SPECulative
Hold'em, like life itself, has its defining moment. It's the flop. When you see the flop, you're looking at 71 percent of your hand, and the cost is only a single round of betting.
Lou Krieger
"Boy, have I got an awesome opportunity for you! My band needs a logo and we're inviting you to submit designs for consideration. If your design is chosen, there will be more work than you'll know what to do with. If you come up with the idea we're looking for, your work will be used on all our products, you'll get a free t-shirt and if you think you need it, a CD of our unknown band." How can this offer get any worse? An experience designer would hear the spiel differently: We don't want to spend any money because we might flop, so we're looking for some sucker to do this stuff for free. It's our money, but only time for you. In fact, we heard graphic designers are all suckers, so we're throwing out a net to catch a few to work for free. If we like what you do for free, we'll give you more work to do for free. If you realize we're taking advantage of you, we'll throw you a free t-shirt. If things get ugly, we might have to give you a CD. But, hey, it'll be fun.
Recall the old story of the rather refined young man who preferred sex dreams to visiting brothels because he met a much nicer type of girl that way.
Vivian Mercer
Spec work, or working in the hopes of landing an account is historically an advertising agency's pitch to land a major account. Large agencies have the personnel and resources to risk. When and how it morphed into design mystifies me. Large agencies are invited by multi-million dollar client accounts to pitch. The pitch involves coming up with a successful campaign. The account is awarded based not only on the strength of the idea, but the agency's ability to service the account. Big agencies usually do creative for free just to earn commissions on placements and media buys, but only for BIG accounts. They make more money on one full page ad placement in the New York Times than we make in a week, so it's well worth their time. These pitches are made in good faith and are an accepted trade practice. Depending on how it's stated, when an agency has gotten a new $3.2 million account, it means the client has committed to spending that in promotion. Appreciate that they make at least 15% on all media and up to 45% on all outsourced services such as printing. Just fifteen percent of $3.2 million is $480,000, so working on spec in an agency setting makes good sense when you are competing with the big boys. This kind of spec work results in big contracts and committed client relationships, and there are cancellation fees to cover creative if the client pulls the work and switches agencies.
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
Carl Sandberg
Spec work is a losing proposition for designers because few are competing for accounts worth that kind of profit. More often than not, we are selling our time and in this instance, time really does equal money. There are only so many hours in the day. Spend it solidifying relationships with current clients and cold calling new clients who understand that your portfolio is the basis to judge your skills. Take a lesson from a real estate professional: "I can spend 2 weeks selling a $45,000 house for a small commission, or I can spend the same 2 weeks selling a $3 million house for a big commission. They both take the same amount of my time, but one pays really big."
There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: Time. Napoleon I
Another down side to SPEC work is leaving your unprotected ideas out there for others to execute. The law does not protect intellectual property very well; and though we would all like to believe this is a utopian society, people who don't court the muse of ideas are desperate to produce and will steal when push comes to shove.
If, after the first twenty minutes, you don't know who the sucker at the table is, it's you.
Anonymous
"I'm just not an idea person, and the Production Manager's Association is having a contest for their chili cook-off poster. If you have any ideas, and we win, I'll split the prize with you. It's $200, not much, but still something," said my coworker. As luck would have it, ideas are my forte, and one of my ideas was chosen. They produced a poster of a drive-in waitress on roller skates with a tray balanced over her shoulder, filled with bowls of flaming chili. The catch phrase was "Great Bowls of Fire" which was my play off the old song Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis. My idea-less friend had never heard of him or that song and he reveled in all the attention he got as the winner. Needless to say, since he did not share the prize money or the credit, he is the sort of idea thief we should all be wary. What's to prevent the same thing from happening to your ideas on a spec job? Few clients know or respect the value of an idea, so expecting them to give the job to the person who owns the idea is meshing your values into theirs. Don't do it.
If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue.
Sears & Roebuck Catalogue 1897
If you are invited by a big client to do work on spec, react with enthusiasm for the project, then politely suggest current projects prevent you from participating in that way. Suggest an alternative method of vying for the job; a portfolio showing of similar jobs you have completed for other clients. It shouldn't be necessary to clarify that you will dedicate your creative energy to their project with the same verve; just not for free. If they are truly looking for a creative match, they will appreciate your offer and take you up on it. If they are trolling in the sea of hungry designers who think their expertise remains to be proven and the business of design is a big competition, they will cast you out of the net like any fisherman looking for a certain fish. It's a group qualified designers should avoid because the whole practice of working on spec stinks.
It is often hard to distinguish between the hard knocks in life and those of opportunity.
