I've written about this, and so have others, on that community website of ours until our fingers bled and people got bored with us. caffeinegoddess ' take Spec Sucks For Everyone, Leslie Burns New Challenges from the Lowballers...and What to Do About 'Em and I've done too many to even link.

* Threadless does not use briefs, and the person who's work is exposed to a wider audience is the designers. That said, some people think that's an iffy site as well.

* don't know of a kluster-like site (yet but I do know one in the making - not mine)

* Exploiting designers with a competition here is also exploiting designers in India. And yes that not only sounds like approving of sweatshop labour but worse still, a sweatshop where the designer has to buy all the gear (computers and whatnot) to participate (via expensive intarwebs) in international competitions where he may or MAY NOT win some nominal 25 dollar check, which is the sent to India and cashed and the bank takes ten dollar. WTF? India is a huge country with some great ad agencies in it, who pay their designers.

I hear the argument that spec work / competitions give ad-kids/design-kids/photography-kids the opportunity to get work "out there" and produced and for this reason alone we should be ever so grateful to do it. I've won a few in my life, but when you are still only "getting work out" that way after six or seven years of being a pro - the system is nothing but fucked. I have student debts (more than someone who studied at a free uni - keep in mind that ad school and design schools cost cash while university studies do not over here) to learn my craft and I need to be able to support myself on my work just like everyone else. I grow up, and spawn and have kids to feed.

Back to the school point. You pay a doctor, a lawyer, a banker and so on good salaries not only based on the fact that they have studied to learn these things, but because they keep studying and working and accumilate skills. You don't just pay for the work at hand, but the entire history of the one who did the work (master craftsmen cost a lot more than your regular joe woodworking dude for a reason). This reminds me that spec work is only worth what you pay for it, and who here wants a 25 cent diamond ring?

In advertising the entire industry suffers as agencies pitch on accounts all the time, often pulling in freelancers and calling in all staff to work on the pitch. If the pitch is lost, they aren't just loosing the "prize" of having the account, but a months worths of productive and billable working hours for 10+ people. And this is somehow deemed "OK". It's not OK, you do not let three random housepainters do your house and then choose which one to go with and have him do it again, just paid this time. Ours is a job that we spend time on, and our time and skills should be as respected as anyone elses.

One argument I've heard for spec work is that current costs of designers are way too high for certain clients such as non-profits or individual projects that could certainly use design help because they themselves are not skilled (I'm facing that with my current web projects).

How can the design community assist people with such needs in a way that is respectful and is win-win for both parties? Non-profits could leverage grants or their status for pro bono, but smaller projects that aren't officially incorporated may get into a little more hassle. What are the ethics surrounding pitching for possibly pro-bono/low-budget work?

That's a good point about having to buy the computers and pay online fees just for a nominal cheque. The costs would be high, and the "prize money" is honestly insulting for the level of worked expected. I signed up for a Mechanical Turk-like place (I figured I'd spend my idle online time on something useful for pocket change) but didn't do anything because all the assignments expected me to do too much work for too little money. A 1000-word essay for $10? Yeah...no.

I just realised that my post title sounds a bit spec-worky. "Please tell me everything you know so I don't have to do research!". Ha. I could have worded that better.

it came off too much like approving sweatshop labour

Maybe I am opening a huge can of worms and derailing here, but as someone who has spent a fair amount of time in the third world, there is absolutely nothing wrong with sweatshops from the point of view of the workers in the vast majority of cases.

Getting a job as a garment worker was the first step for the FOB Jews coming into NYC from Eastern Europe; now, only a couple generations later, they are all solid middle class. Getting a job as a coder at "sweat shop" rates is the step up for some poor schmuck in the middle of India, and it is a much better deal than going hungry, or even working for local Indian rates.

And anyways, sitting in a chair, thinking hard, and entering code into a computer is hardly a "sweat shop". If the guy has access to a computer life really can't be that hard.

Sheesh!

/rant

One argument I've heard for spec work is that current costs of designers are way too high for certain clients such as non-profits or individual projects that could certainly use design help because they themselves are not skilled (I'm facing that with my current web projects).

Non-profits and such are always offered free work from the fresh design kids to larger agencies ( I have yet to work at an agency who did not do something for Greenpeace at some point). That's the kind of spec work everyone loves. I've done a lot of work for Unicef where everyone from voicetalent to the TV channels offered their space and time for nothing just to help a worthy cause - and it wasn't the kind of work that might benefit me in any way as it wasn't the old "lets do a great crazy fantastic idea and win ad awards", but the very straight forward classic "these people need help, send money" type of informations ad which did it's job.

So, sorry, I don't buy that one at all. Designers, talents (actors/directors) and ad agencies have been falling all over themselves to offer their skillset rather than their money to all sorts of worthy causes for at least twenty years. Probably because we have no money.

As for individuals, they usually get their friends involved, which they usually try to pay back in their own coin... if they are a writer, maybe they handle the text, press releases, etc., for their graphic artist friend - and so on. And collaborations by young up-and-comings with time and talent but not much money is a time-revered proving ground for creating CV fodder.

But the lowballing thing is a big problem in any creative field. Because everybody would like to break in to creative work, you can almost always find someone to work for next to nothing - if your project/venue is high-profile enough. Sometimes the work is fairly good, sometimes it's very naive. Here in Athens (and most places, I suspect), people get "blacklisted" for that in the film industry - not from the producers, necessarily, but from other people in their field, and that can be a big problem. People here help each other out, loan equipment, do stand-in for each other, share sources and tech knowledge, refer each other for jobs when they can't take an offer, offer a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" regarding potential crew to production companies they are close to... and if you are out of that loop you're going to end up hurting, a lot, and you probably won't make it.

In design, unfortunately, you don't have that same kind of industry self-policing thing as such, and the consequences are less severe. It's sort of a wild west, but most of the time it shows in the work. If you are skilled, talented, knowledgeable, and doing this work for a living, you aren't going to work for peanuts.

When I was an editor, I always had (usually, young) people offering to write for free... a few times I gave the ones that seemed the most promising a chance (for pay, if the work was acceptable) when I had the opportunity (and of course, we made use of university interns, like everyone else). Most of the time they couldn't even manage to meet the deadline, believe it or not. Everyone thinks they can write, but not that many people can really write to order on a do-or-die deadline.