Spec Watch is a new site devoted to revealing the naked truth about design contests & crowdsourcing.
Design contests and crowdsourcing have been marketed as the “future of graphic design”, a “new reality”, call themselves “disruptive” and their stated goal (as per Forbes) is, “to slash the cost of graphic design work and democratize a snooty business.” Critics have been called “Dinosaurs”, “gatekeepers fighting hard to maintain the status quo”, advised to “evolve or die” and other such sentiments. Crowdsourcing and design contests have been likened to a movement aimed to turn the graphic design industry “on it’s head”. Crowdsourcing sites’ management have “welcomed the debate” about spec work, and are very vocal about defending their business model on blogs, forums and some have even participated in a SXSW panel debate entitled “Is Spec Work Evil”.
Spec Watch keeps an eye on, and documents, many of the crowdsourcing design sites across the internet. While in no way unbiased – Spec Watch provides startling facts about these sites and design contests in general. View their site here, or just follow them on Twitter @specwatch for all the content and help fight against design contests, crowdsourcing and spec work.
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