The following is a research report I chose to do for my Written Communication college course, April 25th, 2012, of which I received a B grade on.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Purpose
The purpose of this report is to educate people outside of the graphic design industry and/or potential clients of the devaluation of a graphic designer’s skills and talents due to spec-work. Essentially, spec-work (speculative) is work that is done with no guarantee of compensation for the designer’s time, effort and skills.

Scope
The report covers purported benefits of spec-work for the client, such as no upfront costs, and moves on to explain the consequences, such as plagiarism, lack of professionalism, and no copyright protection. Continuing further, the report also explains the purported benefits and consequences for the designer, such as availability of work, building a portfolio, but also devaluation of the graphic design industry, no contractual protection, and lost profits. The report finishes with proposed solutions to the spec-work problem.

DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

In the graphic design industry, spec-work is particularly opposed for several common reasons. Outside of the industry, spec-work and the inherit consequences are largely unfamiliar or ignored. The findings in this report are to educate businesses, clients, and the general populace about spec-work in the following categories: use of spec-work, argued benefits and real consequences for client, argued benefits and real consequences for designer, and solutions to the spec-work problem.

Use Of Spec-work

Spec-work (speculative work) is found in competitions (winning a reward, whether a monetary sum or tangible goods), volunteer work (without expectation of pay or barter, usually for experience or favors), internships (essentially volunteer work for educational opportunities), and pro bono work (done for the good of the public, i.e. charities, fundraisers, community improvement).

I. Argued Benefits and Real Consequences For Client

Argued Benefits

The client is not required to invest any costs upfront or along the course of the project. In case of dissatisfaction with the work or requiring more variations, there is no expenditure for the business, and they are free to move on to a myriad of other offerings, as there is usually no contractual obligation to condemn such. According to Just Creative website, “One of the main attractions of using spec work is the so called “cheaper cost” & the fact you get more variations & ideas. The typical scenario goes “Wow, I can get 200 different variations for $500″. On the surface, this may appear cheaper however if you dig deeper you will find that this – in nearly every case – is not so.”

Real Consequences

1. Plagiarism

While the risk of plagiarism is present in any form of tangible or online media, the lack of contractual protections often found in spec-work increase this risk. The client may unethically and illegally decide to use rejected work in the future. In contest spec-work, it is not uncommon to find plagiarized works submitted by some designers in mere hopes of winning the contest. According to The Logo Factory website (1), “You see, there are some folks who like the idea of receiving the prize, but their chances are so low, they aren’t willing to put in the time to create original artwork. Solution? Pinch logos and artwork from other design companies like ours, stock art companies, photo galleries, logo gallery blogs and search engine image searches. Anywhere that images are hosted. This copied artwork not only gets entered, but runs a very real risk of winning. Here’s one example (right) from the Site Point logo design contest forums (later to become 99designs) where one of their ‘designers’ had been helping themselves to a load of artwork from our old design galleries.”

2. Lack of professionalism
This is likely more common with design contests than any other method of spec-work, though other methods are not immune. In the case of a design contest, the client will not have any particular standards as to who they are accepting work from. This allows students and non-designers who may only understand how to use the tools available, without any real foundational design skills and knowledge. The client will choose a designer’s work based upon it’s visual appeal, and not whether it communicates the message of the business. Another consequence is the absence of proper research. This process begins with a consultation with the client, where the designer is informed of the client’s business and the required needs, and their target audience and market. Without this research, the work is very much at risk of not meeting the client’s goals, and ending up as yet another futile attempt. The designer’s real potential will not be met without these integral factors

3. Wasting time
Since the goals are more unlikely to be met with spec-work than with a professional one-on-one relationship with a designer, numerous submissions will not satisfy the client. This results in a waste of a client’s valuable resources, time, and money.

4. Damaging effect upon professional value
Because the client is accepting submissions from several or even hundreds of participants, they will not have time to develop a good business relationship with the designer, nor will they have the time to communicate during the progress of the work to assure that it is meeting the client’s needs and goals. The client also leaves an impression of disrespect for the designer, by effectively saying the designer’s skill, time and labor for free is justifiable.

5. No protection
Spec-work often negates having a contractual agreement between the client and designer. Because of this, there are no answers regarding who owns the copyright, the scope of work usage, and any other conditions.

II. Argued Benefits and Real Consequences For Designer

Argued Benefits

1. Availability of work
The graphic design industry is highly competitive. For a designer struggling to gain work due to field competition, the idea or promise of compensation for their work may seem to satisfy their workload needs.

