“CrowdSpring aims to slash the cost of graphic design work — and democratize a snooty business.”
That is the tagline from Forbes, who has ran an article about crowdSPRING, a web site sponsoring design contests. Forbes fails to provide a journalistic counterpoint to its one-sided lovefest of a company who exploits both young/inexperienced designers AND companies who believe they are getting professional quality work and service. Forbes fails to mention that competing for work in this manner will not help the ‘struggling entrepreneurs’ that crowdSPRING so graciously claims to be helping.
How can going from doing ‘not quite enough paid work’… to doing work for free on the 1 in 250 chance you’ll receive a check for $250 and a big thank you by losing all rights to your work help struggling designers?
OK — so designers lose out. But companies take advantage of this and get great work, right?? Wrong. Design firms are not design secretaries. We (designers) are not monkeys on a computer to make a pretty image while being coached by a client who has no experience or training in creating a brand to portray their company. We are trained professionals at doing what we do and the client suffers by losing the interaction and discussion with the designer. Would you tell a doctor to change the way they are treating your stomach ulcer because your wife doesn’t like the sound of the word ‘scalpel’? Is your grandmother suddenly an accountant because she bought QuickBooks? A pirated version of Adobe CS does not a graphic designer make. New companies benefit the most from strong branding and design work, and they are ones most likely to lose out on great work by using this service. Companies end up with detached, sub-par work and noone to run to when the designer stuck them with bad files, because the grandmother from Tennessee has never prepared production work for a printer.
It’s lose-lose, and Forbes fails to provide that counterpoint other than a small “oh but there are nay-sayers!” It’s disappointing. crowdSPRING, along with other design contest sites that are much larger, are growing at an alarming rate. There are arguments that dismiss this practice as petty, and that it will not damage actual firms because “these clients don’t understand good design, and wouldn’t have come here anyhow.” And that’s true right now. I just wonder what happens in 10-20 years when this practice has been introduced to young entrepreneurs who are now running Fortune 500 companies… and were never taught the value of good design. It’s troubling.
Check out http://www.no-spec.com/ for more information on why unpaid speculative design work is bad for designers and the clients who think they have beat the system.
original link via Quipsologies
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