust @Ross’ assertion that “Designers working on crowdSPRING are earning thousands of dollars per month (each).” I certainly hope that’s the case for the majority of cS particpants.
Several posters spoke of the inevitability of change, crowsourcing, globalization, and so on. There’s nothing inevitable about any of this. As consumers and producers, we make choices every day in the marketplace. Governments set policies that affect markets. Large companies leverage their power to influence governments and the public. The myths of a “flat earth” and “free markets” paralyze us into thinking that we must accept globalization and its relentless downward pressure on income. We don’t.
I’m curious as to whether Mr. Kimbarovsky would have assented to practicing law in a similar fashion as he proposes designers do. Oh wait, lawyers have professional associations, state boards, and the like to protect them and set standards of conduct. While AIGA certainly doesn’t represent all designers (I am not a member), it does, as a professional organization, attempt to produce guidelines to help designers conduct themselves in a professional manner, as well as providing resources on contracts, copyright, career issues, etc.
As one could gather from my previous post, I’m not inclined to participate in the sort of market that cS presents. It simply isn’t worth my time. I appreciate that many designers, especially those who are just starting out, feel that an “opportunity” like cS is a good place to start. I’ll address myself now to those designers.
Designers: Participating in design auctions like cS isn’t the way to build your business. It is the way to become a hack. I’ll use the term “hack” in two ways: first, from Wikipedia: “Hack writer is a colloquial, usually pejorative, term used to refer to a writer who is paid to write low-quality, quickly put-together articles or books ‘to order’, often with a short deadline.” And two, from the programming world: “Hack: An inelegant and usually temporary solution to a problem.” Edit: Von Glitschka beat me to this hack analogy. Good man!
Building a design business is hard work. There’s no luck to it. One needs to have a strong background not only in the visual arts, but also in marketing, identity design, interaction design and coding (web designers), as well as be able to run a small business efficiently. These skills take years to build and master. A design school education can get one started, but it’s just the beginning.
Design is not a product—it is a process. In my identity work, I spend a considerable amount of time with my client discussing their business process and goals before I ever put pencil to paper. For websites, we discuss what the client hopes to achieve by building a site, as well as many other factors. One PSD mockup does not a website make. (I’m actually surprised that cS calls these mockups “uncoded websites.” I’ve yet to see such a thing.)
Although the client usually contacts me first, it is most often because they are seeking my experience and expertise to help them solve a problem. They are starting a new business, they’re looking to expand, they need to make more money, they need more market visibility, and so on. They hire me because I can help them reach their goals. This process is the core of what design is all about, and it is vastly different than what takes place at cS.
An argument has been made that small businesses can’t afford professional design. The fact is, if done right, design services make money for a business. It is also a deductable business expense. So the poor-mouth argument doesn’t hold water. And as I mentioned previously, if a designer wants to help a non-profit there’s no trick to finding one that needs his services.
Yesterday I wanted to know a bit more about cS and how it works for its participants, so I spent some time in the forum. It’s pretty enlightening. For one, I saw the work “award” used frequently to refer to the job payment. Not to disrespect the participants, but the first thought that came to mind with the word “award” was “good doggie!” Being paid for work performed is not an award.
Perusing the Intellectual Property forum is also enlightening. One post seemed to present an out-an-out instance of copyright infringement. The moderator (@Ross) said that such reports should be done privately. I see certain value in keeping problems like this under wraps, but it does not inspire confidence in me that enough is being done to prevent infringement and copying. The fact that designers see each other’s designs and openly work from them bothers me as well.
So, Young Ms. Designer, if you want your creativity to be exploited, work for free, and learn next to nothing about how to become a problem-solving designer, then go to it. Otherwise, look elsewhere. The HOW Design Forum http://forum.howdesign.com/?p_PageAlias=howforum is a great place to meet other designers and learn your trade.
BS
on 23 Sep 08HOT TOPIC… but i agree with the people who compared this with Elance. It’s the same in my opinion… its basically eBay for development. The only people on elance and crowdspring are people who are trying to save a buck… so the decision is yours… is that the type of client you want to work with.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@Robert – you are right that strong disagreement doesn’t make a position right. It conveys precisely what it says – strong disagreement.
I agree with you that writers write, musicians compose, artists design, filmmakers make movies. They create for the sake of creating. THAT is the reason why the design industry will change. For the longest time, gatekeepers in industries such as music and photography barred those they deemed unworthy from participating. Itunes helped small musicians and bands compete with labels. iStockphoto helped hobbyists to compete with “professional” photographers.
You are right that there is a difference in that typically, a musician is not asked specifically to write a song and a writer is not asked specifically to write a book. I don’t see that as a material difference. If an artist creates and enjoys doing it, does it really matter if they wrote a song or someone asked them to write a song? If we agree that it’s not always about the money, where’s the meaningful difference?
And really our debate about that point is pure conjecture because the designers working on crowdSPRING have already answered that question without equivocation. They work on their owns terms. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
As for your example – that’s pretty much how Hollywood works. Thousands upon thousands of spec scripts are sent to studies in the hope the studio will buy one. As much as we want to say the writers were writing because it made them feel good about themselves – we live in the real world. They all hope to sell a script. They all hope to land a movie deal. They all hope to succeed. The difference is more imagined than it is real.
