A new visual identity with crowdSPRING

A few weeks ago, I decided to rebrand and refocus my blog. As I debated on overall site organization and a name, I also decided I wanted a strong visual identity. I heard about crowdSPRING, a “creative marketplace” where buyers submit creative projects and Creatives submit actual designs. I was intrigued with the model for a few reasons: obviously, it’s a form of crowdsourcing: all submissions and the buyer’s feedback are public during the run of the project. As well, as an individual it gave me the opportunity to have a new identity created without having to do the legwork of finding a single agency or designer to work on it.

In the 5 days over Christmas break, I posted my project on crowdSPRING and received 89 submissions for my $150 logo/banner redesign project (some were refinements of other concepts). I went through a few refinements with Jameson McMaster of Cleveland, Ohio before I settled on the new identity for Digital Likeness:

I had heard of crowdSPRING being used by Charlene Li and Rohit Bhargava, and decided to give it a try myself. It wasn’t until after my project was posted that I learned of some of the controversy around the service.

Evidently there is a whole NO!SPEC movement, based on the notion that “spec work devalues the potential of design and ultimately does a disservice to the client”. Spec-(ulative) work requires the designer to devote time and effort to a project with no guarantee of payment.

There are two sides to this issue: one is the idea that people are working (possibly) for free, and the other is that clients are not getting as good a product as they could.

When I was a developer at LexisNexis, I recall hearing of development teams in Argentina who would compete for your business: doing an entire development project in the hopes of being paid. The idea of proving yourself through your work is not unique to the Creative world. Many of the state-side developers feared for their jobs, but those of us who had particular skill sets were not threatened by this competition. The challenge, naturally, is educating a client on the merits of your deliverable such that your relative value will be realized. If you’re good enough, your efforts will be rewarded.

As for the concern for the overall quality for the client deliverable – a single designer working for a $150 logo project may not deliver the comprehensive brand identity that an established design firm would as a result of in-depth research and conceptual work. But sometimes that’s ok – some people just want a pretty logo. As much as I would love for every website to be standards-compliant, cross-browser compatible and accessible, in some cases that simply isn’t what the client values. Again, this is a matter of educating or advising a client as to what best meets their needs.

By the very open nature of the service, crowdSPRING may be a great service for newer Creatives just looking to gain exposure or build their portfolios. I know many companies won’t hire web developer interns, because they need to have a certain skill set prior to entering the workplace. crowdSPRING provides Creatives with a place to cut their teeth and develop their design as well as business skills.

As much as I tried to convince myself that Creatives chose to work with crowdSPRING of their own volition, I still felt some guilt in the cheap labor. After receiving my final files from Jameson, I asked him a few questions on email to get his perspective. When I asked his opinion about the criticism about the service, he acknowledged that crowdSPRING may ultimately hurt some smaller firms. As an individual Creative, however, he had only good things to say about the service:

Crowdspring has benefited me in every way as a designer. It has helped me in the way that I approach a job and execute a job. I can’t say that it benefits me in the work I do at our agency, directly, but it has made me more patient and excepting of criticism.

Crowdspring has expanded my portfolio substantially, logo-wise especially. If most designers are like me, and I think they are, we are always thinking about the next design and/or other ways to be creative. What better way to release that creativity and try to make some money doing it.

Ultimately, I believe that crowdSPRING has also entered an arena not previously served. As an individual running a blog on her own, I would not have sought out a design firm for this work: I believe the cost and effort would have been prohibitive. But by offering a low barrier to entry, crowdSPRING may be potentially introducing a whole new consumer to the design realm. Who is to say that I will not entertain working with an agency on my next design project?

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