My position, and that of many in the design community, is that spec work and design contests amount to nothing more than unpaid labor. Designer after designer pitching logos, website designs, brochures and what have you, all in the hopes of getting paid. Something. Anything. The argument about spec work is an ongoing one, often percolating over when a particular issue, or event, comes to light.
We’re all adults here.
One of the main arguments from the pro-spec side of the design crowdsourcing and contest sites is that “we’re all adults here” and entering design contests is a matter of “choice”. Fair enough position, I suppose (albeit ignoring most of the pro vs. con points of the issue). My definition (at least as it applied to MY kids) of “being an adult” was, and is, 18 years old (as it is in most Western countries). What if I told you that many of the designers on design contest sites aren’t 18, but 17. Close enough to adult to ‘bend the rules a bit’? Fair enough. What if I was to tell you that many designers on design contests are 16? Still within the ‘boundaries”? How about 15? How about 14? How about 13? 12? How about an 11 year old (already having entered 6 contests without winning)? Would you still be cool with design contests and spec work then? Still up with this ‘democracy of design’ bunk? Don’t think I am. Let’s take a look at some of the profiles from leading design contest site, 99designs (I’ve screen grabbed them, as they might disappear into the ether a few minutes after I hit the ‘publish’ button. I’ve blurred out the user IDs because it seemed a little icky publishing these kids’ names in the open) -
These profiles are but the tip of the iceberg. With a few simple, and obvious Google searches, we can find some more. I’d hazard a guess that many kids, eager to get in on the fun, simply withhold, or lie, about their ages so there’s no way to project any accurate, or total, numbers. However, and with the ‘ick’ factor notwithstanding, a couple of questions come to mind. As a supposedly professional designer, are you okay competing with children in the cut-throat environment of design contests? (I know I wouldn’t be. Truth to tell, I’d always be rooting for the little guys to win). As a buyer of design services, would you be cool knowing that some of the free pitches you’re getting in your $200 logo design contest (and either not giving feedback to, or being brutal about in your critique) are coming from kids who write “I like horsies” or “I’m 12 today! Hooray!” in their design profile? I know what my answer is.
Youngsters are often very talented
Don’t get me wrong. Most designers I know of (myself included) started drawing, painting and designing at a really young age (my first illustration experience was drawing Frank SInatra album covers on the living room floor with my father, Sinatra being his favorite crooner). Some teenagers show remarkable talent early on, in a cool ‘tussle their hair’ kinda way. I get it, but that isn’t the point. If you believe that spec work is unpaid labor, then this is tantamount to the unpaid labor of children. Being promoted to companies as the ‘evolution’ of professional design services and a superior way to obtain it. And while it’s generally accepted that exploiting adults is okey-dokey, albeit morally bankrupt, it’s another thing entirely to exploit children. Read some of the comments from contest buyers. Things like “you think this is professional design? I could have drawn better using my foot”. Now realize that these comments may be aimed at teenagers. Or younger. Puts a whole different spin to the often posted comment “my kid could have done better”, huh?
It’s all about the numbers
To be honest, I expect this kind of nonsense from design contest and crowdsourcing sites. The reason they can exist in the first place is that they don’t play by generally accepted rules (I wrote an earlier article that wondered if logo design contests are even legal). As I pointed out in my last blog post on their participating designer claims, these sites are reluctant to put ANY type of restrictions on their registrations in order to inflate their claimed ‘members’ of their ‘community’, and to keep the new recruits signing up. Trouble is, there are all sorts of legal ramifications for minors submitting to these sites. There are privacy issues. Adult responsibility issues. In terms of ‘karma,’ teenagers submitting unpaid work to clients paying the host company has a really, really bad vibe. At least from where I’m sitting.
But it gets worse.
Free pitches from kids?
99designs now offers white label contests through internet giant Network Solutions and Quickbooks software manufacturer Intuit.
If you didn’t know, white label is simply when one company uses the resources, business model (and in this case, the web platform itself) to offer the same, unbranded services as another. Basically, Network Solutions and Intuit have their own versions of 99designs’ platform. And community. Which means Network Solutions and Intuit customers, who use those companies to launch design contests, may be getting designs pitched from kids as young as 11. Maybe a 12 year old. How about the ripe old age of 13.
Gives one a kinda warm and fuzzy feeling about this crowdsourcing deal, no?