@Brad – Google built a business on spec without any idea how they’d make money.
On to your law example…I don’t think law is more important to society than design. If I did, I would not have left my law practice. And I agree that it’s crazy for lawyers to bill what they do for what they actually do. Was my $500 per hour fee worth it to clients? Perhaps – if I saved them millions of dollars. But it was extraordinarily high.
People can be wrong about opinions – that’s what discussions are often about. When I disagree with someone, I point out those disagreements. Don’t take it personally. If you find my responses inconsiderate – I am sorry because that’s not at all what’s intended. To the contrary – I am very impressed that the community here is so passionate about this subject. It is out of deep respect for this community and the creative community on crowdSPRING that I continue to engage in the discussion.
Evan Stremke
on 23 Sep 08@Giggler & Von – Just to give you an idea, I’ve won five projects and have collected $1400.00 for roughly 72 hours of work. That translates to over $19.00/hr. For a young design student, I’d say that’s a pretty good rate.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@Adrienne – I certainly understand the difference you were suggesting (need to earn a living) – and I agree that it’s not unimportant. I don’t agree with the implied assumption that designers doing work on spec don’t need to earn a living.
You are correct that $400 means different things to different people. And that’s precisely why I believe crowdSPRING provides a level playing field. On Elance (the traditional model where you get bids and proposals and you pick one), a logo project will generate bids between $25 and $6,000 (these are real numbers – we’ve posted such projects in 2006 before we started crowdSPRING). Is there a qualitative difference between designers at those price ranges? Possibly. Even probably. But it’s tough for designers in the U.S. to provide logo design for $25 and that’s why traditional online marketplaces are dominated by designers from India (as an example). To many – there’s nothing wrong with that – it’s the marketplace at work.
The level playing field on crowdSPRING allows anyone to compete based on talent, not price. If you don’t want to participate in a $500 logo project, you don’t. But you can’t offer to do a logo in a $500 logo project for $25.
Have we solved every ill plaguing the design industry? Of course not. We’ve offered a way for people to compete based solely on their skill.
You question whether I’d practice law the way designers practice design. The answer is I have. You’ll see this briefly discussed above. I’ve also represented clients on contingency – paid only if the client wins.
Thanks for spending time in the forums on crowdSPRING. I hope that you observed first-hand our transparency in those discussions too.
As for the “good doggie” comment – Companies “award” design contracts all the time. We did quite a bit of research before settling on that term – talking to clients and designers.
I do appreciate that we have different viewpoints. That’s OK. We don’t assert that crowdSPRING offers the only way for designers to learn. You’ve nicely articulated other ways that designers could learn. If I were a young designer, I’d take every opportunity to learn. At the end of the day, each person can decide what’s best for them. And they can vote with their time.
@BS – as I’ve said before, we’re not embarrassed to be compared to Elance (or to Ebay).
Phillip
on 23 Sep 08@Evan Stremke – IF you made that $19/ hr for 40 hours a week ALL YEAR LONG you would just barely scrape into the 25th percentile salary for a Designer. $39.5k per year. Congratulations, you made a designer salary for about 2 weeks so far.
source: LINK
BS
on 23 Sep 08@Ross… I don’t know why you would be embarrassed. You have created something that is cool, useful and viable. Elance and CrowdSpring (and Ebay) are wonderful tools for buyers. My post was directed at the people weighing in on what this does to the provider. And its a decision all providers have to make… if you are just starting out, this is a good place to start and get your feet wet. However, people who are already out there commanding a certain $$$ for their work… based on whatever… I don’t think this is the right choice as the buyer is typically not going to be their target clients.
Adrienne Adams
on 23 Sep 08Here I am debating ethics with a former $500-an-hour lawyer, giving him a free soapbox, and driving traffic to his site.
Man, what a sucker I am.
Jimmy T
on 23 Sep 08@Robert
“writers and artists continue to create despite not getting paid for it is evidence that there is something else going beyond a mere paycheck.”
Robert, take it from a person who has lost clients, time, and money, refusing to make changes that would have made my designs worse: There is no 11th commandment prohibiting the challenge of existing mental models, even my own. There will be buyers of chickens and eggs, and no need to worry what came first. But, should the art industry as you and I know it (that is, what’s behind a paycheck) disappear, (which is less likely to happen than nuclear war, right?), than the greatest number of people would have deserved to be artless, and will live eons without knowing the true meaning of art.
However, I would argue that due to both models co-existing quiet comfortably for many thousands of years, it keeps both camps on their toes, and pushes people to search for reasons, not blindly accept them. This interplay is an open challenge to overcome mainstream models with skill.
It has always been the case that the fewer artists with skills that no one else can replicate in such a way that their style is infused with their personality that people respect, who reach the top of their field (if they choose to), can charge prices their contemporaries wouldn’t dream about. They’re on the right side of the bell curve.
