If there’s ever been an issue that ignites passion in the design community, it is spec work, its repackaged cousin design contests, and its cousin-in-disguise, crowdsourcing. There are two sides to the issue, and neither seems willing, or able, to give the other much sway. In this first of a two part series, we take a partially impartial look at crowdsourcing and design contests from a buyer’s point of view.

As with most passionate debates, a lot of the oxygen is sucked up by hyperbole, from both sides (guilty as charged), and there’s very little attention focused on the true benefits (it there are any) and the true pitfalls (if there are any). Some people behind crowdsourcing sites will state that “businesses are ignoring the debate” and that’s very true. They are. It’s boiled down to a “more for less” proposition that’s a terribly effective marketing gimmick. Designers aren’t “ignoring” the debate, because they’re the ones who ostensibly have the most to lose and are the ones most affected. And while you can find all sorts of “glowing” testimonials about how effective crowdsourcing is, what you won’t find is an admission that a ton of design contests on crowdsourcing sites end in cancellation, or a decision “not to award a winner”, as high as 50% on some sites, indicating that not everyone is thrilled with their “experience.”

So what’s the real deal? Seems time to look at both sides of the equations, warts and all, and take a somber, sober and partially impartial look at spec work, design contests and so-called design crowdsourcing. From all angles. While I’m fundamentally opposed to spec work and design contests – my old lefty leanings, hammered into my psyche by my union advocating father – I think I’m well enough versed in the issue to tackle the issue pragmatically and without railing against the practice as is usual with my scribblings. We’re going to take a look at things from the client’s point of view first. Then follow up with a look at how these things work for designers later in the week.

Design contests and crowdsourcing – setting a price

Most crowdsourcing and design contest sites will let you set your own budget. This is one of the main issues that has a good chunk of the design community up in arms. Understandably so. It can amount to hundreds of design concepts for a few hundred bucks, something that on the surface anyway, most small firms (including mine) and freelance designers can’t compete against.

Many design contest sites take an almost dual-personality disorder approach to how you should set your price. On one hand, they tell you that their service offers $200 (minimum) design services. On the other hand, they’ll also tell you that setting a high price will attract a higher level of designer. They’ll charge you extra to host a private contest, where the results and designs are hidden from view (something that most other designers and design firms already do, and often at a price that’s higher than other sources would charge in the first place). All of this seems to be at odds with their entire ‘democratizing of design’ meme, but no mind.

Private contests

Here’s something to keep in mind though – surprisingly, many designers avoid so-called ‘private contests’ like the plague. The reason? As the contest is private, and as they can’t use the designs they submit in their portfolios (thanks to a rather restrictive NDA they have to agree to in order to participate) there’s no real benefit for them to enter unless they win. Most designers with any experience know that’s unlikely (based on sheer volume) and participating on crowdsourcing sites has been sold to them as a way to build a portfolio. Private contests are at odds with that core belief, so many designers simply pass. While I understand the advantage of a private contest (the theory is your competitors don’t get to find out what you’re up to, or your client’s don’t get to find out you’ve outsourced their gig to a design contest), it doesn’t attract the so-called ‘quality’ designers the host sites tell you it will.

Number of entries

In terms of pricing, and realistically speaking, there really isn’t much rhyme or reason to the number of entries you’ll get, regardless of what budget you set.

I’ve seen $200 logo design contests with over 300 submissions. I’ve seen $1000 contests only receive several dozen. While contest site owners will tell you that the higher the prize, the better the designers attracted, this may, or may not, be true, but a higher prize would logically attract more designers of all skill levels.

Guaranteed contests that aren’t

Most crowdsourcing sites claim to have 100% money-back offers on their contests (technically, most aren’t 100% because most sites won’t refund your contest listing fees) but you’ll waive that if you hold what is referred to as a “guaranteed” contest. In essence, you “promise” (pinly swear) to pay a designer or the company that hosts the contest will select one for you. Oddly, in the real world, holding a contest and not awarding a prize breaks contest and sweepstakes laws as it’s treacherously close to fraud. Here’s a dirty secret that most design contest sites don’t want you to know. Even in “guaranteed” contests, buyers end up filing a dispute with their credit card company if they’re not happy with the outcome, regardless of how many entries they’ve received.

