That’s awfully black & white considering the point you’re trying to make. I think what hasn’t been mentioned here is that the $1,000 is a fair price to pay one designer to design a cover, but it’s not a fair price to pay, say 100 designers to make the attempt and 99 to fail.

I don’t believe Jonathan feels this way, but its not much different than a client asking me to design something but then saying they’re not going to pay me if they don’t like it. That’s just not how the business works.

Something that also hasn’t been pointed out much is that Jonathan probably plans on making money with this book he’s writing. The likelihood that any designer will get even a modicum of “exposure” for doing this design is extremely remote, more so for anyone that comes in 2nd place or lower. Could it happen? Yes, but it’s not likely. We designer equate this to those clients that come to us and say, “Give me a deal on this design and I’ll bring you lots more work”, which of course never turns out.

Keep in mind Hayden that this idea of No Spec has been around for decades in our industry and was put in place in order to keep designers from getting shafted, which happens more often than you can imagine. We’re just trying to protect our creativity from those that would take advantage.

I am not sure how ‘continue to argue’ applies to one comment’s worth of ‘argument’. The first comment was a question.

Up front, I don’t appreciate being accused of intellectual dishonesty OR of having disdain for designers. Until this post, I never really considered designers as I work in the legal field.

As far as your argument for ’spec’ you would have to cross-apply that to any contest that involves intellectual property by people who make their money off of their intellectual property. Yet people in other fields (writing, filmmaking, blogging) do not have the same vitriolic response to this type of contest.

As to your example with the salesperson, you NEVER know as a salesperson that you will make a sale. You can spend months working on someone, only to have them walk away. Not only that, but salespeople work on commission. So all of their ‘work’ goes unrewarded.

I was simply trying to point out that the ‘designers’ come from a different mind-set than Jonathan.

Chill out and stop accusing me of things in error. Factual mistake? Fine. False line of logic? Ok. But ‘intellectually dishonesty’? Shame on you. And to accuse me of an attitude towards all designers is just silly.

In your example, unless the contestants earn their living from making quilts or growing vegetables professionally, it’s not spec work and therefore it doesn’t apply here. A contest is not a contest – for example, the contest that you describe is not a contest to win a professional engagement. Jonathan did not hold a “let’s vote on the prettiest book cover in a vacuum” contest, he held a “everyone create a book cover for free and then I’ll pick one designer that gets paid for his work” contest. That is a totally different beast. And you know it. I understand that you disapprove of the stance the design community takes WRT spec work, but please…try to argue with some intellectual integrity, willya?

“Which leaves the point that it is the contest organizer that is ‘profiting’ unfairly from the contest. Jonathan already stated that his publisher was reader to hire their own people, in-house, which is the typical process for a major publishing house. However, he argued for the opportunity for people he knows to be involved in the process.”

No…no, actually it *doesn’t* leave the point that the contest organizer is profiting unfairly. In your hypothetical example that doesn’t actually apply to the discussion at hand, maybe the organizer is profiting unfairly, but that’s not the objection that was raised with regard to Jonathan’s contest.

Nobody said anything about Jonathan profiting unfairly. The objection being raised was that designers were being asked to work for free. That’s all. Designers were being asked to work for free. That is the ONLY issue that anyone had with this contest. The fact that the person asking people to work for free *could* have simply hired someone instead is irrelevant. You’re not doing people a favor by asking them to work for free instead of hiring someone.

“I think what set this particular contest apart was the NATIONAL EXPOSURE. ”

No…no, actually the national exposure doesn’t set this contest apart from any other request for people to work for free. The fact that the contest offered national exposure is irrelevant. National exposure is worthless unless something comes of it. Exposure alone does not pay the bills, and to ask 100 designers to work for free on the off chance that one of them will get some money and exposure…that’s just silly. Now you’ve hosed 99 professionals, congrtulations. Can you really feel good about that?

“Also, Jonathan comes from a sales background and in sales you could spend months working on a client before they agree to a sale. In sales, weigh the risk to reward ratio and, if the risk is big enough, you go for it.”

