No Spec!

[dannynosleeves]

I thought you guys might like this

NO!SPEC

"The NO!SPEC campaign: Serves as a vehicle to unite those who support the notion that spec work devalues the potential of design and ultimately does a disservice to the client.

Our mission: To educate the public about speculative, or 'spec' work.

Our target: Those who use creative services, as well as creative professionals (designers, photographers, illustrators, typographers, writers and those in marketing, branding and advertising).

What you can do: Place a "NO!SPEC" logo on your site. Sign the NO!SPEC petition. Distribute the "NO!SPEC" posters. Contact us with your thoughts, comments, articles and insights.

Requirements: The only requirement for participation is putting the appropriate value on your profession."

[Toon]

You just found it?

[dannynosleeves]

Originally Posted by Toon

You just found it?

yeah I guess Im slow. This new fangled internet has so mant twist and turns that I get lost sometimes and end up in a sea of nudity.

[Toon]

They love logosauce at no spec!

[D856C]

There are a range of ways to provide value for service.

One is providing well-written, valuable testimonials to those who've submitted good work -- even if you're not going to go with it. It costs you nothing to acknowledge the designer and helps the designer to gain clients.

Another is providing referrals and contacts before you go looking for something for yourself. You've seen the examples and like 'em, then do what comes naturally for the 'net -- tell people. ....And tell them to mention who sent them. Then approach the designer. With a web full of blogs plugging things for no other reason than kicks, you'd thing this would be self evident. Like to work with a designer? Talk them up. Even when you may not end up doing business with them. Heck, you may not even approach them for business.

Work with the designer. You are doing no favors and providing no useful experience by having designers take graphic dictation. Collaboration is the stuff of experience, not this week's Web 2.0 effect. This is one chief objection against contests.

The overwhelming number of companies are using contests so they don't have to develop a working collaboration, dialog, understand and articulate their ideas about design, or appreciate the contribution of design. Make no mistake, you can't get a brand with the information poor instructions most companies provide in contests. You can get a logo -- but then a brand is not a logo.

There are a wide variety of reasons to condemn the current state of affairs, but money is at the bottom of the list. Spec work is way, way, too often a substitute so the company doesn't have to think about design. And no, "we like this one" may not be the best criterion when user, customers and a metric tonne of look-alike competition enters into the equation. Depriving the designer of the thought process behind how the company understands its requirements cheats that designer of something more valuable than money. Design is not done in a vacuum devoid of feedback. The designer should be able to argue for a particular direction cogently and occasionally sway the company's opinion. That could happen in any contest -- it doesn't.

It doesn't because the contest format is designed to maintain comfort zones with a social firewall between design and business.

The lone genius laboring alone is called an artist. Design is about iteration and the process of evolving a design is short-circuited when you're playing a "guess how many jelly beans" contest. About the only thing the winner of a design contest should boast about is possibly some degree of mental telepathy.

These firewalls between business and design create intensely dysfunctional relationships. The company loses because it never does the work required to climb the design maturity ladder. That's how you can have one design-driven company like Apple enter a category saturated with competition and eat everyone's lunch. ....And all the while have the so-called competition wonder what happened. That's how you get 10,000 companies with logos and have an upstart come in and dominate because they positioned themselves with a business identity in the customer's mind.

The designer loses because they don't get the feedback needed to change. Nobody likes criticism. But working with clients is a way to get other viewpoints and gain insights that help your style develop in ways it won't otherwise. That's social. It may not be as comfortable as getting feedback from other designers, but it is social. Not everything that is socially effective or valuable is comfortable.