Don’t think credit card companies are really sure what the deal is with contest sites, so most unhappy buyers are successful in their challenge. I’m not sure credit card companies are comfortable with design contest sites picking an entry for their customers (as claimed in most “guaranteed” contests) either. Having said that, charging back a credit card for a service you’ve agreed to is pretty shady, so this isn’t to be taken as an endorsement of the practice, just an acknowledgment that it happens. In fact, I’d advise against it as, once again, it’s often the participating designers who get it in the throat, and nobody will be remunerated for their work. On some sites a designer will still get their design selected by committee and paid for their efforts (though often, it’s a slim percentage of the originally promised of your ‘award’). On others it’s approached as “hey, can’t pay anyone, the client charged back their card”.  Cynically, and in both cases, the crowdsourcing site gets to keep their ‘listing’ fee and any ‘upsells’ you’ve paid to promote your contest, while the designers get stiffed.

Work that’s ‘inspired’ by others

Here’s a rather large caveat about design contests and so-called ‘crowdsourcing’. The numbers of plagiarized design work as well as improperly licensed stock art (most stock can’t be used for logos or trademarks) submitted into logo design contests is astonishing.

Sometimes it’s not the entire logo, but bits and pieces cobbled together from multiple sources. If you’re after an illustrative logo, many of the submissions will be traced from photographs found on the internet, some of which are rights managed, or subject to copyright claims that may or may not be apparent. Whether these logos are “derivative” works or not is anyone’s guess and depends a great deal on the original creator’s tenacity. Realistically speaking, you probably won’t get found out. On the other hand, your logo may be a ticking time bomb. Does this happen with every design contest? No. But enough times to make it a concern.

Copying happens in traditional avenues too

Now, design contest and crowdsourcing sites will tell you that this happens in ‘traditional’ design avenues as well, and to a certain degree they’re correct. It does.

The risk of business and reputation meltdown in the traditional arena makes it less likely, while the anonymity of design contests and the legal waivers that contest sites present to you on sign-up make it more so. There’s no real statistics either way, but a ripped off logo in the ‘real world’ is huge news in the media (witness last summer’s Kelowna City logo flap), whereas a pinched design being entered into a design contest is a regular occurrence and barely makes any news outside a post on Twitter. Usually by the designer who’s work has been abused.

Self-policing of submissions to your contest

In many instances, other designers will “catch” the knock-offs and tell you or the host site (they want the copycat turfed out – more ‘chance of them winning’), but often they either won’t have knowledge of the original logo, or the gallery of designs has become six pages deep and they don’t have the time to rummage through the various designs looking for knock-offs. Don’t look to the companies that hold these contests for monitoring of submissions – most design “crowdsourced” contests aren’t managed very well, if at all, and their sites generally play out like a free-for-all. Not that this should be surprising. If you work out the portion of the “take” for the site owners, there’s not much budget for monitoring each and every contest running in their forums.

Managing a “community” with tens of thousands of members is a challenge (ask anyone who’s ever set up even a modest sized forum or bulletin board) and companies that run design contest sites generally feature small teams of salaried employees. Most design crowdsourcing sites don’t even have graphic designers on staff (most are “customer service” personnel and developers tasked with keeping the sites up-and-running, a formidable task considering the system resources these sites burn) so you’re a little at the mercy of the goodwill, and keen eyes, of the people participating in your contest. Trouble is, in ‘Private Contests’ most participants can’t see the submissions of others, until you pick a winner, so any promised self-policing doesn’t happen on the more expensive ‘Private’ or ‘Blind’ contests.

Copycats aplenty

Also, keep in mind that even when designers are “caught” passing off other designers work as their own, they’re seldom “banned” from participating in future contests unless they’ve been particularly egregious. One major site “suspends” designers for two weeks. Another has something that verges on “three strikes you’re out” policy (though they claim that they don’t “officially” have a “three strikes you’re out” policy). In any case, there’s no guarantee that an unrepentant copycat, busted in an earlier contest, isn’t submitting work to yours.

The client as art director

In terms of setting up the contest, you’ll be expected to supply a pretty in-depth ‘creative brief’. As the back-and-forth between buyer and designer is somewhat muted (most design contest sites don’t want – for obvious reasons – designers and buyers talking off the ‘reservation’) that’s the entry point for most of the designs that will be presented. The details contained need to be pretty expansive, though you can change direction later if needs be.