But kids mow lawns
Obviously, I’ve used the most extreme examples I could find here (we’re all guilty of confirmation bias) and some of the examples illustrate participants who haven’t been around the site for a year (which doesn’t prove anything – their profiles are still active and no doubt included in the home page tally of the sites discussed). Some might even argue that kids mow lawns, so why not enter design contests?
I’ll tell you why.
When I hire a kid to mow my lawn, I generally pay them more than what they ask, and usually have to mow the lawn myself anyway. After I send them off with a hair tussle and a “nice job” compliment. They’re not competing against supposedly professional landscaping companies, and in doing so are cutting my lawn in hopes of getting paid. Nobody is making a percentage and/or a ‘contest’ fee in making lawn cutting kids available to those who want their lawn cut. On design contest sites, the companies involved ARE making a cut from fees paid to access unpaid labor, these kids AREN’T getting paid, getting knocked around in the comment sections (so much for encouraging their endeavors) and treated just like adults who’ve “made a choice”. Because the contest holders probably don’t know they might be talking to kids. I expect that many wouldn’t be cool if they knew. I least, I hope they wouldn’t be.
If they are, perhaps it’s time that I got out of this game.
Postscript:
I had originally titled this article “Child labor on design contest & crowdsourcing sites” but as provocative as that title was, I changed it at the last minute. Here’s why; according to Wiki, child labor is defined as “(U.S. child labor) refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour.” As none of the sites mentioned actually ‘employ’ designers, none of the examples technically involve the legal definition of “child labor”. Wiki goes on to explain that “In many developed countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works (excluding household chores or school-related work). [2] An employer is usually not permitted to hire a child below a certain minimum age. This minimum age depends on the country and the type of work involved. States ratifying the Minimum Age Convention adopted by the International Labour Organization in 1973, have adopted minimum ages varying from 14 to 16. Child labour laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without restrictions and without parents’ consent at age 16.”
Thought I should clear that up.
Related Posts
- The dirty little secret that most spec, design contest & crowdsourcing sites don’t want designers to know
- Numbers – The ever-shifting realities of crowdsourcing and design contest sites.
- Are logo design contest sites even legal?
- Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition
- Forbes: Why designers hate crowdsourcing
Tags: business, crowdsourcing, industry, spec work
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I’m 11, I live in the UK, and I love horses: That’s a good one!
I’m 16, I live at the SoHo, and I love wild horses: That’s a great one!!
Well I’m 13 and after entering 66 contests (10 still participating with 5 with very good chances) on 99designs I’ve won 5 contests, see my profile – http://99designs.com/people/1122334455
I looked at your profile.
No offense, but the samples were exactly the type of low-end design work that I’d expect from a site like 99designs.
@M This is one of the issues I speak about in the post above (I was originally going to remove your comment, but figured I’d let it stand to illustrate the point). *IF* Mohammad is in fact 13, his artwork is quite impressive and his portfolio site quite polished (much better than I was drumming up when I was his age). If he keeps at it, he will probably turn out to be an extremely talented designer and might have a decent career ahead of him. Trouble is, comments like yours (not unlike what he’d be subjected to on design contest sites) might discourage him from continuing his efforts. That doesn’t serve anyone.
It would be much more helpful if youngsters starting to dabble in design receive constructive direction and help from well-meaning designers, rather than spiteful digs or harsh criticism from contest holders who’s only interest is to squeeze a few more iterations in a free-for-all (and largely unsupervised) design contest.
And checking back at his profile… its gone. Hmmmm.
The only predatory behavior is the businesses undermining the design community by using basement-priced crowdsourcing sites. And Fuaadh is facilitating the practice. Because of that, he is just as guilty IMHO.
M. Carson, if he is 13 years old, he’s not “just as responsible”. As a child, he is not mature enough to understand the ramifications of his decisions, which is why in no country of which I’m aware, is he considered to be old enough to enter into contracts among other things. Dude, you just sound bitter and threatened by a 13 year old. Steve is exactly right about encouraging the talents of young designers. 99designs lacks integrity for their practice, but Mohammad simply lacks maturity and education on the issue. And you seem to lack compassion.
I’m all for youngsters having a go with freelancing but my issue with this is that it could lead to the new “predator” problem that plagued Facebook. There should be more measures in place to protect them.
Everything’s great but don’t use Wikipedia. Here’s a better replacement:
britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/111059/child-labour
My winning contests is now upto 6
and still several contests with high chances of winning.
Thanks M.Carson for your comment, I appreciate it
I saw your website and to be honest it looked crapper than my works, seriously I aint joking..
