Designer needed. Logo desired. Labs flirts with the crowd.
3rd April 09
Posted in BBH Labs
Tasked with exploring new models for marketers, one of our first orders of business will be to hold an “open pitch” for our new logo. All interested designers please visit http://bit.ly/39yWEd for more on the deadline, the brief and the fee.
We’re posting a brief on Crowdspring well aware of the heated discussions taking place within the design community regarding sites that promote spec work. Though the crowdsourcing business model is still clearly in its infancy, BBH Labs reasoning for giving Crowdspring a try, simply put, is because the model seems to be working (albeit, better for smaller companies).
We’ve heard the arguments against Crowdspring. We’ve heard it said that it lowers the standard of what is considered “good” design. But for the purposes of this conversation, isn’t a “good” design one that pleases the person paying for it? I think Marley and Me is a “bad” film. My niece disagrees. So be it.
Another argument is that the Crowdspring model is akin to outsourcing, putting professional design work in the hands of untrained amateurs, and in the process, driving down the price real designers are able to charge for their services. If you’re a great designer, these sites shouldn’t be a threat since aspiring designers willing to work on spec is nothing new. If you’re a mediocre designer on the other hand, then consider that new technologies will only continue to make you better: just as the mouse made you better and Adobe Illustrator made you better, competing on a larger playing field should also make you better (and add to your bottom line).
I don’t want to sound overly insensitive, but evolution isn’t always orderly: we are living in a transformational period and in order to not be put out to pasture prematurely, entire industries are having to retrain themselves and rethink how business is going to be conducted going forward. From young designers to established agency networks, change is coming.
I’ll stop rambling now and come back to why we like Crowdspring. We see these sites as giving much more than they take. By matchmaking small businesses that wouldn’t have been able to otherwise afford a custom logo with a pool of designers that wouldn’t have otherwise been able to offer their services, they are helping to grow an overall appreciation for design as well as build an entirely new market that didn’t previously exist.
Will Crowdspring deliver Labs a great logo that meets our demanding and sophisticated needs? Not sure, but we’re looking forward to fishing these new waters nonetheless.
Hi Adam,
I used Crowdspring to source the new YouIntern logo and we found it to be an overwhelming success. The designers were eager to tackle our brief, willing to consider our feedback despite knowing their design may not be chosen, and the website interface was very simple and clean.
I recommend it highly for small businesses looking for a variety of design submissions with a small budget.
The objections of those in the design community to “working on spec” ought to be heard, but I question whether their cries need to be heeded. I understand the integrity of their work, but design is intangible, impossible to quantify, and evaluation lacks standards.
As such, each party wants the other to take on the majority share of risk. Designers want their clients to pay retainer fees or higher prices because they don’t want to work on spec, on principal.
Businesses would prefer crowdsourcing their work because it enables them to keep costs low.
Base as it may seem, I think that the party cutting the check deserves to rule this debate. It’s their money, and they can spend it as they want. Ad agencies have been forced to adapt or die, as have newspapers. Designers might be next in line.
We need look no further than this winter’s Tropicana/Arnell debacle to see that paying professional designers can lead to disaster and a flattened wallet.
I think this is a fantastic idea, cuz I don’t doubt for a second you could get a bang up selection in the end. I mean there are tons of 2 person shops all over the place with worldclass creative, who just dont happen to be in global shops. Excited to see how this turns out, yep
-roli
Dan,
I want you to know that I’ve submitted your crowdsourced YOUINTERN logo to one of a number of design message boards. And i will probably be looking at submitting it to some non-design boards as well.
When I get enough comments, I’ll let you know the consensus as to whether your logo is good for you.
Thanks for doing that. I’m interesting in seeing the results. But if a number of designers dislike our logo, or even non-designers, how would you suggest we implement their feedback?
Pay for expensive design with the money our startup doesn’t have?
Dudes? Dudettes? What you need is a tight brief. Don’t mean to be a sniper here, but “pioneer and realize new marketing models using technology, transformation and collaboration as our tools”? I’m getting a headache. I’ll redo the brief for $2500. (hee hee)
BBH can afford the risk of failure for this small project. Even failure is success because it’s a designed part of the larger positioning of the agency.
The future top airplane pilots and doctors are out there willing to work for less too. Why wouldn’t we trust them to fly us or operate on us? Lack of experience.
Professionals can fail, but with amateurs, the risk increases.
For someone who has real responsibility for a projects success who needs to commissionin subjective creative work, an either-or proposition (either super expensive or free,) may not be best. There’s a third way. (And as steve points out, a clear brief is key.)
If we wanted value but really care about results too, our best bet would be to find a freelancer who has worked at the pricey firms on fortune 100 accounts, done grad school, won major industry awards and been in business on their own a few years.
Why would a person like this be cheaper? Well, freelancers (like me) have less overhead thats reflected in our prices. No massive offices, BMW, annual trip to Cannes, eames chairs, blackberry/iphone or large staff. Just me, my gear and my wife in our small apartment.
Big agencies need to feed themselves and so can at times, accept big projects with shaky strategic underpinnings. Like Budweiser’s $50million failed TV network Seth Godin writes about.
I heard Kraft is trying to make their own facebook. Will anyone care? Doubt it. Will their agency turn down the work? Don’t think so.
One of my clients was low on cash but has a solid business that’s growing. He needed a logo. So we negotiated some cash and some shares in his company for my payment. So I share the risk too.
Worked out well.
All the best, bbh. respect.
Interesting concept and I apologize for only stumbling upon this post recently as I see it has been several months since its inception.
I am intrigued to know if you have moved forward with the logo that was accepted through the contest or if the contest was only a mechanism to play out your theories. If was a model to test out your thoughts. I think it would be a great exercise and case study to share the logos submitted and your process and rationale as to choosing and moving forward.
I agree very much with parts of argument about crowdsourcing design but it is also very shallow in other parts as I bet you would agree.
It is such an interesting dialogue I would love to hear your guys continued thoughts on this process as you moved forward with the work you had done. Because you paint a rather rational picture for why BBH and their ilk are irrelevant.
Interesting.
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