ragingFX

Real world situations like in the video do happen. Many people think of creative professionals as none valuable workers. There was even a time that someone called me and said "Hey Mon! We have a video project and when this is finished it'll be sent to Pluto. This is a great opportunity!", no it's not really to Pluto it's somewhere here in Earth. Anyway, these kind of people always blabber about opportunity and money. Then if a project is finished you'll never get any of it. Plus they get the whole recognition. Great!

The Cause

Most people don't understand things they can't touch with their hands. When going to a department store, people touch and feel things they want to buy. Sometimes they smell and try it on there selves to be one-hundred-percent sure. This is fairly reasonable but what if related to creative services. For example, graphic design. People can't touch it, they can't even feel it but they can surely see it. How can we make these people pay on things they can't touch? There are a lot of things we can do: we can always make our prices low, we can also speed up things, the more numbers we do, the more chances we can have money. But do these things won't set a drawback in the quality of our work? It will. The time we normally spent for research, documentation, and testing will change because of the abrupt pace of work. It's normal for fast food chains to speed up their work but for designers it won't. Remember, creativity can't be measured with speed. Going back to our point. The main cause is the wrong perception of many about creative services. Designer do things differently. Different than many other people. If a designer is doing nothing, a typical person will say "Ahh he's getting lazy again" but in actual sense the designer is already finding his/her own set of inspirations. This is really hard to explain to many, but it's not totally impossible.

Money

Most designers in developing countries (don't worry dude we're included, hehe) love to join these kind of bidding jobs. 99designs and Crowdspring are the major players. They grow smooth scented flowers on the so called "Crowdsourcing designs". Here's how 99designs explain it:

Crowdsourcing is one of those cool web 2.0 terms that seems nebulous until you realize how simple it is. It’s the process of sourcing skills — in this case, design skills — from a group of people — the 99designs members.

Cool isn't it? But it basically talks about designers (lots of them) joining a contest launched by a client without any preliminary payment. The prize will only be given to the winner of the contest. And the rest of them will normally sit back and find another luck in other contests. In contrast, these designers will make those designs (print, logo, web, etc) in a small amount of time. The design? Total crap. Why? If designs are made in a spec of time, it'll be a disaster. There are people that can make designs in a very small amount of time but we're not them. People are all different, everyone of us has our own unique design processes. One cannot force his design process to others, it's a sacred sin! If prize/money is the reason for you to become a designer. Get off the wagon baby! Your going nowhere. A good job is where you'll still do it without any gold involve. We do design because we love it. Having passion to what we love means helping others. If doctors study to aid sickness of humans, then designers aid the ugliness of what people see in the industry. Doctors research thoroughly to discover cure to illnesses while designers research to find solutions and not add up to the latest trends.

Poster by Chad Behnke for No!Spec

Glory?

In spec work there is none. If one joins Crowdspring or 99designs the disease will continuously spread. People who shamelessly advertise these kind of doings are totally evil. They're spreading an idea that can doom even their-selves. Tell me what you think. Are you going to pursue your career in SPEC Work?