Thank you Steve for your words of appreciation,
I am in fact 13 but the reason I haven’t put up my age is because CH’s who look up my profile in interest might lose their interest in my works seeing my age so I thought it’s best to leave it blank.
If you want to put my profile up in your blog post then I can make my profile show my age so you can do a screen capture
Some people might not like my works because of all the glossy effects that I am using but I am trying to get rid of em slowly..
One thing you said about CH giving harsh feedbacks etc I won’t agree with that.. Till now (73 contests entered) I never had a CH give me a harsh criticism or anything like that, each and every one of them respected my work and time I put for them. Maybe in the future I might have some who will..
But I am not scared and won’t quit design.
Followed through logo design love blog. Nice article.. totally agreed. What got me interested were the comments..
I must say pretty good execution at the age of 13..
@Fuaadh keep up the good work, and yes! never quit.
But do remember:
Going cheap makes you cheap. What you’re doing here is pretty good and hopefully you will do even better.
But the kind of brand your building one for yourself on 99designs is eventually a mistake which you are not currently realizing, but you will within a span of time.
Quit contests, and start practicing for real. Study in a proper art school and get educated and find some real clients and compete in the market.
You don’t want a client testimonial that says… “Mohammad Fuaadh, is highly recommended. He is an excellent designer and can deliver high end logos for very cheap rates!”
Good luck
Thanks Imran but I have done logos from $10 (a year ago) to $300 being the highest, and now if I start charging the amount Jacob Cass and David Airey charge their clients, do you think I will get a single client? No I won’t unless there is some stupid guy waiting. You see I have only been designing competitively for the past 2 months and I am slightly increasing the cost of my services.
One thing I won’t agree with you is about me going and getting real clients in the outer world, I find that quite tough being a 13 yr old, do you think a client will give the job of branding his/her company to a 13 YEAR OLD? No matter how good he designs them, No no-one would, so I have to be undercover. 99designs is to me a world of opportunity so I’m not gonna quit that now maybe next year or so
Thanks for the tips! Good luck to you as well.
http://99designs.com/people/1122334455
I’m a 15 year old designer and I was able to be awarded with in 4 contests (purposely left that out of my profile) my parents approve of it too.
I have to say I disagree with this post COMPLETELY. I have 3 young sons and would be absolutely thrilled to have them hone their passion and skills at such an early age (with my encouragement and explanation of the REAL world). If they win, they win… if they don’t… they learn, they grow.
That’s the problem with today’s young adults. They feel entitled after sitting through 4 years of expensive college classes having NEVER considered full time interning, side projects, freebies for band art or non-profits, etc. I am 31 and started writing my first software programs at age 13 in DOS. (Pre-web). I would have given my left arm at that age for a “service” that just filled me with conceptual starting points for my ideas. Mostly I had to “think up” my own cool things to practice my skills with.
If these young kids have support at home (parents that explain essentially their “internship” model), this can prepare them to fly out of high school in a field they are passionate at.
When I get resumes at my company (i started my company, now employ 16 full time web developers and graphic designers) from people that graduate with art degrees and DEMAND 60k+ without ever holding a job or experiencing client communications, feedback, revision cycles, etc… I laugh them out of the room… A dime a dozen (I get 50 resumes in 24 hours on a job post from “designers” that have never done a project outside assigned school work… and even less that ever did one in a commercial environment – paid or not). You bring me some kid that put their $100 dollars in birthday money into a “start up business” like making t-shirts for other kids (which probably never nets any real revenue too… or even pays the costs)… that is initiative, that sets them apart. If you tell me you started your first business at 13 and spent all your time doing it. WOW. Show me the basic skills my position needs and… Hired.
You people act like these sites FORCE kids into a place where they work for FREE. I say they give these kids a real-world taste of the design field and let them practice (without risk) and prepare for the real world (and if a commercial company loves it… they pay’em… on the same LEVEL field as the adults… WOW what I would have given to play in that zone as a young teen). If they love designing… why not see if you can make that pizza place a new logo, in the old days you would do it anyway to practice and learn, now you are in a place where you pick-up/copy tips, tricks, techniques from the PROS. The creative kid then learns and incorporates them into their next project (and snowballs into serious strength by age 18). My self taught programming skills had me coding in 5 languages by senior year. I can tell you now if I could have found even a single place (since online didnt really exist) for some company to say we are giving $50 bucks to the winner who makes the best DOS based tic-tac-toe game… I would have spent weeks on it… just for the idea, the challenge… my PASSION.