Traditional design avenues (designer, firm, agency) will usually see the creative department taking conceptual lead on your project. With design contest and crowdsourcing sites, you’re almost expected to play ‘art director’. Now, that’s not to say every designer will take a ‘just tell me what you want’ position – some will suggest funky design options and worthwhile directions. But a large percentage of contestants are of the “hired hands with a copy of Illustrator” variety. That’s not bad if you’re comfortable with art direction. A little intimidating if you’re not. Might be worth remembering that many designers on crowdsourcing sites are inexperienced, and wary of offering up suggestions that are at odds with your original brief, lest they be branded ‘uncooperative’.

Expected comments and star ‘rating’

Keep in mind that you’re expected to comment on most of the designs submitted, even the ones that you don’t like, a task that can become quite challenging as the numbers of submitted ideas rises. Most sites also feature a star rating system that seems to placate most entrants if you opt not to submit a comment for their work. Pretty cynical attempt to keep designers cranking out work, but it does seem to work. Also keep in mind that asking one designer to incorporate an idea from another designer’s submission is a big no-no on contest sites. Sure, the designer you’ve asked to do it will probably comply with your request, but the frankensteined design will probably be yanked and the designer reprimanded. Despite the “community” vibe that’s advertised, designers are not working together, but rather against each other, so asking one entrant to incorporate another’s work is understandably taboo though many buyers, believing they’re working in a collaborative environment, often find this concept difficult to grasp. In terms of revisions, most design contest entrants are only too willing to submit revision after revision, so there’s no cap to the amount of work that you can ask for, an arguably big advantage over a traditional firm or designer. Here’s something to keep in mind though – if you focus on one design concept, and request multiple revisions, many of the designers will interpret that as the direction you want to head and incorporate these ideas into their future work.

The number of submissions

This is the main advantage of the design contest or ‘crowdsourcing’ model. And it’s true, you should receive a lot of concepts to choose from. Most design contest sites feature a “get x number of submissions or your money back guarantee” but most contests will go over that number by a wide margin. If it’s close – say the guarantee is 25 and you’ve received 28 – unless there’s something there you really like, it appears that many buyers get the refund anyway. There’s generally a few similar entries, say color changes and what have you, that it’s always arguable whether you received 28 submissions or 21 with a few variations that don’t count enough as unique.

Again, I don’t think this is fair to the designers that participated (I might go as far to say that guaranteeing a number of designs, from people who aren’t getting paid for those submissions verges on asshattery, but we’re trying to be somber here, so I’ll leave that for the designer portion of this feature). And here’s another aspect of crowdsourcing sites that as a designer I’d be horrified, but as a buyer, I’d think is just lovely. The usual way these things work is that your “contest” or “project” runs for a certain amount of time. The designers have been told that once the time frame is up, and as long as the minimum number of entries has been submitted, you have a finite amount of time to select a winner. If, after that time frame (usually a week), you haven’t selected a winner, the host site will pick one for you. Designers like these sort of promises, as someone is guaranteed to win. Here’s the dirty little secret. Most design contest sites hate picking a winner for you, especially if you’ve paid with a credit card and if you ask them, they’ll simply re-open the contest for more work. It’s terribly unfair to the designers who originally entered in good faith, but it is what it is. Also, even after you’ve selected a winner, feel free to ask for further revisions on the final entry. Turns out that most design contest sites don’t even expect you to take your selection ‘as is’. Some even suggest that there’s no limit to the amount of post-contest revisions you’re ‘allowed’ to request before accepting the design as final.

The end result

At the end of the day, you’ll probably end up with a serviceable logo, brochure or website. I’d positively love to tell you that you won’t – these things are an anathema to my profession – but I’d be lying. Will you receive stellar work? Slimmer chance, but yes you just might.

The main concern you should have with any design contest is originality (in terms of logos) and the rights managed images (brochure, web site, etc) featured in your work. The problem here lies in the issue of what designers rights the designers agree to give these sites upon submitting work. The designer ticks off a little check box, indicating that they own the rights (or adequate rights) to the work they’re uploading. The number of blatant knock-offs that are found on design contest sites tend to show that a fairly large percentage of participants don’t put any credence into those check boxes at all. The designer usually has to agree to transfer a non-revocable license to the host site (supposedly, so that the host site can show the artwork in their galleries). One little hitch. All stock image sites strictly prohibit the transfer of any of THEIR rights or license (for obvious reasons – it weakens their control over products). Bottom line – how can a participating designer give the design contest site a license for stock art or photography, when the original licensor strictly forbids them from doing so? I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that this little bugaboo is a wrinkle that’s going to bite someone in the ass at some point.

