CreativePro: Spec Work and Crowdsourcing
Spec Work and Crowdsourcing, when will they ever learn?
Pamela Pfiffner, writer and founding editor of CreativePro.com, recently put together a timely article for designers: Spec Work and Crowdsourcing: Gambles that Don’t Pay Off.
The economy’s in the toilet and you’re hungry for jobs, so you’re working on spec or posting designs to sites like CrowdSpring. It’s understandable. The problem is, spec and crowdsourcing can lower your value and hourly rates so far that minimum wage looks like a fat paycheck. Here’s what to do instead.
Quoted in the article are two eloquent fighters against all things spec: Steve Douglas and Jeff Fisher.
Steve Douglas of The Logo Factory: “According to [CrowdSpring’s] home page, designers have submitted over 219,000 entries” as of this April 2009. “If we average each entry out to an hour’s worth of a designer’s time, and that’s a hugely underrated figure, that equates to 25 years of unpaid designer labor.”
Jeff Fisher of Jeff Fisher LogoMotives: “The only thing worse than a potential client who does not value the efforts of a professional graphic designer is a designer who doesn’t appreciate the value of their own time and work.”
I know you can read the article for yourself (and I hope you do). But the reason I’m placing their quotes here is because of their tireless fight against spec work.
That’s right. Crusades may come and go, but the real heroes are those who fight the long fight.
So THANK YOU Steve, Jeff, Pamela, Terri and everyone else out there who continues to say NO to spec.