Most artists are closer to the apex, and because it represents a greater number of artists than the existing demand for them, they WILL compete on price. If the demand was greater than the amount of artists at a given time, artists would then be able to command higher prices.
I no longer work as a designer, but I still practice art. I am happier not doing it for a paycheck like I used to. At the same time I welcome cS to challenge what it means to be a designer for money, or what the nay sayers think they know about life. It’s an experiment, and even if it makes art that much less holy in your eyes, then so be it.
An interesting thing though, I’ve known artists at the top of their game, and non of them cared who copied their work, or how people thought of art in general. In fact, some of them ignore the art world for good reason, do their own thing, make a lot of money, and don’t take art as something that exists outside of them, like some of the people on this post who are almost ready to lay down their lives for it.
And @ Josh N.
No one is taking advantage of anyone by offering them an exchange ratio that you don’t agree with. The standards in your mind are not objective ethics. They’re your own, and one day you may change your mind.
Robert
on 23 Sep 08Ross, the difference might be small in your mind, but not necessarily small.
It isn’t so much about whether or not someone willingly participates, or whether or not someone even enjoys it. I’m sure there are plenty of examples of both.
On the other hand, I know people who stock shelves at Wal-Mart and really enjoy their work. That doesn’t mean the corporation isn’t still exploiting them.
Now before that starts something—that’s just an example, and I’m not saying that your company’s intent is to exploit anyone.
The point is that being willing to do something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in their best interest, or that they are getting the best end of the deal. Finding willing participants for just about anything is not really that hard - just ask the producers of Fear Factor - and is therefore no justification at all.
The thing that is bothering me here is that you keep trying to compare your business model in a positive light against services and industries that it’s not really related to (or if being extremely generous, we’re talking a very distant third cousin… twice removed).
You’ve compared your service to iStockphoto, but it’s not the same at all. Sure, you may pay more of a percentage in a direct 1-to-1 transaction comparison, but that is not how iStockphoto (or iTunes, etc.) works and you know it. Yes, you can pose the possibility that an artist might only sell one license on one of those sites (or even none at all), but business model itself is designed to allow for unlimited selling potential, and therefore unlimited earning potential.
Your service, distilled to the most basic definition, is a contest. For any given project, many participate, only one “wins.”
Right or wrong. Love it or hate it. At least have the courage to drop the marketing spin and call it for what it is. Because at least then it will be possible to have a more meaningful dialog about whether or not something like this is good for the industry.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 23 Sep 08@BS – Nicely said. Someone able to command high fees from clients should be much too busy to work on crowdSPRING. On the other hand, some successful designers make it a practice to spend part of their time working on spec – not because they need to – but because it helps them to test their skills against others.
@Adrienne – You are not a sucker. I am enjoying the discussion, and our entire team appreciates the traffic. :)
@Jimmy – beautifully said on all counts. I’d be curious to know what you’re doing now.
@Robert – I agree with your statement that “being willing to do something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in their best interest, or that they are getting the best end of the deal.”
I certainly respect that governments regulate, as they should, certain professions. Governments set wage minimums. But outside of those regulations, the best we can offer as individuals are our own moral prejudice, and it’s quite clear that the U.S. doesn’t have a monopoly on morality. If a group of designers is morally opposed to being challenged by a much larger group of skilled “non-professionals”, that’s OK.
Our discussion about iStockphoto has nothing to do about how much we pay creatives versus what iStochphoto pays. They’re a mature business; we’re 4 months old. The comparison is about the opportunity offered to people based on skill, not experience, resume, or fancy offices. A janitor can sell photos on iStock without regard to any of those things, because it’s about the photos. A janitor can sell designs on crowdSPRING without regard to any of those things, because it’s about the designs.
Unlimited earning potential is nice. It’s also not reachable. Based on the data disclosed by iStockphoto at the end of 2007, they had 50,000 participating photographers. In 2007, iStockphoto paid out $21 million to those photographers. That’s $420 per photographer for that year. Most didn’t earn a penny.
We don’t shy award from the term “contest”. We simply don’t believe it’s relevant. As an attorney, I attended many “beauty contests” – to pick attorneys (I’d lose the real beauty contests easily). Designers, architects, and scores of others attend “beauty contests”. But when we spent time in 2006 talking to designers and clients around the world (as we started work on crowdSPRING), they expressed a clear preference for the term “projects.” We listened to our community and our users. The difference is mere semantics and I am having difficulty understanding how the use of either term impacts the dialogue.
David
on 23 Sep 08This is an argument that can’t be won – there will always be two completely opposed opinions.
Logosauce.com was one of the first to build a dedicated Logo portfolio site with design competitions (well before CrowdSpring, 99 Designs, etc).
We’ve had the same debate for a long time. At the end of the day there is room for both approaches and the parties involved will participate or not.
Design competitions are NOT going to kill the client pitch and commissioned design business.
At Logosauce we provide a venue where designers can present a portfolio of work and/or pitch ideas/designs in logo design competitions. We encourage clients to look at the quality of work each designer submits to a competition or otherwise. We’ve had happy clients come back a number of time with new projects and we’ve had clients start a relationship with a favourite designer they discovered on Logosauce.