Conclusion

Are design contests and crowdsourcing an effective way to get design work done? Yes. No. Maybe. In terms of the amount of concepts you’ll get pitched at you, there’s no comparison between working with a design firm or a freelancer. They simply can’t match the output if output is your thing. And that number is going up. Some outfit even suggests that you’ll get up to 900 concepts for a few hundred bucks. Soon it will crack 1000, so if you wait a few months, I’m sure some site, now in BETA, will offer that. Crowdsourcing sites don’t technically pay their ‘workers’ (my main quibble), so there’s no practical limit on the number of revisions and ideas you’ll get. Are they all good ideas? No. A majority of the ideas you’ll get pitched are sub-par (to be charitable) and as we’ve discussed earlier, run a rather high risk of being work that’s pinched from somewhere else. Realistically speaking though, there should be a few pearls in the pile to ultimately choose from. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, I don’t think that’s a particularly efficient, or effective, way to design anything. But if raw numbers, for an often paltry price, is your thing, a design contest might be the Doctor’s prescription.

What does all this mean for people participating? We’ll look at that in detail when we take a look at crowdsourcing from a designer’s perspective.

Related posts:

1. Again with the design contests
2. Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. The platitudes of spec work.
3. Children designers on design contest & crowdsourcing sites?

Selective editing on a recent Forbes article on 99designs

Don’t suppose you read this article in Forbes about crowdsourcing and design contests, focused primarily on 99designs? A little more objective that the business magazine’s initial foray into the subject (when they opined that graphic design was a “snooty business“) but that’s not what makes it interesting. It’s the repeated editing that does.

When the article was first published, it contained this quote from 99designs founder Matt Mickiewicz “It doesn’t matter if you’re 15 or 60″ referring to the ‘come one, come all’ open nature of registering to be a designer on the site. Not sure how long the quote stayed intact, but certainly long enough to be captured by Google.

Shortly afterwards, the quote was changed to “It doesn’t matter if you’re 18 or 60,” perhaps when someone realized that 15 year old designers working for free wasn’t a terribly cool thing to be advocating, especially in a leading business publication. For those keeping score, that’s version 2.

Shortly after that, the articles was edited again, changing the minimum age back to 15, and adding a few points, most notably that “technically” someone has to be 18 to sign contracts, and that youngsters as young as eleven have posted designs into contests. That’s version 3.

At some point, the article was changed again, raising the minimum age to 18 again (but leaving the added disclaimers intact). That would be version 4, and the version that’s currently featured at the link above. Not sure what the big deal is – the quote has been used on numerous features about 99designs (including an article on Fast Company that’s proudly featured in the press section of 99designs’ own website).

So wonder why the repeated editing? Don’t suppose it has anything to do with this?

Nah.

Related posts:

1. Design is a ‘snooty’ business: Forbes
2. Children designers on design contest & crowdsourcing sites?
3. Snippets: Crowdsourcing advice for designers, IE6 must die & more unbiased logo reviews

As is usual with any high-profile spec work or crowdsourcing ‘event,’ Guy Kawasaki’s recent contest for the cover design of his upcoming book Enchanted raised an internet firestorm with graphic designers claiming that he was “selling out” the design profession. Kawasaki pushed back, claiming that Crowsourcing was the route to go for creativity and choice, gave unknown designers an opportunity, and that designers opposed to crowdsourcing best ‘deal with it’.

As Guy Kawaski himself points out, I have no beef with him (used to read a lot by him, and about him in MacWorld and similar Macintosh evangelist magazines). Should point this out – I don’t consider myself a book cover designer. despite having designed quite a few, during one of my previous lives as a magazine art director, and usually the result of a project that started off with “yo, graphics guy – design a cover for this book.” While most of the titles are now out of print, a few of them sat on bestseller lists for a while. Despite this, I always felt that book covers were left up to people who specialize in, well, book covers as it’s a niche part of the graphic design profession, with an entire subset of rules, techniques and considerations. That’s why, when Kawasaki announced his contest, I followed the conversations about it, and even had a few back and forths about his opinions about spec work and crowdsourcing. I think it’s safe to say he’s pretty much in the pro camp.

