Why Designers Hate Crowdsourcing

An anonymous reader writes "Since Wired's Jeff Howe coined the term in 2006, 'crowdsourcing' has been a buzzword in the tech industry, and a business model on the rise. 99designs.com is a site that hosts design contests for small businesses requiring relatively smaller design projects. Anyone can submit their near finished pieces of work to the contests, but only one winner gets paid. Forbes covers just why established graphic designers are so angry at this business model's catching on."

Comments

The answer to this has been in print since 1913

[karlandtanya]

After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles. When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and Angels weep in Heaven, and the Devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out....

Attributed to Jack London, but there's not really any proof he wrote it.

GIANTS TALK LIKE THIS

[Itninja]

Threadless has been very successful crowd sourcing designs for shirts, wall clings, etc. I have seen Hanes and other big names try and get on the 'clever/funny t-shirt' money train, but their stuff is horrid. I don't think any design 'team' could ever do better job with this type of thing than one person with some decent software, a Wacom tablet, and a really great idea. What's more, Threadless pays a few hundred bucks the most highly voted designs.

Nude No More!

Re:Angry?

[Hatta]

No serious graphic designer can make a living out of such contests, so no serious graphic designer will enter such contest. Therefore any work you get through such a contest will not be that of a serious graphic designer. If you need serious graphic design work, you will not use such a contest. Therefore, these contests can't be taking work away from serious graphic designers.

I heard a story on NPR about these guys last weekend or the one before. They say most of the designs submitted take no more time from a designer than it would take for them to bid on a serious project. If they're making bids for free anyway, there's really not much difference to them.

Re:Quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not a professional designer, are you? Lots of established designers will not get involved with speculative pitches because working for no money is just stupid. Yes, you can be pitted against other designers but your portfolio, and contact with the client to see if you get along, should be enough. It's normally only those designers who don't have a track record that are prepared to work for no money. When I was starting out I used a few speculative pitches to build my portfolio but now I wouldn't consider that.

Re:Stop Working for Content Mills (Good Luck...)

[twidarkling]

I was right there with you, until A WILD DICTIONARY APPEARS:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/niggardly
1. reluctant to give or spend; stingy; miserly.
2. meanly or ungenerously small or scanty

Origin:
1520–30

Whereas the word you object to has origins of 1640–50 ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nigger )

So, how's that foot tasting?