Frederick Phillips
For more information, visit the No-Spec Website where you will find a wealth of information on the subject, including avoiding spec work while you are just starting out and tips on building a portfolio without including SPEC work.
Man will begin to recover the moment he takes art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money.
Ernst Levy
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Who ever said it was going to lead to work?
A year, or two, back one of the local county commissioners wanted to redo their website. They sent out for bids to a number of designers and wanted to do a cattle call for presentations and costs. Turned out the small type was that there was no money for the presentation and regardless of whether or not you got the job they wanted to claim ownership of the designs in the presentations. I'll take a wild guess on how this one turned out. The designer I know skipped the bidding.
Besides the point. I thought commercial art was art for money. I thought art on spec was called fine art.
This is amazing. I had no idea that this post had been made when I sat down to write an article for my blog post this morning. It wasn't untill this evening when I went to the Graphicdesignforum.com home page that I saw and read your article.
I guess 'Spec' must be on a lot of minds these days. Kudos to you and your site.
Great stuff, Susan, I'll try to keep those words of Napoleon in mind!
I'm actually glad you brought this subject up, Susan. While I really haven't had to face it as a freelancer (yet), it's a request that I frequently received at Quest. We had a 20-year policy of "no spec," which Alan Vera (the CEO) regularly enforced.
We occasionally violated it - depending on the potential of the prospective account - but it was always our choice. I would say that 70% of the time, the spec work turned the trick. But we're really talking about no more than a handful of spec events in a two-decade period.
I'm going to pass this along to several colleagues in this part of the world. Keep up the provocative blogging, please.
A couple of things in RFP's (particularly for smaller businesses/organizations) make me run for the hills:
1) A refusal to state the budget, because, as a designer, you can't possibly hit the bullseye without knowing where it is, and you certainly can't come up with a solution they can afford (or will be willing to buy) by pricing a "wish list."
2) Phrases indicating "little drawings" are expected.
I've even run across companies which expected several concepts without payment (I guess they were willing to pay for mechanical production only).
Where do people get these ideas? Unfortunately, I think we have no one to blame but some of us -- those designers willing (or, perhaps desperate enough to) work that way. It's a case of a few you-know-what-kind-of apples tearing down the community they live in, creating the impression that ideas are of no value, and, in the end, making it more difficult for themselves as well.
I heartily agree with your thoughts about Spec art. I am a graphic designer working for R.H. Donnelley (the #3 yellow pages publisher) and we have about 15 artists devoted entirely to producing Spec ads for the 300+ directories we publish. The sell rate on these ads is around 15%. Donnelley can afford to do this because (ironically) the cost of ad production is such a miniscule percentage of the actual revenue generated by yellow page ads.
An independent designer or agency does not have the luxury of a 5000% mark-up on their work, and they shouldn't have to waste their time (and, thus their money) on freebees.
Funny, we have the same query all the time in my trade, signs. Every day people want you to come up with great ideas for their new or existing business, and politely, sometimes, ask can you give us a couple of ideas!! Oh, and our budget is really small because we overspent on the blah, blah, blah.
Oh yeah then the boss gives them a freakin' disk of the logo for $125.oo after its all said and done!
The difference between a creative who works on spec and a whore is, the whore is paid to get screwed.
Did you know that Olympic organizations pimp artists to create their logos on spec, and that thousands of artists actually pay a hefty fee for the once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity?
At the invitation of a grand old theatre in our fair city, our small graphic design firm pulled out the stops to create an elaborate hand-crafted pitch package in the hopes of reeling in their marketing and brand development business. We deliberately stopped short of giving them any spec design or concepts, but demonstrated our approach to the subject with elements like flocked velvet wallpaper, Victorian-era patterns and elegant scrolly-scripty printer's ornaments. We were passed over in favor of a much larger ad agency that was willing (supposedly) to take them on as a pro bono client. A short time later, they began using a new version of their old logo, now embellished with elegant scrolly-scripty printer's ornaments much like the ones in our pitch. Continuing their abhorrent behavior, the grand theatre is now advertising a "contest" for the design of a trophy/award (something akin to an Oscar). The lucky "winner" receives a payment of $1,000. Whooppee!
Will someone please wake me from this nightmare?
Maurice wrote, "Oh yeah then the boss gives them a freakin' disk of the logo for $125.oo after its all said and done!"
At least your boss charged for the disk. I've worked for newspapers and small publishers and they always gave the designers' work away for free. Customers routinely have a paper do an ad because they like an on-staff designer's work, and then have the paper send the ad out to all the other publications in much the same way an agency does. Of course this is all for free as a courtesy for purchasing an ad. In their eyes the only thing that matters is the ad placement—the designs and ideas are not really worth anything at all.