Why Designers Hate Crowdsourcing 569
An anonymous reader writes "Since Wired's Jeff Howe coined the term in 2006, 'crowdsourcing' has been a buzzword in the tech industry, and a business model on the rise. 99designs.com is a site that hosts design contests for small businesses requiring relatively smaller design projects. Anyone can submit their near finished pieces of work to the contests, but only one winner gets paid. Forbes covers just why established graphic designers are so angry at this business model's catching on."
Re:Angry? (Score:3, Interesting)
funny, I would have thought it would have had more to do with doing a entire project (not just the proposal) and getting squat for it?.
That's not absurdly low (Score:3, Interesting)
While clients may or may not be getting "Walmart-quality" designs, they're certainly paying Walmart prices. Logo payouts can run as low as $211, while a webpage design package starts at just $499--rates considered absurdly low by some in the business.
Hate to be the one tell you artists this, but that's hardly low. Lots of people simply google for attractive website templates and pay $50 them, or some small amount to get them exclusively.
For those who want more custom work, places like vworker, freelancer, etc. have an abundance of people who'll do graphic design work for peanuts. True, it may not be as fantabulous as something costing thousands, but you can get a logo design for $20 and for 80% of the people in the marketplace, it's good enough to have your company's name in some sort of distinctive design.
The world is lousy with art students and third world people with cracked copies of Photoshop. Graybeards from the 80s are annoyed that this work is no longer geographically bound and the Internet has made cheap labor abundant. Not everything about the Internet is good for every person.
Crowdspring (Score:3, Interesting)
I've run a few projects through crowdspring. I try to be really responsive with submissions, I've seen designs go from "meh" to "completely fantastic" with only a few revisions.
Looking at my history, the people who I seem to pick seem to win a decent percentage of the time.
For larger projects, or projects where the stakes are simply larger, I'd want to build a relationship with a designer, or design house, rather than go through something like this.
Re:An Industry Ripe for Change... (Score:4, Interesting)
No need to wait. The article doesn't mention this, but 99designs is already saturated by Indians and Chinese who will happily undercut you. It's just a nice name for more outsourcing.
It's happened in many fields... (Score:5, Interesting)
This happened about a decade ago in my field (translation) with sites like proz.com and later translatorscafe.com - there are other sites doing the same thing, but these are the two largest. It's a bidding race to the bottom with India and China.
And those of us who live in the US and Europe have been complaining about it ever since.
But then you get to a point where you realize that you don't want that kind of client anyway. And there are still many clients out there willing to pay the rate you want/deserve.
Re:Another industry F/OSS has killed. (Score:3, Interesting)
While competitions like these may turn a lot of heads because they are so unconventional, in reality the noise generated is a lot more than the actual impact.
Or they'll love it... (Score:3, Interesting)
My first job out of college many years ago was as a tech writer. I got 'synergized' into also being responsible for producing marketing materials (because I had a Mac, and had figured out how to use Adobe Illustrator and Quark and etc.). It seemed potentially fun at first. I read a few books on graphic design, and pestered a couple of buddies of mine where were employed as actual designers for tips and critiques of my first efforts, which they thought pretty impressive.
The people at work, however, hated it. I learned that at my company, no one else was a tech writer, but EVERYONE was a budding artist, whose many opinions on aesthetics HAD to be listened to. I took to doing three comps for any project, one of which was always the butt-ugliest, most garish, negative-space-ignoring piece of crap I could muster. Guess which one the President and Director of Marketing -always- picked? Everyone thought I was a genius.
Re:Angry? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's exactly what Shirt.Woot [woot.com] does on the weekends - anyone with a (free) Woot account can submit a design, anyone who's bought something from Woot before can say "I'd buy that!". The top three are materialized into actual shirts. Some of the people who submit designs are professional graphical artists, but quite a few people are just interested amateurs.
And frequently, they're far better than anything I've ever seen on any other t-shirt site (and it's only $10, which is pretty good for a designer shirt). I mean, just look at this shirt [woot.com]! It's amazing to think that he made that with only something like five or six colors, too (which is another one of the requirements, due to the limitations of cheap silkscreening).
It works (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
But for us clients that you don't want... (Score:1, Interesting)
But then you get to a point where you realize that you don't want that kind of client anyway.
Sure. But look at the other side of the fence. I am a software engineering student with little money and little graphical skills. I do have quite a few of my own software projects that I've coded (or am coding): Mostly to have references that I can use to apply for progamming jobs after I graduate but I also like the thought of people using what I've created. Now, these pieces of software look quite crude. The GUIs are very functional but that's it. I can't invest enough money that I could buy designs to them from some local company. I do have a friend who could do the job for small-ish sum but I'm put off by the idea of buying graphics from my friends (there'll be all kinds of extra considerations if I'm not satisfied, etc.).