If I saw a kid that had a 5 year portfolio showing growth (even if never actually paid)… from age 13 to 18… you better believe they are on top of my list for full time work (and I guarantee you that is what tomorrows companies will be looking for)… put an ivy league design grad up against a guy who created the Nike “swoosh” logo at age 16 in a freebie contest. Who gets more attention during the interview (who gets the interview first or even at all)?
Stop telling these kids to just study hard, go to college, get a crappy degree that no employer cares about anymore, and owe some college $200k in loans (so skip the next 15-20 years of passion in your life cause you have a mortgage and need to take the driest job that can cover your monthly repayment).
So if you haven’t been 13 or 14 and had such an amazing passion for a creative art form that you can’t relate to this. Stop commenting. You are probably in a field where you bill clients for your phone conversations (lawyer, consultant, doctor) or a place where you punch-the-clock and check each pay-stub to insure they covered those 5 minutes you stayed after one day.
I think the schools (at age 12+) should encourage these kids in art programs to get heavily involved in these types of contests and follow their passion, not worry about how much they get to take home.
Your lawn mowing analogy makes me sick. you don’t EXPECT them to do what they say and you pay more than they ask. It plays completely into the expectations that the world of work is pretty and pays you excess for sub par work. If a kid knows he can crap out, walk away, half-finished… and get paid OVER his asking price what do you think that does as it carries out into his late teens and young adulthood. What do you think he is going to feel when he spent SOOOO much on his college that he DESERVES more than the guy who skipped school but has 4 full years in the field… or doesn’t have a clue about the economy and can’t fathom the concept of adjusting pay-rate desires by economic and commercial conditions. (Did you know offshore programmers make about $1.75 per hour US… and if your child comes out of school and has a loan… he will be looking for $50k plus minimum first year… that is $24/hour)… and you know what… that offshore guy has a FULL portfolio, your kid has 3 school projects. Now picture this world economy of art, code, and intellectual property in 10-12 years when this 12 year old you speak of graduates. GOOD LUCK to him.
You do a disservice to these kids that they won’t realize until they are flipping burgers for $8 bucks an hour and being sure they get paid for every second the fryer is on.
Hope your kids never apply at any of my companies.
You are killing the next generation work ethic by telling them not to bother attempting to monetize their passion early… and in a worst case scenario… they have 250 logos they can walk into an interview with at age 18.
OK… end rant.
@JC – Thanks for the comment. You’re okay with a company profiting off the unpaid work of children? Fair enough. I’m not (nor, luckily enough, are most civilized societies that employ labor laws). Should probably confess that I’m still boycotting several sporting good companies because they employed child labor in China and South East Asia years back, as ineffectual as that boycott was (is), and despite many folks asking me “what’s the big deal?” about that too.
Philosophically (and in the abstract), I’m not terribly opposed to kids (of whatever legal age) creating commercial design for companies and what have you, but am of the opinion they should get paid for their work. If they don’t, it’s unpaid labor, regardless of whatever benefits, real or imagined, you see them gathering. It’s bad enough when it’s adults. It’s particularly onerous when it’s children, especially when most contest holders aren’t even aware that some of the entries in their contest might be submitted by an 11 year girl who “loves ponies”. I tend to temper my criticism depending on the age, maturity level and experience and would treat an 11 year-old quite differently than a designer who’s older. Apparently this a mindset that makes you ‘sick’, but I have to admit, not sure I’m sorry about that. I’ll stick with my opinion that kids should be treated differently than adults in terms of praise, criticism and encouragement.
Too, and gladly, I think it’s highly unlikely that schools will, as you hope, encourage 12 year-olds to work for free, in order that for-profit companies can have one or two more entries in a spec work design contest (apparently running the risk of “killing the next generation’s work ethic” by having that opinion). Hopefully, schools would encourage children to stand up for their rights, and teach them how to avoid being taken advantage of unscrupulous business owners who might see them as an exploitable resource.
It’s not even about design contests per se (my first paying gig was a logo contest for my high school radio station, as much as it was. Before that I illustrated our yearbook for nothing). Kids designing, painting, drawing because they love to do so is one thing. Having their work offered, without remuneration, as part of a commercial design contest that the middle man company is profiting from, is another thing entirely. In regards to your claim that children might benefit from ‘tips, tricks, techniques from the pros,” I invite you to peruse any design contest comment threads (that are accessible) to see how likely that is. It’s more likely that their work, if decent, will be stolen or plagiarized by others participating. While you may view this as the school of hard knocks, and as I commented earlier, this probably wouldn’t encourage youngsters, but potentially dissuade them from pursing design further. Your examples of young entrepreneurial efforts have little, if anything, to do with the issue being discussed.
