Is Crowdsourcing Ever OK?
Graphic designers for the most part are united in their disapproval of crowdsourcing. I formed this opinion based on Twitter conversations and comments on design blogs – mention crowdsourcing, and graphic artists immediately get huffy, insisting professionals deserve to be paid.
“Crowdsourcing” occurs when a company asks outside people to contribute their work for consideration, and the company chooses a submission for use. For example, a city might hold a contest in which it asks designers to contribute a logo for one of its programs. Graphic designers submit their proposals, and a committee chooses a winner – the city gets a design for free, and the artist gets exposure and, perhaps, a prize. 
Designers dislike crowdsourcing for a couple of reasons:
It devalues their work. Crowdsourcing is seeing an uptick within marketing. Major companies have enlisted consumers to create ads under the guise that their marketing is consumer-driven. But what’s happening is businesses are learning they can sit back and have design proposals brought to them, and then business owners can have their pick for free. Meanwhile, all those designers who submitted a bid that did not win also did not get paid for the time spent creating the submission.
It decreases the amount of work available. A big part of a freelancer’s job is seeking out work. Everyone seems to be pinching pennies these days, and there’s only so much work and cash to go around. So when crowdsourcing rears its head and lets businesses think they don’t have to pay for design work, it leaves the freelancers fighting for fewer clients.
So, all that being said, is there ever an appropriate time for crowdsourcing?
Here is where I am conflicted: I follow a lot of nonprofits. They don’t have a ton of disposable cash and are mainly run by volunteers. Quite often, nonprofit organizations will hold a contest that calls for a T-shirt design, a logo or a poster. Designers submit original works, and the nonprofit chooses a winner. The organization gets a free design, and the artist gets publicity. Is this OK? My feeling is that the nonprofit company is not exploiting designers if it really doesn’t have the cash to pony up for design work. And if it does, I would prefer its money goes to whatever cause it’s working on.
What do other professional designers think?
Jennifer Moline is a writer for PsPrint and the PsPrint Design Blog. PsPrint is an online commercial printing company.
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I’ve heard the term discussed a few times on Twitter but never paid much attention to it. I cannot be very objective on something I know so little about. However, I thought this article to be very intriguing and thank you for making it available.
I can see how its beneficial in some ways, for example getting some publicity, but I mean, as a web designer, I cannot see this being very beneficial if your not the one picked. Its time wasted that could have been used elsewhere, in a more productive way.
During downtime I work on my personal sites, or catch up on some interesting tutorials and books I had been meaning to read. I’m new to all this, well, relatively new and I take every opportunity to learn what I can.
Anyways, great article. Thanks for sharing, made me think about things :)
Seriously? So all the other professions that have to compete against inexpensive overseas workers – from factory workers to programmers to accountants – and designers are sniffing because they now have to fight a similar fight against low cost competitors? What you hear is the worlds smallest violin.
Competing against overseas companies is a whole different problem on its own, but it’s not the same thing at all. This isn’t lowering your fees to compete with dirt cheap overseas rates, it’s actually spending the time to provide the service, on a contest basis with no guarantee of compensation. So, it’s basically working for free and hoping to get paid.
I don’t see this as being an apt comparison. As tough as it may be to compete in today’s job market, I can’t really think of another profession that has been asked to submit their hard work for free, in the hope that maybe it gets used, and eat the lost time if it doesn’t. Engineers don’t build bridges without a contract . Why should I design a logo without a contract? Have we collectively decided that our work as designers has no value? This is a game that is rigged against us, but it only works if we play, and sadly, we’ve been playing.
Did anyone force you to work without a contract ?!
Don’t get me wrong … but, at least when it comes to web design, I work 5-6 hours on a design and maybe 20-30 hours implementing it.
And I get ~ $1000 for this work, a lot of times even more. Does that sound fair to you ? Some poor shmuck works 50-60 hours a week and maybe doesn’t even get half of what I make in just ~30 hours.