For the purposes of this post, we’re going to accept all of Guy’s claims at face value. We’ll grant (if only temporarily) that crowdsourcing and design contests offer unknown and upcoming designers a way to get their foot in the door, and an ‘opportunity’ to design a bestselling book cover for a world famous author. And that crowdsourcing does offer lots of choice, creativity and inspiration for the client (we’re not even going to get into the fairness, exploitation or even pricing debate – other than tell you that Kawasaki offered $1000 for the winning designer).

Hard to argue with the numbers with 240 designers entering. Between them, they produced over 750 entries for the Enchantment cover contest (though I expected more, considering Kawasaki’s high profile – a similar contest for Mega-church preacher Rick Warren‘s now ‘postponed’ The Hope You Need netted him over 3,000 entries). Once the selections were whittled down to 5, Kawasaki opened up voting, and encouraged people through his Twitter account to vote for their favorites (below – winning entry is second from left).

Some of the covers produced, in my somewhat limited expertise with book cover design, were really nice. Especially the version with the heart shaped ribbon (above – second from right). That one really caught my eye (and according to the final votes, a lot of other eyes). Concept is very cool. Tied into the Enchantment theme. Yep, that’s a decent cover alright. Maybe Kawasaki is right and designers were on the wrong track with this crowdsourcing debate. Maybe these design contests were great for sourcing creativity an original ideas. Maybe anyone could design book covers after all, elitist, snooty designers be damned. Maybe. And then again, maybe not.

Related posts:

1. I ain’t Guy’s book cover either
2. Free Logo Design Book – Logopalooza Volume 2
3. The Jon Engle vs. Stockart.com story – an anti-spec work parable?

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1. Snippets: Crowdsourcing advice for designers, IE6 must die & more unbiased logo reviews
2. Battle for hearts and minds continues
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Spec work. Design contests. Crowdsourcing. Does it really matter what label we hang on them? The dangers always remain the same. For years now, we’ve been barking about design contests, and their recently re-packaged cousin crowdsourcing, as an extremely risky way to have anything designed. By anybody. For anything. One of our major caveats is that clients and buyers always run the risk of purchasing copied work. Simple theory really, and a predictable problem when you ask a whole bunch of anonymous people to submit designs into a contest, without paying them to do so. Someone will always take a short cut, helping themselves to somebody else’s stuff. Maybe submit free vector art, downloaded from some obscure design blog. Maybe some stock art, pinched from iStock, Shutterstock or some other image library. If the design doesn’t win, no harm, no foul. If it does win, let’s just hope that nobody notices. This isn’t reactionary hand-wringing from some bedwetting designer either. It happens over, and over, and over again. I did, however, think that fan-based contests were pretty well immune to the “copying bug“. Rather than a potential way to may a couple of bucks (in this case Euros) in some $250 logo design contest, this is heady stuff for a product you’re supposed to love. Social medializing and all that. With the large prize money involved, and the personal identification that’s usually required, nobody would enter pinched material into a high-profile crowdsourced contest. Right? Oh, I dunno. Maybe you should ask Cadbury Chocolate.

Cadbury Chocolate €10,000 wrapper design contest

Curated by advertising giant Ogilvy Mather, the Dublin-based division of candy giant Cadbury, asked fans to design a wrapper for their Dairy Milk bar, jumping on the trendy ‘crowdsourcing’ bandwagon. Up for grabs was €10,000 (about $20K give-or-take), certainly a little more than chump change, which attracted a ton of entries from designers and non-designers alike. Judging of the design contest was web-based through Cadbury’s Facebook page, after the designs where whittled down to a final 5, and votes ran in the tens of thousands, with the two top entries garnering about twenty-five thou a pop. So far, so good. Alas, when the winner was introduced, it very quickly became apparent that the winning design bore an uncanny resemblance to someone else’s artwork. Facebook freaked out. The winning designer (we’re not going to mention her name) nuked her Facebook account and disappeared. Cadbury’s Twitter account was flooded with complaints, accusations and reports of plagiarism. Red faces all around no doubt. This morning, this very carefully worded comment was quietly added to The Apprentice contest website homepage.

I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of this either, so we can label this story as developing. In the meantime, congrats going out to Paul Ruane, who’s now getting a little bit of the glory he should have had in the first place.

