

Dribbble’s Position on Spec Work - paulbaumgart
http://blog.dribbble.com/post/28570735139/spec

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patio11
This seems to be an emotional, tribal issue for designers, particularly for
designers who used to occupy the lower rungs of the value chain for corporate
design work and who passionately believe that a teenager with Photoshop would
necessarily produce a deliverable of lower quality than theirs but can't quite
articulate why.

In many other fields of professional work -- which laugh in the general
direction of $200 per project -- spec work is an unremarkable part of the
customer acquisition dance. I need an accountant who understands how to
legally minimize tax burdens of an IP based business with service components
with activities split across Japan, the US, and the EU. I was interviewing two
accountants to decide who I would use. Both of them a) reviewed 3 years of tax
returns, b) spoke to me for several hours, and c) broke out the books and
looked at tax treaties. _That is exactly indistinguishable from what the
winner will eventually charge me for._ But that time isn't billable. Cost of
doing business.

Similarly, many of my consulting engagements get sold on the basis of me going
to a client's office, getting introduced to their CEO, lead tech guy, and head
of marketing, and then talking for between 1 and 6 hours regarding plots I've
hatched in advance, while everyone in the room takes notes. If there were
already a contract in place, a) that presentation would be a deliverable and
b) that meeting would be billable, along with the rest of the week. At the end
of the meeting, sometimes the CEO says "Great stuff. Let's think about it and
circle back on this later.", which occasionally turns into a firm "No." three
months later. This is, to plagiarize Thomas, life in the big leagues.

Ways of compensating for this: a) Charge. More. , b) Minimum projects of
sufficiently large size such that customer acquisition is just a cost of doing
business., and c) if you can't reliably explain to clients why you're better
than a teenager at 1/20th the price either you're looking for the wrong
clients or you're in the wrong business.

~~~
bkorte
"I was interviewing two accountants to decide who I would use."

And this is what makes it a bad analogy to spec work. Spec work is when you
say "You 10 people make me a logo, and I'll pay whoever makes the one I like
best." Did you get two accountants to do your taxes and then pay the person
who served you best? No, you spoke to them first, interviewing them, having
them explain why they're best for the job and how they handled certain other
situations. This is how it's supposed to happen in the design world too.

You need a logo designed? OK, let's talk about how I can make that happen and
what results I've had in the past and how I can serve you best. That's how a
mature and respectable industry does business.

(rambling rant over)

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daleharvey
While its completely within Dribbbles right to not cater for Spec work, and
might make complete sense. I really dislike and disagree with the indignation
surrounding spec work and propogated by things like NO!SPEC.

Spec work doesnt harm the creative industry, the fact is a lot of clients just
want cheap decent looking logos / website designs, and there are a lot of
designers that are willing to do the work even with a risk of not getting
paid, likely because they are inexperienced and have a hard time finding
standard paid contracts. Designers get experience, some money and an
opportunity to grow into a career they are interested in, the client gets a
reasonable quality product at a cheap price and low risk to them.

Nobody forces designers to take on spec work, as long as the structure of the
work / payment is clear to both the designer and the client then they are both
willingly taking it on.

~~~
mrxd
Designers don't need clients to get experience, they can just work on their
own projects.

~~~
digitalengineer
Not really. Designers don't necessarily _need_ clients. But they do need
restrains. That's where creativity comes from.

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digitalengineer
So what are you going to do if a big brand (I won't mention any names but
think of ___the biggest brands in the world_ __) come knocking on your door
and request your company's presence in a pitch with two other agency's? You'll
f*cking be there man. And you'll give it all you've got.

These companies know they can do it. They're so big and they'll bring a ton
work if you win the pitch. Just one of their projects can be over 300 hours if
you win. Even if you don't win, they'll know what you're capable off and
you're on their radar. I've seen this happen a lot of times. Not winning the
pitch, but still becoming a preferred supplier for other types of work.

Spec is here and it's not likely to go away unless you're a rockstar-designer.
Even a lot of existing clients pitch their new design-jobs now. Optimize for
it. Make sure you can debrief, brainstorm and create "rough-but-good-enough"
concepts and designs as fast as you can. Just don't forget your existing
clients. (They are the ones who are really paying for the pitches).

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iamdanellis
I find this debate interesting. However, it's ultimately is up to the
individual designer on work they choose. If you're an art director at an
agency, or don't need to be on these crowdsourced sites, then don't.

Sales folks spend time on presentations and prep for business they never
close, and some of the top tech companies the Valley require engineers and
designers to complete projects as part of the recruiting process.

As founder of a crowdsourced design site (fantastic.me), we see this issue
often. Here is a blog post I wrote on our position, and how we think there is
business model where everyone wins.

[http://blog.fantastic.me/2012/07/is-crowdsourcing-design-
rac...](http://blog.fantastic.me/2012/07/is-crowdsourcing-design-race-to-
bottom.html)

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TheCowboy
Stop doing spec work. Don't compete to make a for-profit company's logo or
anything else in a contest.