A lot can be said about this … but ultimately i think crowdsourcing is only fair considering how WE constantly rip off our clients charging monstrous amounts of money for 10-20-30 hours of work.
I haven’t met a single designer that agrees with me on this but I’m sure that most of them have asked themselves at a certain point ‘Did I just rob this guy ?!’
Crowdsourcing will level the playing field, in a few years prices will drop which in turn would put off all these so-called ‘designers’ that you see today ‘educating newbies’ with their blogs and their templates.
Then the market will settle and only the ones that have been doing this for some time and actually know what they’re doing will remain.
That is insane, the majority of us spent many years honing our craft, that experience, knowledge and skill is what they are paying for. There’s a reason Doctors, Lawyers, Architects, and other professionals don’t work for minimum wage. Ok, we didn’t go to school as long as Doctors and Lawyers, and that’s why we don’t make as much as Doctors and Lawyers.
I guess its a advantages for companies who are majorly interested in creating the Buzz! for themselves…
It’s difficult to judge if the company has money for such projects or not. They’re looking for lower costs everywhere so why should they pay for something if they can have it for free? Everyone thinks of his own benefits. Nobody cares of the designers reward :(
Only in democracy.
Perhaps I am misreading this, but when you mention “it decreases the amount of work available,” what I read was, “the market becomes oversaturated with designers.”
Isn’t much of the point of inspiring discussions, this blog, etc. to encourage budding designers? Doesn’t this inspiration and encouragement also saturate the market with new designers?
Sure new designers are working cheap, and with crowdsourcing sometimes even for free, but isn’t this where budding designers get started? Shouldn’t we encourage such pracices for the up-and-comers and, as professionals, seek other options?
I completely agree that companies should limit crowdsourcing to a promotional contest as a way to drive attention to themselves and hire professionals the rest of the time. And I agree that perhaps crowdsourcing is a good idea for non-profits (or they can hire a professional at a reduced or free rate, promise the designer some exposure, and let the designer take the write-off). But I don’t want to see encouraging practices like these free competitions disappear in the name of too much competition. Budding designers need a chance too, and winning such a contest and getting that exposure may be what they need to inspire them to follow their dreams.
Frankly it sounds a bit immature when designers complain about too much competion: they may simply not be getting the clients they want. Competition in a capitalist economy is a good thing. It’s essential! Not to seem snarky, but if you can’t hold your head above water even against the competition of crowdsourcing then perhaps you need to revamp your marketing strategy.
I agree with you. If its a non-profit and a fun/portfolio piece project, why not? I will often do work for free to support a non profit. But if a company has the funds to pay for a professional design service, they should. It’s not always easy to educate people and other industries on the value of creative design. I feel that a crowdsoucreing request from a profitable company is devaluing our industry. Would we expect them to offer their valuable services to us for nothing?
Interesting topic and great website. Thanks.
I don’t think it’s right for no-profits to crowdsource design work either. I’m all for good will and helping out a good cause but running a contest is no good. They can easily just have one designer or illustrator work with them to meet their objectives.
In the case where a non-profit – that doesn’t otherwise have the cash to pony up to pay for a designer – wants a new logo or t-shirt design, I think it’s fine. The designer gets some good karma points and some exposure and everybody wins. I feel it’s a bit cheesy if the company in question has the funds to pay someone for their work.
Sounds like what you’re talking about is spec work… when people are asked to submit designs knowing they may (or may not) get chosen.
Crowdsourcing is when you have “way too many hands in the pot” and everyone and their brother is giving input as to what the design should look like.
In both cases, I am against it. Ultimately, crowdsourcing gets so muddied up and never achieves the original goal.
