Design With Dignity
Imagine if restaurants allowed you to order a variety of food and only charged you for the ones you liked. As nice as that sounds, it’s a very unlikely scenario considering that no restaurant would adopt such a ridiculous business model. It’s hard to believe but that is the exact business model we employ as creative professionals. Working on spec basically means designers get paid if the customer likes your work. If not, the designer get nothing.
The days of getting jobs based off your portfolio are long gone. The trend is growing due to a downturn in the economy. And it’s affecting everyone. It’s not just free-lancers and out-of-work pros, firmly established design firms and agencies are also using this technique to compete for business.
I came across this great website called NO!SPEC that serves as a vehicle to unite those who support the notion that spec work devalues the potential of design and ultimately does a disservice to the client. Visit them at www.no-spec.com. There you will find a wealth of information and articles.
AIGA President Debbie Millman said it best, “Speculative work denigrates both the agencies and the designers that participate. If we give away our work for free, if we give away our talent and our expertise, we give away more than the work. We give away our souls.”
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