This was the first time that I heard of 99designs and I think that I'll begin using it. I can probably invest a few hundred dollars a piece on getting someone to come up with some cool backgrounds, etc. for my projects. (My projects will look prettier, users will have nicer software, someone in India or something will earn a few hundred bucks... Everyone wins.) This doesn't take away any money from existing designers but will be work that wouldn't exist at all without such a service. I'm sure that there is a lot of other people like me who have decided to buy something only after hearing of this service. Designers can then choose whether they want to compete for it or not. I know I won't have trouble sleeping if several people will submit me designs and I'll only choose the best...
Though I am far left, pro-unions, etc., this seems to be capitalism at its finest. Competition and low prices spurring new creations that wouldn't exist without it.
Re:Angry? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's worth noting that in many other industries where the criteria for determining the product quality is very subjective, bids will often take the form of nearly complete projects.
That's known as "working on spec." I used to work for a very prominent, very expensive packaging design firm in San Francisco, and our firm never, ever, ever did any work on spec. We showed up at a client meeting with nothing for them but a few vague ideas about the power of their brand, their customer base, and their market. No suggestions about color, about package shapes, nothing. You hired us based on the strength of our presentation and our past work and that was all.
Did our competitors ever try to undercut us by showing up with finished package designs before they had even landed the contract? Yes they did, especially as the market tightened. The real old timers found that way of doing business to be completely contemptible, and they attributed it to the young kids entering the field who had no respect for professionalism, etc. etc. But such is life -- times and practices change.
At the same time, many companies respected our track record and the strength of our creative staff enough that they would hire us, without seeing any specific designs, despite the fact that our rates were among the highest in the business. And, frankly, those were the jobs we wanted -- not because they were suckers, but because their jobs gave us the opportunity to continue to build a portfolio of respectable, quality work. There was no point in taking little piecemeal jobs that would pad out our portfolio with junk that looked like the same boring, unimaginative stuff everybody else was doing. We might as well have closed up shop. That would be no way to run a business -- and this 99designs.com, while it didn't exist back then, is evidence of that.
As in almost any field, there's a big difference between hackwork and high-end, professional work. People who want the latter will pay for the latter. In the case of graphic design, they're usually willing to pay for it because they recognize that graphic design is merely a tool to get them what they really want, which is a successful business, and a successful business is something worth investing in.
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
In an unregulated environment, the free market is only a transitory stage on the way to a marketplace dictated by trusts and cartels.
Foolish people don't realize that a market must be regulated to remain free. If the market is totally free, the most dominant and predatory businesses will destroy the smaller ones and then use their uncontested market power to create an "unfree" market that minimizes competition and decreases the cost of production (like wages). Late nineteenth century/early twentieth century history provides many examples of this (look at the railroads!).
So, when you compare the free market to gravity or evolution, you are just being silly.
I do agree that this is a free market situation, though. It looks like a certain category of designers is way overpricing themselves. This appears analogous to what happens to movie script writers--they're so eager to get creative acknowledgement that they virtually give their work away to Hollywood sharks.
There are competitive alternatives to this model. Quality designers could form cooperatives and market themselves online, for example.
Re:Angry? (Score:3, Interesting)
Let a bunch of people make me suits and then decide whose cut I like the best...it will save me so much and I will look so good! Of course the tailors will never be lining up to do this because their work actually has material costs and takes a reasonable amount of time.
This only works because its not hard to crank out a mediocre website layout or a mediocre design or a mediocre how-to guide. If I am a non-working designer and I have a chance to spend a few minutes in photoshop designing some logo for your crappy company Cheapskate Inc., it doesn't cost me anything other than time to make a logo of a roller skate with pennies for wheels. The time can be viewed as practice/portfolio work if my design doesn't get picked. If you wanted me to animate a movie or design a full functioning web app to your specifications, this would not happen--it no longer feels like entering a photoshop contest but more like real work that I should be paid for. Even more so if I am now spending money to make clothing that only fits one specific person...its not useful as a portfolio piece, its not useful to anybody else, and I am sure I could find somebody who was at least willing to pay for materials in exchange for free labor.
People have mentioned sites like shirt.woot and threadless but I don't count these as crowds-for-hire style crowdsourcing. They are more like an art contest gone wild. There are no specific requirements other than people liking their work. They are trying to make art and sell it just like any other artist (although here your price turns into some small amount of money and a free t-shirt). If threadless instead operated on a system of "hey designers, please submit a cool Boeing tshirt", they would not have such inspired designs.