Crowdsourcing for creative ideas is not new. Ad agencies have done it for decades – inviting the consumer to create their own commercials, name a product…etc. And focus groups are the original “crowds”. The “group” opinion could change the direction of a campaign or a final logo choice. ( Granted they didn’t actually do the “designing” part).The reality is, networking and social media have brought together people from all walks of life and experience and invited them to play in the creative department if they are so inclined. It’s their dollar, and money is tight. If you’re a good designer/thinker/art director you have nothing to worry about. Just make sure you keep the job you already have. If you’re freelance then the crowdsource thing is great during down time. You’ll be exposed to some very cool briefs and at the very least you can build your portfolio, which should be an ongoing activity anyway.
Tired argument. Right or wrong, the genie is out of the bottle. The crowdsourcers who are good at it will eventually demand money for it. The ones who drag it down will eventually stop. Every creative industry is affected by this. Just go look at Craigslist, and see how many people want free or dirt cheap photography. Then go read a pro photography forum, and see how many of them won’t shoot a wedding for less than $2000 – and even then will only deliver minimally. There are a lot of people who get married, but cannot afford $2000 for a photographer.
So is it wrong to ask for this? No, not really – but as a customer, don’t expect the highest quality. And maybe that’s fine – turns out there is a whole market out there for cut-rate creativity. There has been for years. Have you ever seen a TV commercial for a local restaurant, shot by the local TV station in a small market? Compare it to ads for national brands, and you will see exactly what I am talking about. Do you think the big companies go to their local TV affiliate to record cheap commercials?
Is design any different?
I think if you don’t want to work for free then don’t enter the contest. I have entered (and won!) a city contest for an annual event logo. It was fun regardless of winning. I was inspired and got to do as much or as little as I wanted with it. It was my choice to put the time into it. These companies take a risk that they won’t get anything back that fits the bill, but as long as their needs are satisfied would you pay for something you could get for free? Not saying it’s good for freelancers, but there’s no law against it.
It turns our profession from a career which you can make a living from, into a hobby, which you either do for ‘fun’ or as a supplement to another job.
It devalues ‘design’ into something that is merely driven by cost.
It dumbs down and ridicules our work into something that needs no training, no thought, simply a Mac and a pirated copy of Photoshop.
It turns our jobs into mere afterthoughts – when all the serious parts of your business are finalised, your logo and branding are a ‘5 minute’ exercise that can be given to a kid in India for less than a Starbucks.
By accepting this and saying nothing in protest, by giving this ‘development’ any serious airing, you crucify thousands of upcoming, trained & talented designers who will try and make a living out of their trade and then give up a few months later.
Well put! Great points!
This “want it for free” problem occurs in every industry.
As a video editor, I get hit up all the time for “just a simple little video.”
As the son of a doctor I grew up seeing my father bombarded with questions from people looking for free medical advice.
(and as I’m writing this I’m being inspired to take another look at my pricing structure.)
I’m a giving person and don’t mind doing small favors for friends once in a while, but I’ve got bills to pay too! I could work forever for nothing if I don’t put my foot down and get paid for what I do.
To quote the infamous line from Heath Ledger’s The Joker in “The Dark Knight,” “if you’re good at something never do it for free.” It’s phenominal advice and our clients should respect that as well.
Its a free market.
people have the freedom to do whatever they want to maximize their profits. Its how our world works. You want that to stop? you want to to go to socialism or communism?
well then design skills will be completely obsolete. The only reason design skills are valued at all is because of the freemarket and people having a choice of how much to pay and what service/good to buy. So companies find the best design/price combo they can ( excercising their freedom of choice, in order to influence the choice of others).
If you get rid of that, there would be one designer. (the guy who designs all the propoganda posters). AND THAT WOULD BE IT.
This is not an issue of price, even though the rates paid in nearly every crowdsourced project are far below market value. It’s the fact that people are expecting services from designers and artists for free, with no guarantee of compensation. This is not just a bad business practice for those who participate in crowdsourcing, it’s also dragging down the entire design industry as well. Everyone is expecting something for nothing and then on top of that they want to pay peanuts if they decide they like it.
Well said, Des Igner!
Excellent points, Aleksey!
