…spec work devalues the communication design profession. It reduces communication design to a commodity, rather than to a specialized service.

Commodities are here understood in their simplest sense, as undifferentiated goods such as wheat or oil, which are exchanged in a market according to supply and demand, such that their prices are generally determined without the consideration of qualitative differences in their production, e.g. wheat is wheat, no matter where or by what methods it is grown and harvested, and oil is oil, no matter where or by what methods it is extracted and refined; the key term in this definition of a commodity is ‘undifferentiated good,’ which is contrasted against the definition of communication design as ‘a specialized service.’ The seeming triviality of commodities, famously remarked upon by Marx, allows its use in this pejorative sense, as a sphere of production somehow less ‘valuable’ than that of communication design services.

It is surprisingly difficult to engage with this commonsensical understanding of commodities!

4 months ago | 11 notes | Reblog |
crowdsourcing, spec, no spec, spec work, commodity, marx,

AIGA was advised by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) not to publish a spec work position in any statement that might be referred to, even indirectly, as an ethical standard that might elicit censure within the profession… or it might risk being cited for a restraint of trade through price fixing (i.e., making it unethical to work for nothing) for which we would have lost our 501.3.c status and possibly been subject to a regulatory action.

Ric Grefé

5 months ago | 1 note | Reblog |
aiga, crowdsourcing, spec, no spec, spec work, ftc, trade, federal trade commission, regulation,

Unfortunately there is a disturbing growing trend affecting the creative communications community where companies using contests as a major part of their business model pit designers against each other, like roosters in a ring, to win bids to have their work (notably, logos and other identity) awarded to clients.

NO!SPEC

From Photoshop Tennis to Photoshop Cockfighting?

5 months ago | 14 notes | Reblog |
crowdsourcing, design, creative, communications, business, cockfighting, nospec, spec, photoshop tennis,

Click through for a good article from The Logo Factory.

1 year ago | 2 notes | Reblog |
crowdsourcing, logo, design, spec, no spec, guy kawasaki,

Why Creative People Are Screwed In the New Economy (via Popten)

1 year ago | 0 notes | Reblog |
crowdsourcing, vendor, client, spec work, spec, no spec, creative class, design,

SXSW “Is Spec Work Evil?” panel transcript →

The basic premise of the panel was this – Mike Samson, one of the co-founders of Crowdspring (a design contest platform, based in Chicago, who recently caused a stir after being featured in a Forbes article that opined the design industry was snooty) set up a debate at the recent South by South West Festival, held in Texas back in March. The subject at hand was “Is Spec Work Evil?” (a title taken from a ‘Why I Hate Crowdspring” post featured on Andrew Hyde‘s blog) and subtitled “The Online Community Speaks“. The panel was moderated by Jeff Howe (from Wired magazine) and featured Samson, Jeffrey Kalmikoff of Threadless, veteran designer David Carson of David Carson Design and Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research. Lydia Mann of AIGA was a last minute invitee (perhaps to even things up a bit). The panel turned out to be one of the better attended events, and from all accounts was one of the more interesting, with tempers occasionally flaring during the proceedings. The transcript is long, a little messy, but worth a looksee if you have a bit and a cup of coffee on hand.

1 year ago | 0 notes | Reblog |
crowdsourcing, spec, no spec,