So we and other similar sites have proven that Design Portfolio sites with competitions provide opportunities for both rookies and pro designers from around the globe.
What’s evident is that a design brief now gets a lot more input from many designers from different backgrounds and influences. is that better than the typical 2-3 option result from a selected designer? Maybe maybe not – that will depend on the project itself. It’s a matter of ” the right horses for the course”.
More importantly they inspire clients to take the step of acquiring a new logo design. And that’s got to be good for the design community.
Regards Digger
Evan Stremke
on 23 Sep 08@Phillip – What’s your point? If you’re saying that making a designer salary for two weeks is a bad thing for a twenty year-old college student who uses crowdSPRING (and who also works three other jobs, two of which are professional level design gigs) as a way to help pay off his massive debt is a bad thing, then I will have to disagree with you on that.
To make things easier for everyone, I have decided to break down crowdSPRING into a simple Pros and Cons chart.
Pros: -gives business great options when choosing their logo/brand identity -gives designers, no matter their talents, a chance to better develop client relations -allows designers to lock onto trends in the design world by witnessing the work other creatives submit -provides stay-at-home parents a chance to unleash their creative side, while being able to attend to their families -provides retirees a chance to continue working in the design field long after they lose the energy to work on large-scale endeavors -gives students like me the opportunity to better develop our skills, and earn money in the process -promotes good decision-making skills -promotes the exchange of ideas and concepts, and the feeding of ideas off one another -is certainly a ‘high risk’ business, but it is also ‘high visibility’ business in that the risks of participation are clear, and made known to creatives up front -does not depreciate the value of the designer and his or her work, but rather appreciates it by giving that designer a chance to participate in projects they would otherwise not be able to -makes it quick and simple for business and clients to get their design for an affordable price -forces creatives to be the best they can be, and to put their best work forward
Cons: -lacks any real one-on-one interaction with clients -can lead to stolen ideas and concepts -gives business more ideas for less money (this is only a bad thing for the creative, and is only contingent upon how many designs a creative chooses to submit) -may give false impressions as to how the real design world is
To clarify: Any risk posed by participating in spec work rests solely on the shoulders of the creative/designer. In this case, crowdSPRING makes every risk clear and straightforward. If AIGA and NO!SPEC want to be upset with anyone, it should be the creatives who utilize spec work sites, and not the sites themselves. They should focus more on making their mission and position clearer, and promote awareness to creatives/designers, rather than attack crowdSPRING and other spec work sites that are there to provide competitive prices and a genuine service to those who cannot afford otherwise. crowdSPRING is not a website designed to assist large, multi-million/billion dollar companies in finding cheap and affordable design work. It was designed to assist small business owners, ‘Mom & Pop,’ shops, and individuals in finding cheap and affordable design work. And in that sense, it has unequivocally succeeded at this. And no matter the context, success is success. And there’s no arguing that.
Chris
on 24 Sep 08Love the new service! Of course, you could adopt the antiquated model preferred by many of the angry designers, and be out of business by Thanksgiving.
Ryan
on 24 Sep 08Care to back up those two paragraphs of generalization with some actual facts? The “establishment”? Really?
Giggler
on 24 Sep 08@Evan – “Just to give you an idea, I’ve won five projects and have collected $1400.00 for roughly 72 hours of work. That translates to over $19.00/hr.”
You should increase your work speed. Imagine how much more money you could make with one logo in every 5 minutes instead of just 15 minutes!
rvr
on 24 Sep 08wow, this is a pretty intense discussion. @Ross Kimbarovsky, when i started out reading your blog post and comments i found your arguments to be somewhat persuasive. the more you go on, though, the less and less i can agree with you.
much of what i want to say will be repetitive, but i’m going to write it anyway, since i feel strongly about this.
first, regarding your comparisons to other industries such as entertainment and software, and your assertion that these also count as “spec” work and are therefore relevant to your defense of your business model. this is simply a specious argument, and you seem intelligent enough to know it. although, being a lawyer by trade, perhaps you don’t really understand how designers and design shops work? i have a hard time believing that, but i’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
traditional design for hire works with a designer or firm having a portfolio of work that they are able to show prospective clients. if the client likes what they see and feel that the designer can deliver what they need then they will hire the designer. they may pay them for pitch work, along with other good candidates for their project. or they may simply decide that one designer is good based on prior work and award them the contract outright. then the designer does the work for the agreed upon price, knowing that if they fulfill the terms of the agreement, the client will pay them that amount. they have not done any spec work.
sometimes the movie or music or publishing industry works this way too. an artist (writer, director, musician, etc.) is asked by a producer or publisher to create a work, with some idea of what the end result should be. the client knows what sort of work the artist does, they have a reputation, so they have a level of trust that they will get something they like. again, the artist has not done any spec work.
i think we can all agree on the above descriptions. now let’s move on to where these different industries diverge.