Re:Crowdsourcing is iffy at best. (Score:3, Interesting)
I've voted on about 10+ logo competitions on one of these sites and I haven't seen any "design in a box" regurgitated designs (at least in the good designs, there are always a few that look like they were done by 12 year olds who just learned about filters, or did one web2.0 style tutorial). There is a market for this service and obviously people with talent who are willing to design stuff for the sake of design. Heck, if I had better skills I'd do some for fun in my spare time. Competing is fun.
Re:Angry? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ha, here is the problem. Nobody cares if the design is done by a 'professional', or some 12 year old kid. If it looks good, fine, accept it. Nobody is not going to buy from you with your cheaply designed logo, nobody cares.
This is the problem, you are pretending that a professional logo designer is actually better than anyone else. This is not like programming at all. Who cares if the colors blend well, or the font is correct, or the spacing is wrong, or the proportions are incorrect. NOBODY CARES ABOUT THAT STUFF EXCEPT FOR DESIGNERS.
Re:Unfortunate Slashdot Replies (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, for much the same reason you will turn your back on toilet paper prices at $15/12 and pick up the cheaper $8/12 pack and wonder what's wrong with the first guy that he charged so much.
I was in that position where, for a while, my kind of job position was getting ridiculously overpaid, and the company offered us a little bonus pay to keep us on. Then the dot-com bubble burst, and that money went away. I am bringing this up to say I have been in a similar position so I'm not lecturing from the heights, if you will.
The one thing I agree with you is if someone is being paid way less than they should be. For example, $1/day building iPods, or whatever. But since determining the just price boils down to people's subjective judgments, you'll still end up with people complaining. This is why the marketplace is the least objectionable method to determine a fair price. It's not going to always reflect what you think is just, but it'll match more what other people think is just.
But there is a ray of hope: I did end up getting paid at least as much later because I am worth that much to the company. I make them more $$ than it costs to pay me $, so I do reasonably well. A $50/hour designer, if they can do really good work better than other designers, will continue to get $50/hour. It's just the mediocres who've been coasting on lack of competition who get screwed.
Here's the problem with "crowdsourcing" (Score:4, Interesting)
I have two points to make. The first is one of what Werner Herzog calls the "Inadequate Imagery" of our time. To quote Herzog on Herzog, "I have often spoken of what I call the inadequate imagery of today's civilization. I have the impression that the images that surround us today are worn out; they are abused and useless and exhausted. They are limping and dragging themselves behind the rest of our cultural evolution."
You can find the quote further elaborated here [google.com].
Businesspeople think in numbers, sales figures and short-term profits; not in visual aestheticism and subtlety. Presented with many, many options for promotional materials, they will usually choose what is safely cliche and what they think is "good enough". The point I'm trying to make with this is that crowdsourcing does not find the best (and not the best for the business, either).
This brings me nicely to my second point, which can also be summed nicely in a quote (which I'm paraphrasing because I cannot find the source at the moment): "Advertising is a unique business in that your wealthiest client can demand your worst product while your poorest client must humbly accept your best."
You are the poorest judge of yourself because you can only perceive yourself as you always have. A business is the same way: you can say that your business is about this and about that, but your customers' perception of you is your only true face. Crowdsourcing typically involves a business micromanaging every detail of a project in which they have no expertise ("we want a bold logo with a strong corporate message about blah blah blah, and it has to have these colours and these shapes and these words and blah blah blah").
A good designer and advertiser will develop an actual, face-to-face relationship with the business, be able to perceive it with fresh eyes and use their expertise to design the best possible outcome for the long term.
What a pleasant experience! (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently sponsored my first two 99Designs contests, and it was (for the most part) a throughly pleasant experience. I paid $250 (plus fees) for a great logo. My local designer would have charged me $750. Oh, his absurd logo price schedule: $400 for non-profits, $750 for normal companies, and $1500 for big fish. Yea, you read me right. Nothing to do with effort. Based on ability to pay - charge what the traffic will bear. Is that a better system than 99design?
(The one negative was excessive nannying by 99Design staff and the "sour grapes" reaction by some contestants when I permitted a design to make use of a tracing of a photograph. The designer disclosed that to me, I gave him permission, and it turned out to be the winning design. Unfortunately, 99Design suspended the contestant for 7 days. Thank you very much, but let ME manage my legal risk. But they did pay him the prize money. Now, had somebody pointed-out the tracing before the contest was over, or at least before the winner was chosen, it would have been USEFUL to me. Instead, they waited till it was all over - and so it was just obstructive. In fact, I will probably have the traced part of the logo re-done, using the original tracing only as inspiration. I love the DESIGN CONCEPT and it is a starting point. I would have never come up with that logo design myself, and the tracing is just one element that can certainly be re-drawn from scratch. Contestants and 99Design staff DO NOT KNOW whether the logo will be used commercially as-is, and shouldn't make assumptions.)