[Hat tip: Benjamin Royce. More details and comments at the link]

Related posts:

1. Spec work hackery redux. More of our work copied & entered into 99designs logo design contest
2. Creative crowdsourcing & design contests. Hype or reality? Contest holder & buyer’s edition
3. Logo design contest with a twist

Speaking of pints (snark-free this time) gotta tip one towards the folks at Design Related for giving us a wonderful look behind the scenes of the recent Chiquita Banana brand ‘refresh’. For a designer, especially those interested in branding and all things logo, there’s nothing quite as inspiring at seeing, and reading, about a design gig that manages to fulfill its mandate so damn well. DR do just that with a terrific interview with the art director, DJ Neff, picking his brain about how he went about making bananas well, fun, fun, fun (’till Daddy takes the T-bird away). Go now and read it all. Lots of pics of the sticker-driven campaign, some cool links and some outtakes of the nifty characters that make up the rebranding, all nestled inside a great read. This one’s near and dear to my heart, with sliced bananas on toast (nothing less than three toast) just happening to be my fave breakfast food. In fact, I’m munching on some now. [Design Related]

Stock logo site Brandstack would like to clear the air about their upcoming service Upstack so they have. In a feature called, oddly enough, Clearing the air about Upstack. First of all, Upstack is not anything like what people are saying it is, especially when people say that it’s just another spec site or logo mill. In fact, Brandstack would like us to know that nothing has been done like Upstack in the history of ever. Even when Logoworks did it back in the day because they’re a logo mill and Upstack isn’t, only that Logoworks sez they’re not a logo mill either offering brochures, websites and other stuff that logo mills don’t. And oh yeah, this will all work out ’cause the people at Brandstack are “brilliant“. [Brandstack]

Looks like the Girl Scouts of NYPENN Pathways are looking for a new logo. And like almost everyone looking for a new logo these days, they opted to go the old logo-design-contest-crowdsourcy route. Not gonna bitch though. This kind of participatory contest is actually a pretty cool way for actual Girl Scouts to toss their creative hats into the ring. You know, community vibe kinda deal. Confidence building and all that. Hell, as a Cub Scout (not now, back in the day) I’d have been thrilled to design a logo for my “pack”. Wassthat? The organization that’s running the contest wants everyone to know that it’s open to “non-Girl Scouts, girls and adults” as well? Spiffy. Guess that’s the “community vibe” out the window (not to mention telegraphing a lack of faith in honest-to-goodness Girl Scouts coming up with the design themselves). The goal of this contest is to develop a “unifying logo that can be used as a council patch, on print materials and (ahem) retail items“. So I suppose if this logo design contest is open to, well, everyone, and is going to be used on (ahem) “retail items“, there’s some sort of prize? You betcha. The winner of the design will receive a whopping $20 gift card to the Girl Scout Stores. Cue up Oliver… [News Channel 34]

Related posts:

1. Design a logo – win some strippers
2. Snippets: Crowdspring to offer spec writing, NEA holds a spec work contest & other news
3. Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition

“Gawdammit it all. When I said that, I meant to write because you love it, and to write about what you want. I wasn’t referring to writing copy for a Tampon brochure, on spec, for some company on the internet.**”

He also told us his thoughts on folks using his quotes on Twitter to promote their services. “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.*” Dude’s got a point. His thoughts on writers working without pay? “Prosperity is the best protector of principle.*” Words to live by.
*real Twain quotes. **not so much [Twitter]

Speaking of crowdsourcing, writing and the interwebs, seems there’s this company that plans to fill the search engines with all sorts of how-to goodness, so that when you search for, say, anything, you’ll find one of their pages filled with helpful pay-per-click ads and clicky-on-the-linky banners. Demand Media is another of these “let’s democratize the creative industries by paying everyone peanuts” crowdsourcing outfits eager to cash in on tough economic times and out-of-work creatives. According to The New York Times, this outfit is supposedly worth between one and two billion smackeroos. Yeah, that’s with a ‘B’. And like most crowdsourcing outfits they like to boast about the size of their “community” (about 7,000 eager beavers). Pay for articles? Princely sum of $20. If you’re a skilled word mechanic, fret not. Enthusiastic copy-editors can pick up $3.50 a pop for editing articles to pass an “automated plagiarism checker“. What can possibly go wrong there? Of course, the snooty, elitist New York Times writer has an issue with this, preferring to make more than the estimated $1.00 per hour it would have netted him for writing the article for Demand Media [New York Times]