a designer without a portfolio, just getting started, or maybe one with some student work and a few things done for friends, might shop her portfolio around and see if someone will hire her-a firm, a client-based on that work. if she needs to hone her skills and beef up her portfolio she can look for pro bono work, recreate ads or logos for existing brands, or just try to dream up some sample projects to complete. constraints are a part of the profession, though, so having a real project, with real feedback, is valuable. she could also do spec work. this would be finding a potential client, and agreeing to create designs based on the clients needs and specifications. if the client likes the work, they will pay her. let me repeat that, the design is BASED ON THE NEEDS AND SPECIFICATIONS OF THE CLIENT. the client is getting what they would get by hiring a designer, without hiring a designer. and they may even take one of the designers ideas and pay another designer to produce the final piece. that, as i understand it is spec work. the designer does basically the same work they might do if a client had hired them, but there is no guarantee they will get paid. it is based on the client’s whim.
on the other hand, if this same person is a screenwriter, for example, she might develop some story ideas and write some screenplays. she owns these screenplays, they are based on her ideas. now she can shop them around in the hopes that someone will like her work and pay her for it in order to produce a movie. she can shop it around to whomever she pleases, and if more than one likes it she can choose the highest bidder, or the one she wants to work with the most. if no one likes it she still owns the work, it is still her idea, and she can go back and rework it as much as she likes and shop it around again. again, i will repeat the key point here, THE CONCEPT AND WORK BELONG TO HER, AND COULD BE APPEALING TO A NUMBER OF CLIENTS.
in the software industry, when a person or team creates a new piece of software as a startup (i.e. google), they are the ones deciding how it will function, who it will be interesting to, and what the market potential is. if it becomes popular they benefit directly, either by running the successful company, or selling it to someone else. they did not create the software based one someone else’s specifications in the hopes that they might get paid if that client liked the result. they hoped that they were creating something with value in the marketplace, and placing a bet on that. an informed bet, if they did their homework and thought things through. again, this is a fundamental difference. ONE POTENTIAL CLIENT WITH THE POWER TO MAKE YOUR EFFORT A COMPLETE WASTE (ECONOMICALLY) IS NOT THE SAME AS A MARKET WHERE YOU CAN SELL YOUR IDEA.
so here’s the difference. commercial, graphic design, the kind of work your site makes available to clients, is almost always done based on the needs of the client. it is a crucial difference from the kind of work musicians, writers, and other artists do. one of the greatest values of a designer is that they can come up with creative ideas that are specific to the needs of the client. we are not in the business of coming up with cool ideas that might be appealing to a range of clients who, in turn, might license and produce it to make a lot of money. some designers do that kind of work-t-shirt lines, accessories, furniture, collectibles, etc.-but that’s not what we’re talking about. that’s not what crowdspring is about. it’s about creating designs based on specific projects that clients have, that meet specific business needs. i am not going to spend several weeks creating a spectacular logo that i can shop around to a dozen companies in the hopes that one of them will love it and pay me handsomely or give me a cut of the profits they make. IT’S NOT THE SAME THING.
that’s why the comparisons to lawyers or engineers make more sense here. and in spite of your assertions, i don’t find it credible when you say you have worked as a lawyer in the same way you are asking designers to work. you may have done pro bono work, or done work on consignment, but that is not the same thing. please stop saying it is. you are not being honest.
it’s like setting up a site where municipalities could put out a request for designs for their new bridge, and users would submit competing designs for a bridge. but not just engineers, anyone could submit, regardless of whether they know anything about structural design. and then the municipality would choose the one they liked the best, and only one contestant would get paid. is that a good idea? should we ask engineers to design bridges on spec and hope that their design is good and gets chosen? of course not. a city puts out an rfp and gets proposals back, with cost estimates, references, project schedules, and examples of completed projects. is a failed logo going to kill people the way a failed bridge does? no, but that’s not the point.
this is what i’ve heard other commenters saying, but i have not heard a rational, sensible response to these concerns. i’ve heard rationalizations for why your business model makes sense and is fair. but it does not stand up to the smell test, if you ask me.
to be honest, i don’t know that this is a black and white situation. i am in favor of disruptive technologies and business models. innovation should be encouraged, and things need to change when old patterns get too calcified and become detrimental. i also believe new designers without experience and track records need more opportunities to get involved and learn the craft. there are probably lots of creative ways to do this, and i hope people will continue to apply their smarts in coming up with options. i also hope that they have the honesty and morals not to take advantage of these people and their willingness to put in the hard work for little or no pay. there is a big difference between sweat equity and spec work. if our designer makes a logo for xyz co. she does not have sweat equity, but xyz has a logo. if our software developer builds an application she has sweat equity—she has software that she owns and she can find out if it has value in the marketplace.
finally, i’ll say that i trust that the market can determine the validity of things such as this, from a business standpoint. on the other hand, the market is not very good at deciding what’s ethical. that’s not a function of economics, that’s a function of hearts and minds, human decisions, and the desire to serve others. i have not seen you convincingly refute the points made by several people here, and in my humble opinion you have simply repeated the same things over and over, without explaining how they answer the important questions raised.
thank you for taking the time to read and respond in these comments, and i apologize for such a lengthy post.
