No seriously I respect everyone’s right to make a business and sell a product, it is the American dream but this is damn low. If Crowd-sourcing this year didn’t rip out all of our hair completely and your in this industry well then this latest businesses idea will do the job. I won’t and don’t care to mention it’s name for some good reasons but one of them being I don’t want to aid this company with any internet traffic.

So this is where we are at people: underpaid professionals from overseas and college kids who need to buy text books can sell logos for stock in the very near future at a wonderfully valued price of about 500 credits or dollars give or take ( if someone buys them ). Wonderful, how many of you in this industry have had enough of listening about crowd-sourcing and how I can go out and get 10,000 variations on this competition site… Well I have to say we all have to reject these clients but sadly their numbers are growing. And the only thing threatened is the value of creative itself.  I know most people looking for identity work these days are not all like this. But I cannot help but say this is going to further misinform people who do not know much about the creative service industry. Half the time we’re either re-educating them or giving up and moving on to the next client. And that’s where I leave this topic.  I heard it this morning from Debbie Millman over on Twitter.. and on AIGA’s linked in page… and then on QBN. the whole industry is paying a great bit of attention to this…

What are your thoughts about this?

UPDATE ** AIGA just had their official response to this posted here: http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/what-is-aigas-position-on-spec-work-and-ethical-standards#118827

“While the iStockphoto invitation appears to challenge all these attributes, AIGA believes it is not a call for design, but a call for commercial art—images that might have commercial application somewhere, sometime. It is speculative work in that the artist creates the image speculatively, in the anticipation of being compensated (half of net revenues) if selected—which is counter to the professional ethos of design, since it results in design being created without a clear understanding of its purpose and effect.

Each creative professional must decide on his or her own whether to submit artwork. However, this should not be confused with designers, designing or design.

iStockphoto is taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by the web; its actions are not wrong or unethical. Unless the role of design is properly supported, iStockphoto may be trivializing designers’ contribution by selling generic logos inexpensively and many designers may feel this is disrespectful.

The real losers, however, will be clients who will not receive the strategic value inherent in a successful design or branding engagement, in which designers do not guess at visual options that might be acceptable, but rather counsel enterprises on how to embody their brand values visually and differentiate their product. Fortunately, designers committed to creating value through a design process are unlikely to respond.” – From The AIGA response to this…

I agree with their update on the way they view spec work. This company will be producing commercial art not designing because you are officially disregarding a client altogether and creating commercial art for sale. Although it is a somewhat passive role that AIGA will be taking, they are working with this company and they expect the market’s value to sort itself out in some regards and I agree with that. But I think we’re all left with the challenge to educate client’s on the value of design, versus these other forms of commercial art for sale. I’d stay tuned because clearly this topic has just started. I wonder where we’ll be in 6-12 months, many could predict that the impact at best will be just another contest site to scoff at, I am a bit more pragmatic and I think theirs a chance this company could advertise this service and because of their large wallets and loud voice it could really put designers at wits end with having to explain the differences.  I just look at all the commercials about fashion designers making a mistake benefiting second hand clothing stores, will the designers be the bad guys to the public or will we keep the ethical upper hand?

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