Recently I’ve had some designer friends up in arms about crowdsourcing. If you aren’t familiar with the concept:
Instead of paying a graphic designer, you offer a sum amount to a group of designers and let them fight it out. You say I’ll pay $200 for a great logo, and the designer who designs the logo you like the most gets the money. Everyone else gets nothing.
You can see why my design friends would be unhappy about this. It completely cheapens their the value of their skills. It reduces the cost of what people will pay for a logo by hundreds of dollars and it turns the designers into beggars.
But here’s why I love crowdsourcing: It presents a really cool opportunity for those willing to embrace it.
New opportunities come under the disguise of challenges. The field of graphic design wasn’t going anywhere. The way it stood, it would always be:
1 client + 1 amount of work = payment and product
But the mentality is shifting. Design is getting cheaper but more clients are popping up left and right. Folks who previously thought paying for designers was way out of their range are now becoming paying customers. There’s a brand new market that’s willing to try something new.
I’m not saying a designer needs to jump into the crowdsourcing pool. You don’t have to be part of the madness. But you also don’t have to spend your time resisting. Look for an opportunity in that challenge. It’s there. I promise.
And designer friends. You’re creative. People pay you to be creative. Come up with a creative solution to this. You can do it!
The winds are always changing. You can either pull down your sails and complain about the direction, or you can adjust your sails and take advantage of the new opportunity. Let’s all be willing to adjust our sails.
PS. My blog photo came from Mopho.to, a new company you could easily accuse of cheapening the art of photography. Send your hate if you must.
Jonathan,
Good post. As an experienced designer and working full-time in my craft. I understand both sides of the fence for “Spec Work.”
1. It can and is damaging to the designer and can under value the price of the creative process. This is sad and unfortunate.
2. It can be an amazing opportunity to hone your craft. I have entered a few contests over the years simply for the desire to challenge myself. It was fun and I made a couple bucks in the end.
The reality is that crowdsourcing will be here for awhile and that us designers need to learn how to respond to it and leverage it for our purposes. For some designers they embrace it and others hate on it. For myself, I have had fun with it never compromising my values.
My two cents
Well stated Jonathan. That’s the same takeaway I got from the fiasco. Things are changing. If designers don’t like the new model, we need to develop something new.
Thanks for the post, Jonathan. I can’t say that I agree with everything you say, but I appreciate your perspective. This subject seems to have a lot of emotion tied into it, so I really appreciate any chance for a civil discussion about it. So thank you for that.
I can’t agree with the sentiment that a creative—or anyone, for that matter—who resists change is “complaining.” True, many times people who resist change are looked back on as dinosaurs who complained and refused to adjust. Other times they are looked back on as one of the few who acted on their principles and did not bend to mob mentality. Being unwilling to change is not inherently a negative.
I like the IDEA of coming up with a new solution to this, but here’s my honest thought on that. It partly strikes me as pointing others to a possible solution by someone who isn’t convinced that there really is one out there. Sometimes the best solution is holding to what you know is right and not adjusting to something you know is wrong. (I should say, my HOPE is that I am wrong and you are right on this. I’d love to see a creative solution, I’m just not convinced there is one.)
In the end, maybe you’re wrong, maybe I’m wrong. More likely, we’re both a little wrong and a little right.
Again, appreciate the opportunity to discuss this in a civil manner. Love you, brother.
As a potential customer I agree. I have often thought I would like a new logo, new look or design for just one project but I am kind of picky with what I like and what I don’t like. I was always afraid to engage a creative who might have his own ideas and then I am in a fight to get something I like, since I am paying for it and ultimately I have to look at it on a regular basis. When I contract with one person I have no idea what they might come up and we all have limited perspectives. By letting lots of minds throw out their ideas I can pick one that suits me but that one designer might never have thought of. I think CS in this area is here to stay for this reason. At least for small jobs.