Robert
on 24 Sep 08@rvr—Very well said.
I just wanted to add something about the notion of comparing the workings of crowdSPRING to the legal industry and taking cases on consignment, because there are a couple of very significant differences in a consignment-based legal case versus working on speculation in the design industry.
1. I’ve never known a lawyer to take a consignment case who didn’t feel very strongly in a high probability of success. I don’t mean in the way that a designer might think his/her logo is the greatest thing since the Nike swoosh, but rather I’m talking about a quality of evidence outside of the lawyer’s own knowledge and/or talent that is highly persuasive.
2. Should the lawyer fail to win the initial case, he/she knows that is not necessarily the end of the matter and in most cases can begin an appeals process.
Short of being related to or friends with a spec client (thus gaining an “inside track”), point number one simply doesn’t exist in speculative design work.
Furthermore, I seriously doubt that crowdSPRING allows for a process that might allow the “losing” designers to appeal and reverse the decision of the client.
The comparison just doesn’t fit.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 24 Sep 08@David – thanks for contributing to the discussion. I imagine most understand that your are correct. It’s an argument that can’t be won. Moreover, whether one “wins” the argument or not is secondary to talking about the issues.
@Evan – thanks for putting together a chart.
@Chris – thank you.
@Ryan – the “establishment” is a short way of referring to incumbents in an industry. And while it does have a pejorative connotation – it’s not coincidental. Gatekeepers in many industries have generally made it difficult for people to access those industries. Music labels in the music industry; Getty Images in the stock photography industry; large studios in the movie industry.
You’ve asked for some facts. I’ll refer you to the posts from some “professional” graphic designers in this thread alone. Those show a lack of respect for the “amateurs”. I’ll also refer you to the comments made by incumbents in the music industry about iTunes and about new ways of selling music (Radiohead). Similarly, look at the comments from “professional” photographers when iStock was launched (very similar to comments we’re seeing from the incumbents in the graphic design industry in response to work on spec and the non-professionals). These are widely available on the Internet.
If you’re looking to see support for the statement that the underdogs are challenging tradition in industry after industry – look at the open source software movement (Linux, Apache, Pentaho, etc.), iStockphoto, Flickr, Innocentive, iTunes (the many independents selling music there),YouTube (loaded with examples of video made by non-professionals that rival those made by professionals), Wikipedia (compare to traditional encyclopedias), Techcrunch, Mashable and the other tech blogs that are delivering tech news today (compare to NYT and other newspapers that used to deliver such news). Even “professional locksmiths” are upset that they now have competition.
And the backup for the AIGA and the NO!SPEC campaign believing the underdogs are a threat? There are countless comments and posts about this online. Here’s a start: 130+ comments in response to an article from a small, unknown start-up that launched 4 months ago.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 24 Sep 08@rvr – I certainly understand your point of view – and I respect it. We are hopeful that the discussion introduces people to crowdSPRING and that we can talk about issues important to the entire industry. If we’ve accomplished those things – we’re happy.
Traditional design does generally work the way you’ve described. I don’t quarrel with that. But there are plenty of examples of spec work – at every level – including at the major agencies. Architects do plenty of work on spec. So do most other creative professionals. Perhaps this is one area where we’ll never agree. But that’s what I hear from my “professional” friends in those industries.
I do understand your examples and let me compliment you on doing an excellent job explaining what happens in those industries. But in providing the explanation – you’ve focused on things that aren’t relevant to the discussion. To a creative looking to create, a student looking to hone their skills, a stay at home mom looking for income opportunities – there is often little to no difference in whether they create in response to someone’s specifications or just create. This is what creatives tell us time and time again. They love to create and if they can create for someone, learn in the process and potentially be paid for it – so much the better.
I don’t dispute that the workflow might follow different paths (needs of the client vs what a creative just feels like doing). I am suggestion only that it’s a distinction without a difference to the creative working on crowdSPRING or working generally on spec, even if to you it represents a difference.
if you read above, on September 22 I posted a response to @Appwerks where I provided an example of how a lawyer will sometimes work on spec. Here’s what I said “Prior to crowdSPRING, I practiced law (as a partner in a Chicago firm). Most lawyers market by talking about how great they are. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Typically, instead of talking about my successes, I’d spend an hour or two, gratis, with a potential client, working through their problems and offering solutions. I billed at $500 per hour, so this was real value, and my message to the potential client was simple: if you like what I’m doing and how I’m working with you, consider hiring me, because you’ll get more of the same. This was “spec” work for sure, but I would rather spend a couple of hours helping someone with their problem than singing my own praises. Clients appreciated this. There’s nothing wrong with letting an individual decide for themselves how they choose to work. Many of my colleagues didn’t think what I did would work for them. And that’s OK.” As you can see, I wasn’t talking about pro bono work (of which I did plenty) or contingent fee work. It was pure spec work.
You’ve offered an extreme example where people without experience in a particular discipline can solve scientific or technical problems – and you question the efficacy. There’s a really successful business where precisely this has been going on for years – Innocentive.