That discussion should be academic anyway, because most design contest sites state, officially and due to a myriad of legal, privacy and parental permission reasons, that participants need to be over 18 to enter. It’s just they’re just not very good at enforcing those restrictions due to the lack of registration oversight, required by the constant need to inflate their ‘community’ numbers, and up the ‘average number of entries’ claims on their home pages. I was of the opinion that this was yet another flaw in the free-for-all setup of most design contests and the anonymity of the internet, rather than something by design. It never occurred to me that someone would actually think this is a good thing and something to be commended, supported and even encouraged by the school system. Wonders never cease I guess.
In terms of those ‘crappy degrees’ that you claim nobody seems to care about, here’s a nice quote from your website:
This, combined with the impressive number of credentials boasted about on your ‘About Us’ page seems to indicate that you hold ‘crappy’ degrees in pretty high regard, no? Noting the irony involved, I should probably point out that while I studied Illustration in college (way back when) I dropped out before graduation to take a job as a lowly magazine paste-up artist, before working my way up to Art Director and Head of Photography. Any degree I would have achieved back then would have been useless anyway, as those were the analog days of Rubylith, ruling pens, Letraset and galley type while desktop publishing was the stuff of sci-fi. Accordingly, I’m not sure where you got the idea I suggested the only way to a design career is through a degree or taking on $200 grand worth of loans, etc. That simply isn’t in play here, especially in the post you chose to comment on. It’s about the unpaid labor of kids being used for the benefit, and profit, of commercial entities.
As far as me, or others, having to ‘stop commenting’ because you disagree with their, or my, point of view, I should probably point out that this is my blog, and it is you who is actually doing the ‘commenting’ here, as appreciated as that comment might be. Everyone is welcome to have their say, and I reserve the right to blather on about whatever nonsense I see fit.
In terms of you hoping my kids never applying at any of your companies? Having read your attitude towards employees and prospective employees alike, I think I share that hope with you.
Yet you have no problem using open source software (Apache, PHP, JQuery, WordPress, etc)? Do you not think there’s ever been an underage open source contributor? Have companies profited in any way from open source software? Are you not, personally, profiting from the use of the open source software rather than building it all personally from scratch? At least in the case of crowd sourcing, the contributor has an opportunity to make money on it. In both scenarios the contributor is gaining VALUABLE experience that will make them better at what they do & likely make them better candidates for real-world positions later in life.
Companies are not openly employing underage employees here, period. Maybe parents should be responsible for their children’s internet & computer usage and not allow them to do whatever they want online (we all know there’s much worse websites that kids could be spending their time on). If parents feel their children are being exploited by participating in such contests, then they should be responsible for keeping their children out of them. Why should the responsibility be on 99designs & other crowd sourcing sites or on the companies that choose to use these sources to verify that all contributors are at least 18 (or 16 since it is the legal working age), especially when it is so easily easily concealed.
@Matt – thanks for dropping by and adding your perspective. Actually, I wrote about my thoughts on the difference between open source software (an example of the true ‘spirit’ of crowdsourcing) and spec work (not the true ‘spirit’ of crowdsourcing) here. That, by the way, is accordintg to the guy that coined the word in the first place. As is often the case in the crowdsourcing debate, I’d argue you’re conflating two completely different concepts.
In terms of ‘making “them better candidates for real-world positions later in life” some, myself included, see this as another example of The Tragedy of the Commons. Simply put, when design contests become the norm in the design profession, there won’t be any design profession for these young designers to be “better candidates” for. At my age, it won’t make much difference to me but it might to younger designers now entering, or planning to enter, the field. Luckily, and for the time being, so-called ‘design crowdsourcing’ seems to be an overhyped fad.
I never claimed that 99designs et al are ‘employing underage designers’. If I can be a wag, and truth to tell, they’re not employing ANY designers, regardless of their age, which is kinda my point, viewing spec work as exploitative as I do.
While I agree with you that it is ultimately the parent’s responsibility for monitoring their childrens’ online activity, that has little bearing on the social responsibility of the issue we’re discussing. In terms of your question
the answer is really quite simple. Because, as you yourself state, the generally accepted LEGAL working age is 16 (in some countries it’s 14 while in most jurisdictions the contract signing age is actually 18) and crowdsourcing sites themselves ‘officially’ state that participation is restricted to participants over 18. This is, one supposes, as advised by their lawyers when drawing up their terms and conditions, in order to avoid any liability of same, and to cover the contracts required for IP transfer. They certainly see it as a potential issue, despite, as you correctly point out, there being no active filtering of registrants (gotta keep those numbers up, doncha know).