Speaking about crowdsourcing, seems Wired columnist and Nieman Fellow at Harvard University Jeff Howe might have an itty-bitty issue about design contest sites bogarting the word, and the concept, of crowdsourcing to market their services to the business world. In a Twitter missive on the weekend, Howe twattered that sites like Crowdspring (and one supposes, 99designs, Logo My Way et al) “short-circuited the promise of crowdsourcing” itself. Another whiny, snooty designer carping about the evolution of the design industry? Hardly. Howe’s the dude that coined Crowdsourcing the word. And wrote Crowdsourcing the book. And runs Crowdsourcing the website. And Twitters by the handle Crowdsourcing. Ahhh, what does he know? [Twitter]

Speaking about spec work and design contests (we sorta were), the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce is looking to help local businesses improve their commerce. You know, selling stuff and services, as most local Chambers of Commerce are supposed to do. In order to help local businesses sell their stuff and services, the helpful folks at Ann Arbor decided that they needed a new logo. Which is cool. So they’re hosting an unpaid logo design contest. Which, if you consider that designers are supposed to be taking part in this commerce stuff too, isn’t. [Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce]

Speaking of spec work, told you last week about a whole bunch of Belgian ad agencies who took part in a virtual strike against spec work. That’s the ongoing, and flourishing practice of “gimme some free shit” that many in the design profession despise with a passion usually reserved for hating really bad stuff. Some in the design community, including yours truly, were impressed that a whole bunch of design and advertising companies had managed to put their competitive differences aside and do something together. You know, in a cool “all in for the better good” kind of vibe. Looks like we were a little premature, as no sooner had the anti-spec folks shuttered their websites, than some upstart decided to hoover on the campaign, telling people that unlike the large agencies, they would certainly be interested in pitching on spec. And that the big agencies could suck it cause they were big and mean. Munich-based ad agency Three View, claiming that the “rules are different now“, hoisted a home page that was identical to the original virtual strike artwork, with their version (above) proudly proclaiming that they had ‘punked’ the major agencies even “if it does ruffle a few feathers“. Kinda reminded me of the People’s Front of Judea skit from Monty Python‘s classic flick The Life of Brian. If you’re a fan of Monty Python you’ll get the “splitters!” reference and find it as amusing as I did. If you’re not, this video (NSFW) might help. [Three View GMBH]

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1. Snippets: Crowdspring to offer spec writing, NEA holds a spec work contest & other news
2. Snippets: Spec work & crowdsourcing edition
3. Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. The platitudes of spec work.

Victors & Spoils front-man Evan Fry doles out some great advice for designers entering design contests a.k.a. crowdsourcing projects. Runs the gauntlet from forgetting about getting paid, to doing lots of revisions and forgiving hungover contest holders who neglect to give any feedback. In other words, cough up lots of free shit to show Victor & Spoils paying clients while Evan heads off to the pub. Awesome. [Talent Zoo]

Speaking of the “world’s first ad agency based on crowdsourcing principles“, Victors & Spoils got so excited about their Dish Network design contest they forgot about pesky licensing and copyright issues, uploading the Adobe Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk font set to the 99designs server so that grateful participants could “Grab it. Download it. Use it. Be brilliant with it“. Shortly thereafter, they removed the font, due to pesky “licensing and copyright issues“, telling everyone that this was a “bummer“. [99designs]

Logoblog.org, an “independent and unbiased” logo design review site that has absolutely nothing (wink, wink) to do with Logo Design Guru (“reviewed” at number one with 4.73 stars out of five) have fallen positively in love with design contest site Myrcroburst, placing it at number two in their “Top Ten Logo Company Reviews” and awarding the site 4.7 stars out of five. And just like having nothing (wink, wink) to do with online design company Logo Design Guru, the “unbiased” Logoblog.org review site has nothing (wink, wink) to do with Mycroburst, which happens to be owned by The Guru Corporation, owners of Logo Design Guru. Hooray for transparency and unbiased reviews. [Guru Corporation]

