The news just broadcasted how the unemployment rate is above 10% for the first time since 1983, how it’s even higher for teens and twenty-somethings, how it’s really a depression rather than a recession for us. I’m lucky that I’ve been interviewing with a few options to choose from, but as someone who also freelances web and graphic design, crowdsourcing design still breaks my heart.
Most designers are notoriously poor to begin with, and even more are not paid for their work. At a geek party a few weeks ago, two of my friends were talking about how much they paid their last designer for just a logo. One guy at a startup said he submitted a logo design brief on crowdSPRING, received thousands of submissions to choose from, and then only paid the winning design a few hundred bucks. The other guy, who worked at a major tech company, said his team paid $1200 for a professional logo design (with limited options), so he was envious that his team had not heard of crowdSPRING earlier.
For companies looking for contract designers, sites like crowdSPRING and 99designs are awesome deals; but for freelance designers like me desperate for work in tough economic situations, I’d be doing a lot of work for free. Because designers are desperate to win the “cash prize”, they put in their best efforts…for usually nothing. Designers constantly do this (myself included) to build up their portfolio, but at some point, we need bread money.
Successful companies like Threadless also use the crowdsourcing model, and to be honest, when Teresa and I were brainstorming ways to expand to merchandise for My Mom is a Fob, we considered asking for submissions (for essentially, a design competition), rather than designing the shirts ourselves. As a business model, it just works really well; but as someone who can sympathize with business-minded companies and designers, the concept just tugs on my heart strings.
Lastly, I feel like more and more designers are being replaced with tools like, Design to Wordpress Theme and Drawter. They don’t work that well and don’t necessarily make work any easier or more efficient, but if more design products streamline the design process* and become good enough in the future that most companies no longer need professional designers…I sense some danger. (One could also argue that this weeds out the best…and the world only needs the best. *Sigh*)
*I would argue that a company should not streamline the design process for efficiency’s sake, but rather work together with the designer on iteration after iteration to get the best product possible. (If you end up hating your design, you’re just going to have to hire another designer or submit another design brief.)
Addendum
My friend who told me about crowdSPRING clarified a few points for me in an email, which I figured I’d share:
Hey, I saw your blog post and I absolutely agree – the setup sucks for designers.
Just a minor correction though – we got ~200 submissions, not thousands.
Also, on crowdspring at least, we did get to iterate on designs. We could write feedback on logos that the designer could see and, almost without fail, the designer submitted another logo that incorporated our notes.
I don’t think good designers are really affected by this sort of thing (just like good programmers aren’t really affected by $7/hr coders on elance). I know a couple of designers who bill at ($50-$100)/hr and are so busy they have to turn down clients (our actual designer is one of those).