While you’re obviously down with this whole spec work thing, I’m surprised you don’t share their ‘concerns.’ Though gotta admit, two pro ‘kiddie spec designer’ comments on the same day, both from the Buffalo NY area, on a six month old blog post, is a little odd.
Matt… That is what I am talking about (open source is coded by underage unpaid children all the time). NO ONE FORCED THESE KIDS HERE TO DESIGN. I have to daily keep my kids off some searches on you tube and that is probably the least of my worries.
Show me a brick-and-mortar commercial company that would even consider letting a kid intern, learn, grow, or compete in a brick-and-mortar place. I couldn’t get an internship at age 16 when I just wanted to know how a company works.
Why would you say that if a kid does something by choice, unpaid he is EXPLOITED. That gets to me. While I do hire degrees… I don’t pitch on my website the other 50+% that finished one semester in school, some were high school drop outs, etc… sorry but marketing is marketing in that area.
I have over 500 rejected college degree resumes… yet with 16 full time people have 25+% that never started or finished college.
We can agree to disagree, but I monitor my kids online personally, I sit with them as they create facebook accounts (instead of them just doing it at their friends houses behind my back)… I encourage responsible computing… and if that means they get to enter an adult contest with adult stakes… well I am all for it (as long as I am involved). If you are talking about absentee parents, not part of the kids online life… than this entire conversation is meaningless.
You think those news stories about the kids who decide to collect teddy bears for the military men and raise $50,000 in charity are exploited (and did it without parental encouragement and pushes)? What is the real fundamental difference? How many try and fall flat on their faces instead (lemonade stands, fundraisers, etc). You want them to believe there are no critics and that everything will be “all right”… there is 10% unemployment right now… I post a $10-12/hr office front desk position and get 50+ resumes in 24 hours and some have masters degrees begging for full time work.
Do you have some delusion that this will get easier for the next generation in 10 years? That their passion for design at age 12 will be welcomed to the business world with a full benefits gig and no experience.
Show me a kid with a commercial portfolio by the age of 15 and I am telling you he has the interview at the very least. Get a college degree to round it off… but don’t sit back and rest on it.
But yes… should they run a muck and do whatever they like online without worry or consequence ABSOLUTELY NOT. Should these commercial companies using the service say “no designs by under 18… your not real people yet and should not be practicing these types of commercial skills until your older”
But if you see your kid designing a pizzeria logo for 4 hours and just doing it knowing he isn’t paid for it… you can either shut his computer off or encourage him as a parent. Explain the sites, the process, cultivate an understanding of the system.
Matt is right. If the only thing I have to worry about is someone being overly critical of their submission online… than I call that a win. Better than finding porn viruses all over the computer. Plus the kids competing in these… found these sites, chose to take time out and do it. This is not FORCED LABOR in anyway.
The bottom line is they get to try… if you teach them about failure… that NOT EVERYONE gets a trophy. They are so much better prepared for the real world (especially this scary real world now). As for “exploited”… if their design is chosen, they get paid… just like everyone else. If not, they go outside and play some baseball. Kids are not “one” or “nothing”. But you have to parent them into real life or you will probably not be surprised when they move back home after college and ask dad if he can find some janitorial job at his firm. You don’t have to crush their dreams but you can cultivate an understanding in “kid” terms.