Even though we clearly disagree, I am comforted in your comments that you agree that the market can determine whether what we’re doing is good or bad. I’ve responded to the “ethics” points before – most people confuse ethics with morals and they’re quite different.
Whether my points are convincing or not – everyone can determine that on their own. As I mentioned above, we’re pleased just to engage in a conversation here with some very intelligent people. Even where people disagree – we learn an incredible amount and we’ve always believed that one should never stop learning.
@Robert – you are absolutely right that lawyers evaluate the probability of success when taking on a contingent-fee case. You are only partly right about the appeals process. Cases do get reversed on appeal, but often new counsel must be brought in, it delays time by years, and it gets muddy. But you are generally correct that there is a possibility of a reversal.
But I am not sure I understand the point. I certainly haven’t equated design to law. And it’s quite clear that designers, musicians, writers, architects, etc. working on spec understand going in that the probability of success isn’t 100% or even 50%, or even 10% or even 1%. Each person weighs that probability for themselves. So – if they accept the risk and get something else out of the process (education, experience, communication skills, contacts, etc.), why make it only about the money? It’s clearly not solely about the money for many people – yet that’s precisely where most of the comparisons tend to go.
I’ve see plenty of ridiculous advertisements, websites, logos, etc. on television, in print and on the Internet. Just like in the real world, crowdSPRING doesn’t permit appeals. The client is the client – offline or online. They pay and decide what’s good for them.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 24 Sep 08Small correction – the link I provided above for Innocentive was incorrect – this is the correct link.
Alla K
on 25 Sep 08There are a lot of discussion about the piddly stuff and arguments about the level of submitted art, the choices, the money and the time spend. Put aside all of it and just think about absolutely unique opportunity for all: International, global market place for the business art at your disposal 24/7!!! for all your marketing and advertising needs, new , fresh ideas without corporate directives, planning committees, scheduled reviews, and corporate bureaucracy, without standard templates and closed door discussions and deal making what and how should be implemented at the expense of the client, due dates that make artist calculate as a businessmen and weigh his/her idea against the fear of running out of time, red tapes, favoritism, big names that stopped producing and stopped being visionary long time ago, etc. etc. etc.
Take it for what it is: the opportunity for all, in fact the equal opportunity for all, the fare game, the getting out of the closet of the predictable solutions, the public auction, where the public setup the price, gives bonuses, praises, awards for the bright , unique ideas and fresh approach. It is just one of many ways to advertise, market and promote. The people’s choice award will go to the easier, more affordable, more creative product and system, and time will make a correction in the advertising industry like it did in many others. it is inevitable, and corporate designers, staff designers and those all that oppose the new wave in the global outsourcing should get back to the basics. Maybe reading the famous book “WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? will help them to realise that it is time to re-evaluate the opportunities, their stability, the approach, the future, and make an effort to quickly find the New Cheese, instead of taking a stand and protecting the empty space.
Do not waste your time, go to work. Learn, produce, and earn recognition and gain great experience with this fantastic innovation, crowdSpring – the window into the global art of advertising!!!
The best of luck!!!!
See you in the Cyberspace
Alla K
rvr
on 26 Sep 08@Ross Kimbarovsky – I think you need to look up ethics vs. morals. all definitions i can find of ethics includes the word morals (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethics). it is a system of right and wrong. how do we determine what’s right and what’s wrong? that would be moral values. therefore, the marketplace cannot, and will not, determine what is ethical.
there’s a large, global, successful market for prostitution. now, i hope you’re not going to argue it’s ethical. even though people choose to be prostitutes. i know it’s an extreme example, but you get the point.
hopefully that does away with the argument over whether it’s ethical because it works economically. just because people are buyin what you’re sellin don’t make it right.
so that leaves us with differing opinions on what is ethical. i accept that many people may never see eye-to-eye on that, and that’s ok. what i object to is the effort to spin the discussion by using examples and comparisons that are, quite frankly, dishonest and misleading.
as much as you want to challenge the incumbents, such as aiga, it’s important for the newcomers to understand why they exist and why they have developed guidelines. it’s good for people to know why no!spec exists. and it’s also a bit disingenuous of you to compare them to things like the riaa or mpaa. those are industry groups representing huge, powerful companies. they have a vested interest in protecting certain business models that are making billions of dollars for those companies. the aiga does not have the same motivation, and though it may be somewhat traditional, and far from perfect, their efforts to protect the work and rights of individual designers, and to raise awareness regarding the value of the design, are admirable and important.
frankly, i don’t think orgs like aiga oppose new business models, or amateurs getting a chance to do their thing. personally, i’m all for it, as long as it doesn’t take advantage of those doing the work, and doesn’t undermine the marketplace for the work we do as designers.
disruptive business models are great, and there is a need for small companies to get inexpensive design work, and a need for people to test their creative chops. i just don’t think it should be built on the concept that lots of people do the work and only one gets paid. i know they do it willingly, i know they like the chance to get some visibility for their stuff, but i hope some more innovation goes into doing it in an equitable manner.
thanks again for listening.
red
on 27 Sep 08Part of the problem I have with crowdSPRING is their devaluation of an essential part of the design process: communication. A business may be able to use their services to find a logo for their company that is “pretty”, but does it truly speak to their needs?