2. Networking and future work
The work experience may present the designer opportunities to meet and discuss future work with new contacts, thus increasing the chances of expanding the designer’s clientele and experience

 3. Building experience and/or the portfolio
A prevalent argument for spec-work suggests to the designer that even if they do not fulfill or win the project, the end result is another item they may consider an experience gain or portfolio piece. This may be more fair to a beginning designer who does not have very much work, if any, to present.

Real Consequences

1. Devalues the design industry
By participating in spec-work projects, designers are not given the credibility and value the profession deserves. This undermines professional designers profits and cost of operation as the work can be done with little or no pay. Clients that continue to believe the work is worth much less than it’s true value will then treat other designers the same way. According to Creative Times website (2), “What we do has genuine worth. We can not recover lost time or effort. An unsuccessful pitch is throwing money down a drain, and it encourages the view that our profession is somehow less than others. We do not sit around pulling fully-formed solutions out of our backsides. Try getting a bunch lawyers to do a load of work for you on spec than only paying one – you’ll end up with more bills than a four-headed duck and as many court cases.”

2. No protection
It is not only the client that is unprotected from potential copyright, trademark, and work usage issues, but the designer as well. Once the designer has either lost a contest, or been let go, the client may feel justified to use the work after a change of mind, because there were no contractual obligations preventing them from doing so.

3. Lost profits
Because of the devaluation of professional design, spec-work wastes the designer’s time, efforts, resources, skills, and business overhead. This only results in the designer losing money, where they would be better off working with respectful clients that understood and desired the work and value of professional design.

III. Solutions To The Spec-work Problem

The graphic design industry provides several viable and more mutually beneficial opportunities to both client and designer. For clients, reviewing a designer’s portfolio and their own client’s feedback should be enough to make a decision to hire. If it is not, the client can set an appointment for a consultation, where the designer may discuss what they can do for the client. This often leads to the designer writing a proposal before a project begins, and the client approves the proposal after discussing whether it has met their needs and goals for the project.

For designers, focusing on a professional and appealing portfolio is one factor that will help draw respectful clients. Using client testimonials in marketing literature as well as in the portfolio allows the client to see that the designer has done satisfactory work their clients were pleased with. Beginning designers with very little or no work may consider non-profit organzations or pro bono work for opportunities to build their portfolio and gain relevant experience. Finally designers should educate potential and current clients of the time, skills, resources and most importantly the value of the work, and how it can pay off for the client as an investment rather than an expense.

WORKS CITED

“AIGA Position on Spec Work.” AIGA. Web. 02 May 2012.
<http://www.aiga.org/position-spec-work/>

“A Blog Not Limited.” You Get What You Pay For ~. 18 Feb. 2009. Web. 02 May 2012.
<http://ablognotlimited.com/articles/you-get-what-you-pay-for>

“Boagworld.” Why Speculative Design Is Wrong. 6 Feb. 2009. Web. 02 May 2012.
<http://boagworld.com/design/why-speculative-design-is-wrong/>

(1) “Logo Design Contests.” Logo Design. 2009. Web. 02 May 2012.
<http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo-design-articles/logo-design-contests/>

“The Pros and Cons of Spec Work.” The Pros and Cons of Spec Work. 12 Aug. 2009. Web. 02 May 2012.
<http://justcreative.com/2009/08/12/the-pros-and-cons-of-spec-work/>

(2) “Spec Work and Why It Devalues Design | Creative Times.” A Creative Community. 6 Mar. 2012. Web. 02 May 2012.
<http://www.creativetimes.co.uk/articles/spec-work-and-why-it-devalues-design>

One of the funnest designs I’ve been tasked to do was this flyer for a local bar’s Green Bay Packers vs Chicago bears game (Sept. 25th, 2011). I thought it would be cool to have two skulls facing off (no pun intended). I started sketching from a reference photo.

Reference photo upon lightbox

Stylized skull sketch

Initially I wasn’t very happy with the sketch. Something seemed off, especially around the cheekbone area. I kept it, but started over a few times to no avail. A friend suggested to just remove some of the detail around the problem area, which helped a lot. I scanned the sketch, and went to work in Adobe Illustrator.

Plotting a basic path for vectors

I start by in a way, connecting dots. You place one point, then another and it automatically connects the line. I start out rough, and can then curve and fine tune them as needed.

The vector path in progress

Several hours later, the skull design vectors were complete, and a huge relief!

Vector outlines

Eventually, I moved on to the helmet. Originally I wanted to use a modern NFL helmet, but found it obscured too much of the cool skull design. So I opted for the pre-1950s leather helmets.