Even in a communist society, the propoganda designer has been paid as an important contributor to the cause.
err… i think you may have slightly missed my point.
communism is bad.
for more info, google “north Korea”, “cuba” or “life under soviet rule” or ask anyone from eastern europe: “how bout that communism?”
And that communist designers payment was more along the lines of “today you won’t die, congratulations comrade” I think most designers get that payment as it is, so no problems there.
Crowdsourcing is just (IMO) a result of supply/demand imbalance in a free market. Buyers always try to get products of adequate quality as cheaply as they can. Sellers always try to sell their product as dearly as they can. Crowdsourcing works when there are sufficient participating sellers of sufficient ability to produce a single work of sufficient quality. In times where demand and supply are more balanced, crowdsourcing should become less viable.
The question of whether crowdsourcing is ethical seems parallel to the question of whether lotteries are ethical. Both are legal. Both prey on “hope”. Both governmental and religious institutions run lotteries. Participation (in either) costs something and has a low probability of reward — but is in both cases completely voluntary, legal and completely representative of “free market behavior.”
The healthiest attitude toward free-market behavior is to simply recognize that it is “so”. It is as certain as gravity. It isn’t fair. It’s Darwinian. We can’t argue it away. It can’t be repressed by socialist revolutions. Survival depends upon our ability to adapt, learn or otherwise find our way out of supply/demand imbalances by developing a service for an area of greater demand.
If it ain’t crowdsourcing, it’s the Mechanical Turk :) The free market is a b!+<#
I would think that most professional designers would be to busy working on paid projects to really spend much time participating in crowdsoruced projects unless they felt they could get great exposur if they do win a project. For designers working for an hourly wage it may give them an outlet for there own creativity without having to try going solo as a freelancer, but they will probably not participate without knowing the pro’s and cons of doing so.
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The big problem is that Crowd Sourcing has been used to imply Crowd Designing. There is so much more you can do with CS. Validation of ideas, market research, co-designing etc.
The original premise of CS is pretty much dead, and it has evolved as a co creation tool. Unfortunately many companies use it in the same old way.
I think it’s best said here:
http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/index.php/the-scumbags-guide-to-crowdsourcing/
I’ll summarise at the beginning. I think designers who want to test their skills against others should have a means to do so, and those who want to focus on business shouldn’t feel threatened by that. Compare to singers who go on American Idol vs. those who just play music for a living.
It’s a complex issue. I try to look at it as a few different issues.
I see nothing wrong in community collaboration or competitions. Keeping it in the context of design, something like Threadless, where a community designs, judges and curates their work and then purchases it. Why not?
I do think businesses should hire designers/firms to do their work. No doubt about that. So for me, the issue is more when companies, instead of having any design work done at all, decide to throw a “contest” to see if they can get free work.
That is not the same thing as Behance for example organising a contest for designers, encouraging them to do more competitive work, and offering them exposure and rewards. These are offered to designers in the name of Design and hopefully lead to business opportunities.
Of course, the people who commission this type of contest should benefit from it too.
Crowdsourcing is nothing new. In the past they where called contests. The person that wins is the one that gets the contract.
Take it as it is, and you will know if its for you or not. Just remember, many will enter, only one will win.
Do not be dumb. Management are taught to find ways to deceit people into working for free. And this is one of it. Heck, slavery was abolished because low wage workers cost less.
We started ImageBrief to help photographers monetize their back catalogue. We don’t support spec work at all. We believe that the majority of professional photographers have substantial archives of images that are unnecessarily buried in the archives of stock libraries such as Getty and Corbis. We are looking to make new connections between buyers and sellers. If a photographer takes an amazing picture of the Taj Mahal and an ad agency in NY wants to buy it for an ad campaign – we’d like to help initiate that transaction. Unlike stock libraries, our photographer network gets 70% of the commission. Basically we have turned the commission model upside down – in favour of the creative owner. We think that in this case, crowdsourcing is a great thing! You can learn more here http://www.imagebrief.com – We’d love to hear from you.