Certainly you’d never expect a salesperson to close a sale without getting paid. So why would you expect a designer to complete a design without getting paid?

“It sounds like the designers are a much more conservative bunch, which is fine for a specific work culture. ”
You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t respect the value or contribution of designers, I get that. I suspect that’s the only reason you continue to argue. So, if by “conservative” you mean “expect to get paid for working” then yes, the design community is very conservative!

“There is no monetary value in any of those things unless they actually happen. Remember, only the winner walks away with the $1000, the national exposure, etc. The rest of the designers who submitted work have simply created work product for free and now are out their time & energy. That’s hardly a position we should ever expect a professional to willingly put him or herself in. Even the gallery display graciously proposed by Jonathan does not erase the bad of dozens designers (or more!) performing work for free. It’s just not an ethical thing to ask of people.”

Contests exist in every arena and, if you follow the above logic, you should just get rid of contests everywhere in their entirety. Even at a state fair, people put their heart and many manhours into creating a quilt or growing a prize vegetable that may never win a thing.

Which leaves the point that it is the contest organizer that is ‘profiting’ unfairly from the contest. Jonathan already stated that his publisher was reader to hire their own people, in-house, which is the typical process for a major publishing house. However, he argued for the opportunity for people he knows to be involved in the process.

I think what set this particular contest apart was the NATIONAL EXPOSURE. Also, Jonathan comes from a sales background and in sales you could spend months working on a client before they agree to a sale. In sales, weigh the risk to reward ratio and, if the risk is big enough, you go for it.

It sounds like the designers are a much more conservative bunch, which is fine for a specific work culture. However, the arguments that have been raised against Jonathan’s contests are not black and white, like the designers seem to feel they are.

Contests are contests. Period.

Jonathan is well respected by the readership of FSW, and that hasn’t changed. People – myself included – were objecting to a behavior, not a person. Jonathan simply stepped on a landmine because he didn’t understand the nature of the spec work issue, and why would he be? He’s not a freelance designer or developer, and it’s an industry issue. Sadly, exploitative forces have long ago ruined the fun for folks like Jonathan who might think that a design contest is just good clean fun.

I can tell by some of the comments here, referring to objectors as “haters” and “whiners”, that some of the readership here does not understand the spec work problem that the freelance design industry faces. Again, not surprising, as most of you are probably not in the industry.

“Btw, what is ’spec’ work?”

Well, to paraphrase the description found at http://www.no-spec.com:

“Spec” is how we refer to any work done on a speculative basis. That is to say, any requested work that lacks a promise or guarantee of being paid for. The heart of the problem is that spec requires the designer to invest time and research into producing work with no guarantee of payment. Nobody should ever be asked to create work product for free.

There are several reasons why spec work is a Bad Thing, and they are summed up rather eloquently by the AIGA here:

http://www.aiga.org/resources/content/3/5/9/9/documents/aiga_standard_specletter.doc

The long and the short of it is that you get better work from better designers and do so in an ethical fashion without devaluaing the efforts of the designers themselves when you avoid requiring spec work to be submitted for a project.

“What’s the monetary value of national exposure? Of having a nationally distributed book in your portfolio? Of making contacts in the high-end of the indutry? Of that, plus $1,000?”

There is no monetary value in any of those things unless they actually happen. Remember, only the winner walks away with the $1000, the national exposure, etc. The rest of the designers who submitted work have simply created work product for free and now are out their time & energy. That’s hardly a position we should ever expect a professional to willingly put him or herself in. Even the gallery display graciously proposed by Jonathan does not erase the bad of dozens designers (or more!) performing work for free. It’s just not an ethical thing to ask of people.

I also agree with Anthea that a great idea would be for Jonathan to solicit portfolios from the FSW crowd, and select a designer that way. That’s the best of both worlds; he’s selecting a designer in a manner that is both more effective for him and more ethically appropriate for the designers, PLUS he gets to include the crowd. Win-win gets ‘em every time.

Keep on rocking, Jonathan, we all step on the occassional land mine. You handled this one well in the end.