Leather helmet

The stitching detail was also a path (line), set to dashed with a particular gap between. A duplicate was made and changed to a transparent white to give a little more depth.

Stitching detail

Below you can see some of the layers in the Photoshop document that were used. Going clockwise, the starburst effect was achieved with a basic star shape and blurred. This was placed atop a splatter texture I changed to yellow. Next (top right), a little more splatter, then I continued on with the other elements like the type. In the bottom right portion, you can see how textures were used to give the design more depth.

Various elements put together

Altogether after between 10 to 12 hours of work (!), the final poster was finished and ready to promote throughout the week.

The completed flyer, 11"x17"

» www.bryssis.com

Aside from design, I have also been involved with music for over a dozen years. In 1996, I picked up an old acoustic guitar and started teaching myself. 1997, I bought my first electric guitar (Fender Stratocaster). Having grown up in the 90′s, the majority of my influences and favorite bands involved the likes of Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. In 2003 I started to break out more into ambient and electronic music and purchased a Roland studio keyboard. Eventually, I decided to go back to my guitar roots and began Bryssis (“bree-sis“) in 2010. My inspirations now stemmed from bands such as A Perfect Circle, Ashes Divide, Type O Negative and The Cure.

While I’ve had numerous personal music projects over the years, their logos were nothing more than the project name in a font that fit the sound and atmosphere of the music in some way. With Bryssis, I thought to challenge myself a bit and develop my own typographic logo.

The name Bryssis was inspired by a former friend of mine, whose last name was Vrissis. From what she told me and from some research, I found this to generally mean “water fountain” in Greek, stemming from the word “brysi” (fountain). I changed the spelling a bit to form something a bit more unique. I thought it made a great name for a band, with the definition implying some kind of catharsis or new beginning.

Logo concepts (click for full-size)

I started to sketch out some rough ideas while at the bar. I wanted to create something that was perhaps interpretive, without exhibiting any cliches of typical genre typographic logos (i.e. metal being hard-edged). I also thought something interesting could be done with the two S’s in some way, but I wanted it all legible.

Final concept (click for full-size)

Somehow, the stem of the R and the Y seemed to have an interesting aesthetic together, so I extended them. Off to work in Illustrator…

Beginning vector work in Illustrator (click for full-size)

The curves of the S’s was challenging to get just right, so I started to experiment with other shapes. The final S character design looked much more consistent and still easily read.

Final logo in black-and-white (click for full-size)

For the website and other materials, I gave the logo a radiating, blue glow appearance which tied in with the color of water (thinking back to a metaphorical rebirth or cleansing). At the end of this project I came away quite happy and proud for not just sticking to picking a font, but developing an actual brand for the band that no one else has.

Stop by www.bryssis.com and checkout some demos, or “Like” us on Facebook!

Colored logo

I’ve been designing flyers for band performances at a local bar for the past few months. For the Bobby Evans flyer design, I decided to show you the whole process behind the result.

1. Guideline Pencils

Working from a rather small greyscale print of a web photo, I started drawing on a letter-size sheet with blue pencil to get the rough guidelines down. Here is where I draw the the foundation, and once it’s finished I’ll start going over it with a normal pencil and fill in details. You can see this in progress in the following image:

Click for full-size

2. Final Pencils

Eventually, all the pencil work is done. My intent with this was to draw in a comic-book style, which would then be inked and colored.

Click for full-size

3. Inks

Now, it’s onto the inks. A seperate piece of paper is placed over the penciled sheet on top of a lightbox, so I can see what I’m inking over, without adding to the original sheet. I used a variety of Pigma Micron pens, mostly 08, 03, 1 and a bit of brush pen for the hair.

Click for full-size

4. Cleanup

Now I scan the image at 300 DPI and in an 11″ x 14″ document. Here I’ll clean up some parts that need some help. The frets that were drawn were crude, so I filled in the fretboard black and made some perfect white lines in Photoshop for the frets.

Click for full-size

5. Coloring

I recently bought a Wacom Bamboo Pen tablet — it’s a wireless pen and tablet you plug into your PC and you can draw as if you were using pencil and paper, except you’re viewing everything on your monitor. It takes quite a bit to get used to, but I think I did a decent job on maybe my 3rd attempt coloring in Photoshop.

Click for full-size

For the jeans, I painted blue and added a “Reticulation” filter to get the texture:

Click for full-size

6. The Final Outcome

After all the coloring is done, I placed the rest of the flyer elements in such as text and background. I’m not sure how long it took me, but it was several hours of work in less than a week.

Detail