Adobe, like a jilted lover, continues to have a hissy fit over the Apple iPad‘s lack of Flash support. Taking the feud public, the makers of every graphic design program in the history of ever, published a blog post calling Flash the Apple iPad’s “broken link.” If that wasn’t enough, Adobe platform evangelist Lee Brimelow published a series of screengrabs to illustrate what this lack of support meant to the average surfer. Alas, one of the screengrabs was from a notorious porn site (right). When tech bloggers guffawed that Adobe had “played the porn card“, Adobe went all passive-agressive, just like a typical ex, claiming the inclusion of the Bang Brothers image was only a joke dammitall. Others pointed out that Adobe was bang on the money, because if you can’t surf for porn on the iPad, what’s the purpose of the bloody thing in the first place? [Wired]

Related posts:

1. Crowdsourcing is broken. And how to fix it.
2. Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition
3. Snippets: Battling logos, a couple of Pint Tips, just like 99designs & the IRS logo scam edition

Crowdsourcing platform Crowdspring has announced that they’re going to be offering writing ‘projects’ using the same spec-work model that graphic designers never seem to tire carping about. Which means we can expect a whole bunch of tireless carping from professional writers too. This ‘taking over the creative world’ thing kinda reminds me of a sci-fi movie from the 70s. Tall dude with a mask, respiratory issues and a really bad attitude. Answers to another dude in a cape. Live in a big metal planety thing. Can’t quite put my finger on it. [Crowdspring]

Speaking about spec-work, apparently the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) may be arty and all, but apparently devoid of a sense of irony. To wit, they’ve decided that one of their lofty goals is to remind society in general, and business people in specific, that “arts workers are real workers” and “part of this country’s real economy“. Further, the NEA would like us to remember that artists “earn salaries, support families, pay taxes. Artists are also entrepreneurs and placemakers, who revitalize towns, cities and neighborhoods“. Cool. In order to illustrate these ideals, the NEA would like a logo designed, so they launched a logo design contest. On spec. Facepalm doesn’t begin to describe how well this went over with designery folks. [LA TImes]

Stock logo website Brandstack announces their new service Upstack, supposedly a custom version of their stock service that dodges the spec-work bullet by paying participating designers a portion of the design fee. All cool and all, but that just happens to be how Logoworks, formally the poster-child for all that’s wrong with online logo design, works. And has worked since 2001. When half the world freaked the fuck out, because of the way Logoworks worked. [Brandstack]

Speaking of innovation, yet another new design contest site has opened its doors, pages or whatever a web company opens when they launch. Graphicster promises to be different than all the other innovative companies hosting design contests. Which is pretty much what all innovative companies hosting design contests promise. Getting off to to a flying start, Graphicster’s blog told us “We are going to eat our own dog food by creating a project for the logo of the site itself“. Dog food you say? Awesome. With that accomplished, they promptly launched a fake contest. [Graphicster]

How much is a Twitter account? Free. How much is a stolen Twitter account? $1400. Now compare that to a stolen MSN account that only fetches a buck forty on the black market. Completely unscientific conclusion? Twitter is way cooler than Microsoft. Even with criminals. [IT World]

Related posts:

1. Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition
2. NEA Art Works logo contest update. When it comes to government, even spec work gets mired in red tape
3. Snippets: Images Without Borders, MSU Spartan logo to stay, AIGA speaks out & the $15 logo design contest

Apple does what Apple does. This time, it seizes 16 domains from some poor schmo who had registered domains with the words iPod and Macbook in them, having done so with the purest intentions. Like redirecting Googlers to competitors of Apple. [TechCrunch]

Speaking of Apple, did anyone miss their new announcement about their new iPad thingy? If you were one of the few, you can check out this moment-by-moment blog about the event. To get the whole effect, you need to start at the bottom. [Engadget]

Speaking of the iTampod (sorry, couldn’t resist), if you’re thinking about coming up with an off-color joke about Apple’s new light days computer (sorry, again), you’re a little late to the party. [Globe & Mail]

Speaking of the iPad, right after the unveiling, Adobe got all huffy because the revolutionary tablet doesn’t support Flash. Apple has yet to respond, but it will probably be along the lines of “suck it”. [Mashable]

Our humble shop got named as logo company of the year over at Famous Logos blog & porftolio site. All things considered, that’s a pretty cool way to start 2010. [Famous Logos]

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1. Snippets: Crowdsourcing advice for designers, IE6 must die & more unbiased logo reviews
2. Molson Canadian logo, new MTV design, Doodle for Google logo contest and more.
3. Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition