I received this email from a good friend and former colleague yesterday; a very experienced senior web designer who’s been away travelling for the last 8 months or so.
My old boss sent me this as way to get working again when I get back but it looks a bit like you do loads of graft to submit treatments for free along with lots of other hopefuls, then the project originator takes the one he likes best and pays for it and can then incorporate the best of the rest for free.
http://www.crowdspring.com/
Am i being overly cynical?
I wouldn’t say cynical – I’d tend to agree. Spec work is the bane (…well ok, one of many banes) of an experienced designer’s life… You don’t get 15 plumbers round to do the work in various different ways, and you don’t ask for 25 developers to write 25 different pieces of code before you choose the one that you think works best.
You pick one, based on their quote, experience, portfolio and any number of other variables - and you work together with them, rather than picking them like one of many lobsters from a grubby fish tank. (No, I’m not sure this metaphor works - but I’m sticking with it because I like the photo…)
The line is blurred at times, with Carsonified getting into trouble this week for their ‘design competition’ - http://www.carsonified.com/fowd/new-competition-design-the-fowd-2009-holding-slide . In fairness, they’re good people - and it was a tongue in cheek comment from Paul Boag which seems to have kicked the whole discussion off… and they’re now offering a free pass to the winner.
CrowdSpring does remind me of the old website (the name i forget) which I looked into many many years back (end of jungle era) which had freelancers and companies BIDDING for work, as well as providing designs in some cases… it inevitably turned into a bun fight as to who could provide the lowest cost, and with clients who didn’t value good quality - you’d always end up losing out on a logo design to some 14 year old in Minnesota, and to the developers in India who could knock you up an Amazon replica in 48hrs for $200.
Was also surprised to discover recently that the speculative design thing isn’t just restricted to young designers trying to get a foothold and build up their portfolio (for which, i can see its benefit - responding to a real world brief etc). Was hanging out with the directors from a very well known and respected London agency the other week, who were telling me that they’d found themselves having to do spec work again. Admittedly for altogether larger, better budgeted organisations than you’ll get on CrowdSpring, and with the opportunity to bill for the work should they get the gig… but i had thought it was something you were able to leave behind as you became a more established designer / company.
I’d also like to say at this point, that if you’re an experienced web designer/UI expert - this is a very good career/industry to be looking for work. I still receive a call or two a week, though I’ve not been in the market for a year and a half. So, while I guess I wouldn’t totally rule out CroudSpring as a potential source of income (and there will always be clients who don’t see the value of quality) – I personally wouldn’t spend too much time on it… and only once you’d finished redoing your website, revising one’s cv, writing covering letters, going to interviews and generally doing all manner of things that would help get a well paid, well respected gig… assuming that’s what one wants.
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Excelent post I was considering this instead of doing bar work for some extra income but at least I’d be sure to get paided for every hour that I worked in a bar and not have to work alongside 10 other bar persons auditioning pints to each customer in they hope that theirs would get chosen and they’d get paid. (I think your analogy was probably better)
Do you know of any better sites for picking up a bit of freelance?
I dunno - i think the bar analogy has legs :)
I don’t know of many other sources like that for freelance work (one reason for its popularity i guess)
Interesting to see that http://www.freelancers.net is still going in exactly the same form as it had… 10 years ago? I picked up some small jobs from there back in the day - mostly more trouble than they were worth… Old story of the lower the value a client puts on your work; the more of a pain in the arse they are likely to be.
My recommendation is actually “real-world” networking of the social kind. Over a beer, at a conference, during a seminar, via a friend… its the way to go.