To be able to talk directly with the client and analyze their market position, needs and goals is key to developing a successful visual identity system. If a project is priced at $200, can a designer effectively do this analysis? Will the designer be able to talk directly to the client? Can the designer do all of this and still net a decent hourly rate (assuming he or she even “wins” the project)?
It is doubtful. crowdSPRING, please stop eroding the importance of communication in the design process.
Kelake
on 27 Sep 08IStockphoto and CROWDspring are completely different. iStock used to have a similar service but dropped it. Of course, in terms of quality and price there are similarities.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 27 Sep 08@rvr – Let’s not compare design and prostitution. It’s not just an extreme example, as you’ve admitted – that comparison is neither meaningful nor appropriate.
You’ve taken the time to compose your argument and I have great respect for people who do that. So let me respond.
I believe that “ethics” are rules defining what behaviors are proper in certain situations. Laws are examples of ethical systems. Professional regulations (such as the rules of behavior for lawyers, doctors, real estate agents, accountants, etc.) are examples of ethical system. As I understand it, ethics governs those actions that are bad because the are prohibited (example:it is unethical for a lawyer to represent two clients simultaneously who have a conflict with each other). Morality governs those actions that are bad in and of themselves (example: murder is immoral).
Whether you and I differ on what’s ethical is completely irrelevant because there are no rules or professional codes of ethics that universally define spec work as unethical. That a small minority of designers believe spec work to be improper is not a statement about ethics. That small minority of designers is certainly entitled to that belief – even in the face of a much larger group of people that flatly disagrees. But the beliefs of that small minority are neither the law nor a reflection or statement of a professional code. In any country, as best as I know.
Let me be very clear – and I’ve said this above, so this is repetitive. While the AIGA’s writings are neither law nor a professional code, and while I believe some are pure conjecture – they do raise some very important points. And if you read my initial post and my responses, I’ve explained how crowdSPRING was organized to directly address those points. I certainly don’t quarrel with the goal that it’s important to raise awareness regarding the value of design – and I agree those are admirable and important goals. And I don’t quarrel with your statement that the AIGA makes efforts to do this. I respect the AIGA and everything they do for designers. But that doesn’t mean I must respect EVERYTHING they say.
You’ve had a number of people speak up in this discussion to tell you and others that they are seeing new opportunities working on crowdSPRING that they never had before. They are finding real clients, learning, getting better, and getting paid real dollars. Let’s not split the creative community into “we” and “they”. When you say “doesn’t undermine the marketplace for the work we do as designers” (emphasis added), you’ve effectively divided the creative community – and let’s be clear – there’s no entitlement to being a designer. A designer is a designer, and it doesn’t take a memmber in AIGA to be one. As I’ve said above – some of the comments in this discussion from the design community do far more to undermine the marketplace for work done by ALL designers than the people that do work on spec.
And let me say one more thing – because I think you and I actually have a number of areas where we agree – despite our differences in this discussion. I agree with you that more innovation is necessary. I agree with you that more education is necessary. I agree with you that more effort is necessary. And I promise you and other designers – as we’ve promised the crowdSPRING community – we will continue to innovate, we will continue to education and we will continue to invest the effort to improve and raise awareness about design, for ALL designers. Is our promise worth something? Time will tell. Come to our forums and observe firsthand how engaged we are in the discussions. Look at the projects on crowdSPRING. Look at our blog. We’re transparent because we don’t fear a critical eye. We think we have a good heart and we’re going to try our best.
@red – I agree that communication is an essential part of the design process. We’ve built in numerous systems to facilitate communication – including public and private comments, a full featured private mail system, educational materials that discuss the importance of communication, numerous discussions about this in the forums and the blog, etc. We provide notices to each party (via email) as soon as the other makes a comment and we include the comments in the text of the email (we don’t make you come to the site to see the comment). If you’re implying that a voice conversation is needed – some of the designers do that too, but that’s beside the point. Let’s not confuse the needs of the client (as decided by the client) and what you think will speak to their needs. If I read you correctly, if the client has only $200 to spend, you wouldn’t give them the time of day.
Now, I am not going to suggest that the level of communication possible or appropriate in a $500 logo project is the same as a $10,000 logo project. Your comments imply that if a company has only $200 to spend, they can simply forget it. That’s a very narrow and misguided view about small businesses.
@Kelake – iStock had a service where you can request certain types of photography and people would either upload it or link to those photos already on the system. That service was not very popular and was removed, if I recall correctly, after Getty purchased iStock.
Ross Kimbarovsky
on 29 Sep 08Comments on the SVN blog close after 7 days. I want to thank everyone for participating in this discussion. The spirit of the debate reaffirms for me how special the 37signals community is and how lucky we were to talk with all of you.
I’ve heard from a number of you by email – and I am really pleased to have met so many new people.
Ross Kimbarovsky, co-Founder, crowdspring.com
This discussion is closed.