Warning…. This is a RANT!
Let’s get one thing straight, there is a straw that broke this camels back on this topic yesterday, however the ranty-ness is not entirely focused at that person, it is focused at everyone that is partaking in this exploitative behavior.
There is a trend growing among people to run ‘competitions’ to have things done for their business. The most common, and perhaps the most insulting is the ‘Design our logo and win hardly any money’ competition.
Let’s get one thing straight. I am a designer. I make money and support not only my family but the families of my employees, the community and many others with the money I make. I am not a large ad agency, I am a small business owner, one of the people that make up the back bone of this fine (if somewhat ungoverned) country.
Let’s get another thing straight. I have done a LOT of Pro Bono work over the years for causes I felt compelled to support, or even businesses that were getting going and needed a hand, but I did this by choice and because I was in a position to do so.
As a new young designer, I was lucky that I never had anyone exploit my like this, because there was at least some respect for talent and not everyone thought they were a designer.
The problem with someone who looks at a basic logo (lets say Mcdonald’s famous golden arches) is you have NO IDEA how much effort goes into making something look simple. Nor how much time it takes to develop your craft enough that you can make something effective and beautiful quickly.
It is kind of like ordering everything on the menu at a restaurant and then only paying for the meal you enjoyed the most, but deciding that the meal is only made up of $5 worth of ingredients so that is what you will pay.
There is a sign in my Tattoo Artists shop that says
Good work is not cheap, Cheap work is not good
That sums it up perfectly, but in the creative industry, we struggle to get people to understand that. We do not just enter your business name and favourite colour into a big machine and 3 minutes later your branding pops out. We sit, we sketch, we probably do 100 different versions before we show you 3. That is a process that takes not only time, but also talent (and not to mention expensive software and tools of trade).
The other side to this rant is that what you are offering in value rarely stacks up as high as what you think… Telling me you will tell everyone that I designed your free logo, is going to make it really hard for me to sell my services to those people in the future because they think the value is a big fat 0.
It may be useful for a student to participate in this sort of competition so they get some things in their portfolio, but aside from that, there is no value for me to participate in this type of competition/business startup/whatever.
The best ever explanation of just how ridiculous this situation is can be found here.
My time is worth money. My years of experience are worth money. My talent is priceless. If you want that for free, go and screw yourself!
