On the design industry’s spec work debate

While researching my options for creating a company logo, I came across a number of articles regarding blog design and logo design (see the Points of Interest at the end of the article). One common topic was the topic of logo contests, which is considered spec­u­lative work, or ‘spec work’.  There is appar­ently a movement in the design industry going against the idea of spec work. It boils down to a matter of money: these folks feel like they should be paid for their time. Spec work is not paid for unless the work they submitted is accepted. In logo contests, there is only one winner, a single submission that gets paid for. They believe that when a client comes to them that they should be paid their hourly rate for all the work they put into the logo or blog that they will design for them. So let’s say I go to John Smith to redesign my blog. He charges $100 an hour and takes about twelve hours to complete the job. I owe him $1,200. But what happens when I don’t like the design?

It seems to me that these designers have quite some nerve. They’re an arrogant bunch, denouncing ‘spec work’ and logo design contests and demanding that they be paid for their incredibly profound and life-changing creativity. I’ve never been one to deny anyone a right to earn a living. In fact, I am an extremely generous man. However, it bothers me that these folks believe that they have the right to take your money on a job that’s unsat­is­factory. Because you see, if John Smith creates in twelve hours a blog design that I do not like, it will cost me another four to six hours of work just for him to revise it. That’s another $400-$600 I have to spend just to get what I should’ve gotten in the first place. I’m a very finicky person when it comes to many things, espe­cially the nuances of a website that is supposed to put forth a very particular repre­sen­tation of me: I could go through an inor­dinate (and very expensive) number of revi­sions. So unless the designer has a satis­faction guar­anteed policy, I’d never entrust them with an hourly rate.

The argument against spec work, being that it has no guar­antee of compen­sation for a designer’s time and ideas, is ridiculous. Turn it around why don’t you? I (as a client) have no guar­antee that I will be getting what I want for my money. It’s a two-way street. I could poten­tially sink thou­sands and thou­sands of dollars on one blog designer from the current business model. I give Mr. Smith $1,200 for twelve hours of work, but I don’t like the results. Twelve more hours of work later, I still don’t have a satis­factory product. For all I know, this designer just doesn’t under­stand my needs and vision. So after billing me for forty eight hours of his time, I have nothing to show for it.

Now, I must admit that I know very little about the adver­tising industry. But I would find it very foolish if some large multi-million dollar company would risk wasting money on an adver­tising agency that may not produce any results. If I were in charge of marketing at, say Coca-Cola, I certainly wouldn’t pick out one agency to work with. What I would do is have some­thing of a contest. I’d go to a reputable design firm, tell them what Coca-Cola is looking for, and then see if they deliver. If they do, they win our business. If they don’t, well, we go to a different firm.

Of course blog and logo designers are going to cry out that Coca-Cola has the potential for earning millions of dollars. Blog and logo designs are a one-shot deal. But really, the concept of getting paid for unsat­is­factory work is insulting. Would you pay for a shirt whose seams are poorly sewn together? Would you pay for a brand new car that has an ill-fitted door that lets rain and wind in? Forget that: would you pay for a car you didn’t like? Would you pay for a T-shirt that you thought was ugly? Why would you pay for a house that doesn’t satisfy your aesthetic pref­er­ences? It makes no sense. A logo or a blog design is no different: why should I pay for some­thing that I don’t believe is suited to my aesthetic?

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