Our society has dulled these kids down to a sense of gluttony and entitlement that is destroying the fabric of the country. Keep pushing the youth into thinking it is cool to wait it out and think about the rest of your life after you graduate… by that time you are behind the rest of the world. I see no problem in introducing kids to realistic work practices young… DON’T get me wrong… I don’t mean force your 11 year old into a 9 to 5. But encourage them, teach them, work with them… if the scariest part of your day is worrying that your kids got criticized for artwork that they KNEW was a contest (because you explained it to them)… you obviously haven’t talked to them about what kind of names the neighbor kids call them on the public bus ride to school (point being there are FAR more things to worry about in real-life and online). [funny conversation popped into my head] DAD WALKS INTO BEDROOM… kid glances over shoulder, sees dad popping in… flips his monitor off quickly. dad says… Son were you creating original artwork for an evil corporation and not getting paid for it… son looks at dad with eyes of shame, says… no. Dad flips on the monitor to see fully functional suites of photoshop and illustrator lighting up the screen. A screaming match ensues. Johnny… get out of this room this instant. I saw your friends smoking a bowl at the corner, WHY CANT YOU BE MORE LIKE THEM…. stop pursuing this silly dream of design and artwork for pay and get out there and smoke some pot. You can deal with this when you are an ADULT. son apologizes to dad for the indiscretion and heads down the street with his friends. Dad complains to himself… I don’t know what is wrong with kids these days. /end-scene (may be a bit drastic but essentially the scenario I pictured in my mind)
I understand this is a blog, so it’s an opinion. If a kid is not comfortable putting themselves “out there”… then stick to drawing pictures in their bedroom and posting them on their facebook wall. But if they are encouraged and taught about what it really means to do this type of work… they will either pursue it and get better or move on to a different topic of interest. Either way, there are life lessons and the path set at that age may determine their fates a few short years later. Keeping 95% of them hidden from it just means the 5% that “get it” before they get to high school (or worse college)… means that they have a leg up on the guy who picked a major at age 18 because he always “liked art” and thought it might be fun to go to school for it (and like you said… they can spend a couple years after that, in debt… interning to get caught up). I dropped out of college, spent 4 years working for $3 bucks an hour ($5 was minimum wage). Not a path I want my kids to pursue. If they are prepared before going into college, they can walk out… degree, portfolio, real world experience, and into their jobs. Not just getting started at age 21.
Again, not trying to change your mind… you are committed to your message. Just trying to be practical and realistic about employment, the future, and a changing world of design and digital dynamics that will either force us to evolve or die out. The world is brutal and you can either hold their hand and introduce it to them as they grow… or let them feel the shock of it when it is too late to go back!
(You have to have a few things in mind now that you have said… man if I only knew what I know now… I would have done this quite a bit differently when I was young). Those regrets may be in the way these young children look at their jobs and careers (or lack thereof) in the future. As a parent, now is the time that you can choose to introduce them to the principles, or just give them their “trophy” for last place and let them find out for real that the world doesn’t work that way.
Who cares if it’s commercial or just a “free” art contest. The fact that a company gets the benefit (and pays for it)… just means the kids have a choice to get started younger or not. No one is strapping the kids into the chair and saying you can’t go play with your friends until you deliver 8 concepts to this guy online so daddy can get paid (that is a different topic completely).
Thanks for the time. Thanks for your post. The freedom of the internet lets you post your views and let’s me express mine back. Good Day Sir.
Welcome back JC. A little long to thrash about on a Friday afternoon, but a couple of quibbles. Obviously you boast about degrees in your marketing, even though you suggested they’re ‘crappy’ and a waste of time. That was kind of my point. That’s because you believe YOUR clients value the experience and credentials and you spotlight degrees and bona fides to appeal to that belief. Oddly, it turns out that I put less credence into degrees than you do (I’ve always believed that it’s the work that counts) while you originally accused me of the exact opposite point-of-view. i also get people with Masters, Bachelors and resumes the length of my arm when advertising for an admin job. Not sure what your point is, other than this is an illustration that the global economy has been sour for years now. Desperate times, desperate measures. I get that. Though how we pivoted from unpaid spec work to ‘porn viruses’ is anyone’s guess. Similarly, I find your binary leap from kids performing unpaid labor for a for-profit design company in Australia to ‘smoking a bowl’ a bit of a stretch.
Here’s the second. Just because someone does something voluntarily has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not they’re being exploited (and voluntary participation is almost always used to excuse fairly exploitative activities).
I could list a bunch but this discussion is skittering off the tracks as it is, and a debate about whether prostitution, underpaid migrant workers from poverty stricken villages in South America or little kids in China are being exploited or not, despite their voluntary participation, would only muddy the debate further. So let’s cut to the chase. Wiki has this to say about what exploitation is, under the ‘Unjust Benefit’ category:
One of those ‘basic forms’ is
If spec work isn’t ‘short-changing people in trade’ I have no idea what is. Continuing, Wiki also tells us that exploitation most often takes the following form:
Sames fairly cut-and-dry to me.