Yes, there are poor-quality Chinese and Indian (gotta pick on SOMEBODY) entries. And they were obviously low-quality I eliminated them early on. I never eliminated a DESIGNER (something you CAN do), and in fact one of designers of the early low-quality entries listened to feedback well enough to ultimately come very close to winning. BTW, the Chinese designers tend to have horrible typefaces, so they get eliminated on that if you have any taste at all. Yes, some of the designers have poor or no English skills, so that feedback is nearly impossible. But they still see other's designs and your "star ratings" of designs (unless you run a "blind" contest) and so they still can see the direction you are going. Myself, I prefer to work with the designers that have excellent English skills making feedback effective. There's no lack of designers with excellent English skills.
It's important to provide feedback. I gave plenty, and the designers appreciated it.
Sometimes you get a great result through feedback and iteration. Sometimes a great design just drops out of the sky. The winner of my logo contest worked his ass of making change after change at my request. My second choice just swooped-in with a beautiful, simple design that required just a single iteration - to change the colors in the company name. I told him "don't change a thing - it is perfect". (The second choice was really a much better logo - it just wasn't the image I wanted to project. Great for a Fortune-500 bank or investment house. Not playful enough for an iPhone software development company.) The second-choice probably didn't take the designer much time. Three simple shapes that overlap to form the logo. I think he just got an inspiration that took him a half-hour to draw. Both approaches are valid, and 99Designs allows you to choose.
In fairness to contestants, once I had leading choices, I stopped making requests of other contestants. No need to run the ragged for nothing. I imagine most contest holders (or at least experienced ones) are pretty fair to contestants this way.
Next time, I will try running a "preliminary design" contest, and a second one (or contract with the winner) for a finished design. Tell the contestants right-off, I'm not looking for a finished design, but design concepts. I think it's useful to be a bit creative with the process. This is the way it often works with a single designer, anyway. You get rough sketches, color palettes, etc. first, then final artwork later. 99De
Re:What a pleasant experience! (Score:1, Interesting)
Sounds like you have a shitty designer. My designer is on top of everything I give him and produces great work. Perhaps it's not your designer that's the problem but your ability to pick and hire the right person for the job. And BTW - I sort of got the feeling from your post that you may work for 99Designs since it seems WAY too one sided. But that's just my opinion.
Re:I see what they're upset about. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Angry? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe it is my inbuilt distaste for duhsigners, but that sounds very similar to The Emperor's New Clothes.
Damn it! (Score:3, Interesting)
Guys, our porches and fancy holidays are in danger! Some hack company has figured out a cheaper way to supply the emperor with his new clothes!
Re:Stop Working for Content Mills (Good Luck...) (Score:2, Interesting)
When I came across the word "niggardly", the first time I've ever heard it I must admit, I first did a complete double-take, followed up with, as you suggested, a trip to dictionary.com. After that, and ignoring my better instincts, I posted the comment that you see above. I'll accept my -1 flamebait/off topic moderation and learn my lesson for the next time around.
In regards to who exactly is taking a non-existent moral high ground - I hope that I have answered that question definitively.
Join the club, the world has changed! (Score:2, Interesting)
This is why business owners love to de-skill (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can make your process require less fewer skills, you can pay less for the labour to enable it.
Hence robots welding cars. Hence McDonalds having a very clear procedure for EVERY task in their restaurants, very clearly laid out in the three-ring binder, as well as timers on their clamshell grill and pictures of hamburgers on their point of sale tills, and most importantly, factories that produce pre-prepared food items ready to shove in the grill or the fryer.
When mechanisation can magnify the efforts of a few skilled people so much, the labour market inevitably takes a nosedive.
As a race we profit immensely from our ingenuity, but these profits are concentrated in the upper strata of society while the lower strata benefit almost solely as a function of generating these profits.
Outsiders know America very well (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't help but wonder whether graphic designers who had spent their entire lives in India or China would struggle with designing for American markets in the same way.
Short answer: nope.
Long answer: the American culture is well known throughout the world. Most IT guys / designers from the 3rd world have early-childhood exposure to American movies, American TV shows, American sitcoms, American fast-food, American cars, and American consumer goods. While of course the exposure rate may vary wildly, given the sheer amount of Indians (or Chinese, or Russians, or Brazilians, or Eastern Europeans, or Arabs - pick your favorite) you can bet there will be enough available 3rd world talent having a deep understanding of the American culture.
On a personal note, the first time I've arrived to the USA (in 2000, NYC) I was quite surprised how familiar everything looked to me. I'm from Romania and I had no problems at all in NYC while I did have some cultural shock in Hanover, Germany (I kept visiting CeBIT, the world largest IT exhibition). As a post-communist Eastern European, integrating in the American fabric was an instant feat, but the German fabric needed some serious readjusting.
Food for thought...