Crowd Spring / 99 Designs – The rise of “Spec Design” sites (Short for Speculative)
source: www.crowdspring.com
Abstract: Spec Design sites deliver affordable graphic design work and democratize the business by letting customers run a “design contest” to meet the client’s needs, where an open community of designers compete to create the best possible desi
gn to answer the brief usually in as short as 24 hours.
Customers post creative briefs directly to an open design community, which then competes to create a design that best fits the clients’ needs. A typical “assignment” will draw dozens of submissions. The winner receives a payment and the client receives a logo or website design at a fraction of what a professional agency might charge.
Design contests are traditional forms of spec work but in this case the evolution isn’t the spec work itself, but the always growing exploitation of the model in an online setting.
This type of work is widely considered immoral by the graphic design community, as it requires the designer to commit time and resources to a project with the chance of getting nothing in return and automatisation of the graphic work production to such extend.
Driver
Social
The emergence of graphic software (even for free) has to a new category of graphic designers: amateurs or non-professionals whose works can exist on the market. This phenomenon has deeply modified to graphic business and more precisely the relation to clients.
Technological
The role of internet as a catalyst to create a huge shift in the marketplace.
Economic / Industrial
(see social driver)
Obstacle
Social
The subject is widely criticized in the graphic design community. Alarmed by the popularity of the spec model, a group of designers formed a protest group called No!Spec to persuade their colleagues and clients to just say no to design contests.
It doesn’t enable a long lasting client-designer relationship. Triggers continuous competition.
Economic / Industrial
It requires the designer to commit time and resources to a project with the chance of getting nothing.
Design / Art
Criticised for devaluating the perception of graphic design.
Automatisation of the design process and outputs.
Indication
Change in current innovation patterns
Deeply modify the way graphic designers find their clients and their business relations.
Sector specifics / cultural specifics
This weak signal is related to graphic design and print.
Source
Internet
www.crowdspring.com/how-it-works
The protest group:
Magazine
Wired / Epicenter
www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/03/is-crowdsourcin/comment-page-2/