In terms of changing my mind, you’re absolutely right. Once again, I never said that kids should be stopped from designing, even on a commercial basis. They should be encouraged, praised and gently critiqued, always taking into consideration their level of maturity (if we really want to get into the nitty gritty, chemically speaking, children respond to criticism in a completely different manner than adults so your ‘toughen the little bastards up’ position is a demonstrable fallacy). I also feel that if little Johnny or Jane is going to design a logo for a corporate enterprise, they should get paid for it. Conversely, little kids designing artwork for corporations without pay (with wins rate of between 4% to 10% that’s the rule rather than the exception), so that some spec site can boast ‘an average of 95 designs per project’ in their marketing, is something out of a Dickens’ novel. Kids working on spec sites is probably not wide-spread (at least I hope not), but it is something these sites are aware of and try to ‘hide’ (some of the accounts pictured above were moved, though not closed, shortly after the publish button was pressed). Turns out, they realize there’s really bad vibe to this too, not, as you suggest, something to be encouraged or applauded.
There’s lots of things that if I would do differently as a teenager, if I knew then what I know now (I’d have put more effort into my performance as a high-school student, wouldn’t have purchased a second-hand TR7 sports car, probably wouldn’t have asked my now ex-first-wife to go to the movies) but none of these are here or there. Though while we’re at it, and in terms of so-called crowdsourcing, an extraordinary number of participants bail after one or two contests, with many opining (usually in the contest site forums) that they wish they wouldn’t have wasted their time, and if only they knew then, what they know now. Alas, hindsight is always 20/20, that flipping sports car cost me $7K in repairs. And those divorce lawyer bills…
Yowza.
@JC
I highly appreciate your encouragement. I’m also a designer + coder and I do post a lot of my artworks online just for fun. (But I have never really done any major coding work aside from school work–but I do most of my classmate’s coding projects/homework for a few pennies haha) I have joined Deviantart.com and 99Designs.com and primary reason was just to hone my skills and maybe rub elbows with the PROs. I was curious and I wanted to explore their world. I don’t want to throw myself into a job unprepared. I want to step into a job interview with a portfolio at hand and I think, joining websites that encourage competition among great designers will give all the help I can get. Nobody forced me to join. lol.. I was in highschool when I first started to dive into the world of digital arts and up until college, I find it worth my while. Even if I don’t get paid, what’s more valuable for me right now is experience.
I find this all very interesting (as well as disconcerting), I doubt there are many designers who have not done free pitches or entered comps at some time.
I won an alternative radio station comp many moons ago, then discovered the chap working the press was paid more than me. When they then asked me to supply designs for t-shirts for nothing – i promptly told them to shove it where the sun don’t shine They just got another starving soul to do it, funny though, they were also at the time a vocal exponent of civil rights and exploitation of people.
I understand why people do this, enter comps that is, sometimes it is seen as the only way to get a start. I agree their time would be better spent getting an education in design then filling the pockets of these sites and denigrating design to clients.
As for much of the work I have seen on these sites, well, you get what you pay for.
The whole child exploitation side is very interesting, maybe a couple of law suits later we may see them die and re-emerge in a more formal way.
Can’t see it disappearing, so we have to live with it, like herpes (was fun getting it but a bugger to live with).
But please you youngsters, don’t complain later when you can’t pay your mortgage or bills because some foetus in guatemalan is doing it cheaper.
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Not an english speaker but I just went through it, and want to say something after reading the whole text wall and every word, so bare with me.
Thanks Steve, I have to agree in most of the points you made so accurately. I know a single person won’t make a difference at all, but I’m not going to participate in feeding those greedy vampires anymore with my average 650,000 hours lifetime…
I just entered a contest in 99design because I’m kinda starving in a 3rd world shithole and had a hope of get some cash for my family… But after several days doing my best, I found out that the whole thing was a joke or a sort of trolling with misleading information, no feedback from the holder at all, copycats all around, etc… Even Mickey Mouse got in there somehow, go figure, like, seriously? All exactly as you described and even worse, bunch of kiddos, too. That’s not ok. Kids can and should keep in much more interesting stuff in order to fully reach all their potential first, then meet the sharks or become one.
Anyway, the winner was a joke, horrible design, technically awful, conceptually dumb, a complete trash, unbelievable. I guess it was sort of a scam or something, I can picture the holder making his own crappy entry and giving himself the price while grabbing a couple of the best ideas thrown there; perhaps it was a design studio with a formal project and wanted some brainstorming almost for free, you never know. Was weird. It really sucks.
Gotta learn a bit of respect for what I do with my life after that; reading all that you wrote finally opened my eyes. Not going to trash myself and everyone else’s work like that. Gotta get some dignity; now if I can grab some dignity from this 3rd world shithole you can do it too, people, don’t be afraid. The time has come.
Just my $0.2, thanks for reading my broken english.
[...] you really think they have gone to that effort when their websites are overwhelmed with plagiarism, child labor and [...]