Why No Spec?

GravityDept said
You should join the Anti-Spec campaign: http://antispec.com/

Let’s also define Spec Work fully (Speculative Work) meaning work with an assumed risk of producing zero return.

In other words, 10 designers work for 10 hours each. The client receives 100 hours of design work, but only picks one and pays for 10 hours. The other 90 hours of work receives no payment.

A few people have mentioned the advertising industry, which dug its own grave by making spec work a standard practice. It’s the responsibility of the designer / developer to value their time and ability to work for compensation rather than a chance of compensation.

Specup work devalues the design industry. Don’t do it. Turn down spec projects and inform them why it’s wrong. They may turn around and respect you enough to hire you for a fair value.

wait, so you do spec work with 10 other designers and only one gets paid?

That’s what I call bullshit. I do spec work, but I will get payed for it.

xstortionist said
wait, so you do spec work with 10 other designers and only one gets paid? That’s what I call bullshit. I do spec work, but I will get payed for it.

Let me clarify.

I don’t do spec work (and nobody else should either). That is the definition of spec work and an example. If you are getting paid, then you are not doing spec work. You are doing work.

You must have plenty of time to waste if you’re serious about doing spec work. Even if you’re a rookie it’s just a win win for the client who has free stuff to pickup and can even steal your ideas without paying you anything.

xstortionist said
Not sure what you guys consider spec work, but at my last job (3 months ago) we would create spec work all the time for new business pitches and quarterly advertising plans for our clients (over 500 automotive dealerships).

It never hurt out business, it helped the company keep the clients that they had and when we did pitches we would always have the best creative out of the other competition.

Spec work is king when it comes to running a successful advertising business.

My last company we did spec work as well in order to sell the concepts to client leads. We increased sales well over 1 million doing it. We never left specs with clients.

The key is the purpose for spec. is it because a client asks for it? Or are you using it to increase business?

1. If a client asks for spec work, that’s fine if there is payment and documentation showing whom owns the work, limitations and the like.

2. Client who wants spec to see if they will give you the work and you’ve never worked with them before… Forget it.

3. Spec work to gain new business… Absolutely

BrianCoyDesign said

xstortionist said
Not sure what you guys consider spec work, but at my last job (3 months ago) we would create spec work all the time for new business pitches and quarterly advertising plans for our clients (over 500 automotive dealerships).

It never hurt out business, it helped the company keep the clients that they had and when we did pitches we would always have the best creative out of the other competition.

Spec work is king when it comes to running a successful advertising business.

My last company we did spec work as well in order to sell the concepts to client leads. We increased sales well over 1 million doing it. We never left specs with clients.

The key is the purpose for spec. is it because a client asks for it? Or are you using it to increase business?

1. If a client asks for spec work, that’s fine if there is payment and documentation showing whom owns the work, limitations and the like.

2. Client who wants spec to see if they will give you the work and you’ve never worked with them before… Forget it.

3. Spec work to gain new business… Absolutely

Not sure if you’ve ever worked at an exclusive full service Automotive Advertising Agency, but that’s what I did for the past 6 years. Clients didn’t ask for spec work, they expected to see it. If you didn’t come to a quarterly meeting with a minimal of 3 concepts, they are going to go find a different agency that is willing to meet their expectations.

These clients are on what they call a “retainer fee.” They paid us a large sum of money to do their advertising and make sure budgets were hit on a monthly basis. Car dealers are the worst clients you will ever do business with. They think they know everything and when they have a bad month, it’s always your fault, and when they have a good month it’s because their salesman did a good job.

Then again, they would say they were broke, even though the GM just bought a private jet and has over 70 million in the bank.

pezflash said
but of course if you have nothing else, at least is a business opportunity.

In your home corner where you throw your garbage, that’s the place you will find me with the Spaniard local cats eating at night from your garbage,this is the extreme measure i am willing to take before i will work for free pez …. (but it will ever happened )

tsafi said

pezflash said
but of course if you have nothing else, at least is a business opportunity.

In your home corner where you throw your garbage, that’s the place you will find me with the Spaniard local cats eating at night from your garbage,this is the extreme measure i am willing to take before i will work for free pez …. (but it will ever happened )

Sounds promising. In that case i’ll hire you as my personal AS3 coder. You will work for food. Will be fun. Don’t worry, the spaniard local cats are quite friendly.

It’s fantastic to see so many responses here peeps. I’m glad that most of us are against spec work. For newbies in this field, it’s a little hard to understand the evil because I personally have seen so many get carried away just because of the large sums of money promised. They do not consider understanding how things work and when they finally understand it, it’s usually a bit late. Anyways, the more people know about it, the better.

pezflash said

tsafi said

pezflash said
but of course if you have nothing else, at least is a business opportunity.

In your home corner where you throw your garbage, that’s the place you will find me with the Spaniard local cats eating at night from your garbage,this is the extreme measure i am willing to take before i will work for free pez …. (but it will ever happened )

i’ll hire you as my personal AS3 coder.

I don’t think you can afford me

3 more weeks before i am off to Spain again Pez, but you know i am way off from you.

tsafi said
3 more weeks before i am off to Spain again Pez, but you know i am way off from you.

I know you prefer the islands, lonely man. But if have some hours to spend in Madrid between flights knock my inbox to share a beer.