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"a frank, uncensored* discussion of spec work from both sides of the fence"
*No profanity, spamming or hate language, anything else goes.
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| If “cheap” is your overriding purpose and primary objective, beware. - posted by kbacot |
| Submitted by: kbacot
On 2009-04-14 at 04:44 AM
If “cheap” is your overriding purpose and primary objective, beware.
A question for the would-be contest holder: If you were not allowed to utilize elogodesign.com unless your company agreed to work with your customers for the same terms as set forth between you and elogocontest.com designers, how would that affect your decision to hold a contest (not to mention the effect on your revenue, salary and lifestyle)? Would you be willing to work on spec, and would you -- should you be lucky enough to win a contest -- accept deflated fees? If not, shame on you.
“Give me unlimited choices until I find one I like” is not the best process for choosing a logo or anything else. Of course that approach is cost prohibitive in the real world! Customers can ill afford to pay a designer to accommodate their own indecision. How will a customer know when to choose? There may be more than one “right” answer. Is ego the best judge?
According to graphic design icon Paula Scher, “If the design presented is simple and contains a limited amount of information and imagery there are likely to be far more amendments and revisions. [Customers tend to] amend it until all of the interest and joy are removed or until they run out of time.”
Scher also tells this story, “When a client once tried to persuade me to cut my fee on a “simple” job, I told him I needed the money to pay for all of the revisions he was going to make. He insisted that there would be few revisions. I offered him a deal: the design would be free, but every revision made – no matter how minor – would cost a thousand dollars. He refused the deal.”
Good design is not entirely subjective. There are very many objective criteria that determine the success of a company’s identification project. The best approach is a team effort working from an agreed criteria, driven by the client and guided by the designer. The idea that “my opinion is as good as yours” (design is purely subjective) is a pervasive fundamental misconception and puts the designer at odds with the client rather than on the same team.
Design contests depend upon that misconception. Promoting the idea that “design is only a matter of taste” devalues the profession of design by saying, “Your education, talent, skill, time spent, experience and investment in computer, fonts, design, illustration, and file compression software, books, internet service are worthless to me. So I will request work on my behalf from people I have no intention of paying. I am going to pay one person, who works hard to be the best, a deflated fee. Or, I may just review the work and pay no one.”
As many “contest holders” think elogocontest.com is a great deal for them -- a word of caution. Presumably contest holders use this website to save money. If “cheap” is your overriding purpose and primary objective: Do you have any idea how much it will cost to reproduce the designs on letterhead or other applications? If you plan to “save money” and design your own, and print it on your inkjet printer: Do you know how much toner you will eat up doing that? Do you know what you can afford to spend on revising your logo artwork each time you use it for a different purpose? Do you realize your production costs may be large due to lack of foresight in planning? A good professional would sort that out for you on the front end.
I do not understand the appeal of a design contest to the freelance designer (or any human being with self esteem). Professional designer or not, this is the message design contests send to the world about your talent:
“I agree to promote the idea that my time and talent is of little or no value.”
The design contest is like a lottery, except that the risk/reward factor is reversed. The “cost of the ticket” is much larger and prize is very small and not even guaranteed to be paid out to anyone.
In the words of Benjamin Franklin:
“Time is money.”
“Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of.”
How is it that a paltry and arbitrarily set fee -- without any regard for the time invested on the project, or the skill and talent of the designer -- can be a positive exercise for customers or designers in the long term? The only foreseeable result is deflating income for designers (a profession that is not well-paid to begin with) and, ultimately, promoting hasty hackwork to buyers.
P.s. Paula Scher has a corporate identity template available for free at hp.com. What is the difference? HP paid her a reasonable fee. Her design is professionally rendered and you merely modify it for your purpose. There are affordable ways to start up a new business that are also respectful of the design profession.
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Comment posted by:
kbacot (NO)
on 2009/04/16 at 08:30 AM | George: You said, "Just like any project, the more time time the designer puts into their work the more likely it is they are going to please the client."
I am not sure that is factual with an unsophisticated buyer. But if it were factual, how is it right that some thoughtful designer will put in many hours and others will hastily cobble something together, yet the fee is the same and not guaranteed for either?
I do not see how an arbitrary fee (that is very low) would encourage a designer to put more time into their work.
It is also unfair that early users' ideas can be usurped by those posting later and taken to the next level before a contest holder even bothers to comment. So it is possible for someone to steal an idea and win, and an unsophisticated contest holder would not even recognize the plagiarism.
Lastly, I have to agree with Steve Douglas. Where is the logic that dictates more is better? What is the point of generating lots of mediocrity? Even if mediocrity is in the eye of the beholder, it amounts to a lot of waste.
And I feel that someone should point out that "entries" and "ideas" are two different things. There are many entries with the same cliche ideas in these contests. That amounts to far more entries than ideas. |
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| Other popular NO views
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| Submitted by: spech8r
On 2008-11-18 at 12:39 PM
Spec Work Is Destroying the industry
Spec work is a joke, design contests are not in any way a legitimate way for a company to develop a brand. Are they going to start selling logos at
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| Submitted by: hulu229
On 2008-11-20 at 10:11 AM
Only for amateurs and children
No reputable designer is going to do work for free. The only "designer" who will do work for free is the one who is either not talented enough to get
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