Crowdsourcing your graphic design work. It’s bad for you. I have proof http://bit.ly/mDBxJH
It’s part of life and part of the free market. If I own a company or organization and can find a way to get a quality design for free, then I would certainly do it. Deal with it and move on.
First of all there is no such thing as a ‘non-profit’. It’s called poverty pimping, and the people running the company are making money off the backs of the poor. Therefore they really don’t deserve ANYTHING for free.
Wes, regarding your comment, yes if you are a business owner and want to get the best deal and exploit others while doing so then you are in the right place: the goold ole free market S of A. Now, were you to be on the other side of that bright shiny world and begging for some money, homeless, poor, desperate, how would you feel about some fool with the kind of attitude you are now espousing. You should really be ashamed of yourself but you won’t be because you are a brainwashed sap.
Artists are notoriously hard to organize (”like herding cats”). There have been good attempts, like Graphic Artists Guild, but nothing that rises to the level of serious bargaining power in the market place.
I was recently called to compete for a web development job by submitting a design for the company. I turned it down. The “opportunity”, as described, presented so much bad faith up front, that it would set the tone for further abuse if one was “lucky” enough to be chosen.
Everyone has the freedom to decide whether they wish to participate in a ‘crowdsourcing’ project. It’s their decision.
Companies doing this all the time will soon learn that they are not taken seriously. Too many these days think that ‘everything is free’ – especially when it relates to the web. Many who do it are just ripping you off and know they are.
As to ‘non profits’ they are companies too – it’s just that they give their ‘product’ to their customers. Most do and need to make a surplus and have reserves or they would go out of business – so the non profit aspect is debatable. If everyone at the organization gives all their time free then maybe they have a case. Mostly that’s not true.
I participate in contests on a couple of crowdsourcing websites. I do it for my own enjoyment and to keep up with trends and techniques. To me it doesn’t matter that I spend time and may not get paid. I see it as a hobby that helps my real job. If anybody thinks they can crowdsource their way to an income, they are delusional.
Personally, I am quite on the fence regarding the use of a crowdsourcing site for a logo design. It is still a touchy issue for most designers who said that crowdsourcing is a no-no for obtaining a logo design. I have tried crowdsourcing before and I know the risks involved but it comes within the territory. But there are other no-frills logo design websites online such as http://www.logobee.com, http://www.logodesignstation.com, logoyes.com, etc. which are actually great in getting a professional logo design at a fraction of the price and minus the risks of crowdsourcing (plagiarism is one of them). Seeing that there are no consultation services, the price is significantly lower than that of conventional design firms. For instance, I have tried http://www.logodesignstation.com and the experience was indeed a positive one. I managed to get my business logo design at an affordable price and the turnaround time was great as well. Highly recommended. Although crowdsourcing for logo designs could be a bane for some, many find it to be a viable alternative to get a fast logo on the cheap. It all depends on the individual actually.
When it is for a nonprofit company I think it is ok, and it can actually help starting designers to get some publicity. When it is for an other company, I think it is not ok, they should pay people if they want them to make something for them. But of course no one has to participate it is a choice everyone makes for himself.
Personally I think that current design crowdsourcing sites do come up as problematic from both the designers’ as well as clients’ perspective, especially what comes to wasted work. However, I don’t think that the whole idea of crowsourcing design is flawed, it’s just how it’s done right now. In my opinion the most important aspect here is the way the collaboration of designers and fair collaborative reward system is being arranged.
Our company recently tried crowdsourcing of design to just see how it works. The results were not good (and as I now think about it for obvious reasons). We wrote an article that talks about why crowdsourcing fails from the clients’ perspective + discusses the missed collaborative aspect of current design crowdsourcing sites. You can find it from here: http://www.tribevine.com/devblog/?p=147
Would love to get a few comments on it as well.
I think Crowdsourcing is a best opportunity for designers to show their creativity to attract other customers, it can be as a bush marketing. :)