Christian Design and Spec Work
Michael Buckingham wrote a pretty poignant post over at Church Marketing Sucks, An Open Letter to Rick Warren about Spec Work. Here’s the short of it: Rick Warren is hosting a design contest to design the cover of his upcoming book.
For those unfamiliar with spec work (speculative), this kind of contest is all over the place and is largely seen as damaging to the design community. More info on spec work at No!Spec.
Here’s some of the highlights:
The quality of work you get is going to be sub-par (take a look—yep, that’s some mediocre work). One of the reason it’s sub-par is because the designers didn’t have the benefit of a working relationship with you the client where they could be privy to all the ideas, expectations, insights and everything else that goes into making a creative project work. In a nutshell: You’re not getting the best work because you’re not valuing the worker.
The best creative work happens in partnership. Not in disconnected competition.
Another reason it’s not so good for you is that you just used your position to take advantage of hundreds of designers who were hungry for the exposure.
I’ve been a bit successful with student spec work, so my experiences haven’t been all negative. However, I think the bigger question is the Church’s view of designers. I know design is undervalued in the Church. How else can you explain the amazing catastrophes that show up in bulletins and Church graphics?
We’re created by the original Designer — God.
What’s your opinion?
Give your two cents