Within the realms of creativity and originality, many innovative graphic designers are faced with the harsh requests of free work. There are a surprising and very disturbing number of individuals that opt to seek fruitful designs and/or developments from graphic artists for little to no compensation. This is where spec work comes to be. Spec work is slang in the artistic industry. It comes from the term speculative work. I have seen this personally work in a couple of different ways. The first and most frequently used method I have come across is the practice of contests. A client states that they are hosting a contest and will need you to create a design based off of the specified terms. The winner of the contest will then be paid. This is a highly deceptive way of saying, “I need a design, I want you to design it, I plan to use your design, and I will decide later it you will get paid”. Another commonly used method of requesting spec work is when a client repeatedly asserts that they are unsure if you are qualified to meet their project expectations. They are instances that you will first need to create a design to see if you are able to replicate their ideas. This method may seem desirable for individuals seeking original designs but for the graphic artist it absorbs profitable time as well as unnecessary resources. Most professional artists invest a great deal of time, energy as well as resources to create portfolios that are a collection of previous work and/or designs. It is understood and publically recognized that each individual artist has their own style and method used in creating their designs and ideas. That is precisely why the use of portfolios is crucial. If a client is interested in a specific graphic artist they can simply view their portfolio to see if that artist’s style will be able to fulfill the necessary project requirements. Without question there will be times or instances where the portfolio designs are not clear in determining that the artist will be able to meet or exceed your project goals. In these cases, it may be conducive to simply ask the artist if they would be willing to draw up a sketch to see if the project is right for the artist and if the artist is right for the project. If a client is seeking speculative work it is best practice to simply state exactly that. It becomes very unprofessional and disrespectful to deceit the graphic industry into creating authentic designs for little to no profit. #specwork
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 06:18:18 +0000
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