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When Saying No Politely Gets You In the Door
Dear NO!SPEC, Just wanted to share a recent email exchange I had with a prospective employer who asked candidates to do a test design on a new project. I liberally stole and altered sections from an article posted on your site: “Why Speculation Hurts,” by Robert Wurth. I’ve taken out the name of the company…
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The SDGQ Denounces Speculative Work
La SDGQ nonce le travail specculatif The article is in French. Below is the babelfish translation into English. The Company of the graphic designers of Quebec (SDGQ) officially gave an opinion against speculative work, not remunerated. According to it, the companies should not need to see creative proposals to choose a studio; or they should,…
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Roger C Parker on NO!SPEC
Are you giving your designs away for free? … tens of thousands of designers invest hundreds of thousands of hours each year in speculative work that either fails to create a client, or–worse–discourages the designer when their work is appropriated by others without any compensation whatsoever. Do your fellow designers a favor by alerting them…
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Speak Up and New York’s High Priority
A personal opinion Fueled by passion for the design industry, a group of designers started the NO!SPEC campaign. Been there, done that, it was our aim to educate young designers about the dangers of working on spec. We wanted to help designers avoid getting ripped off in spec situations. We wanted to educate about working…
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Veerle says “Free of charge please!”
Reading through the NO!SPEC stats, I noticed Veerle comes out with a word or three. The purpose of creative pitches are to give clients a better understanding of the creative capacity of the selected agencies. To me it is a lame excuse to not browse around in the portfolios and let someone else do the…
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suit 101 on NO!SPEC
Spec Work Hurts Graphic Designers Clients want free work and ideas. As a creative professional you should just say NO! About a year ago I was asked to bid on creating the design work for a magazine for a small liberal arts college. … We really like your work, they say, but we’d like to…
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The Stapler on NO!SPEC
Dear Prospective Client I understand your apprehension. I really do. Hiring an independent writer – or programmer, or graphic designer, or anyone else – can at first seem to be a scary enterprise. There’s a bunch of us out there, and no one wants to make a bad decision. Both time and money are at…
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fadtastic on NO!SPEC
From fadtastic: They have given over ideas that have not been completed under contract and could be used or could influence the client without them having to pay a penny and also they have condoned this whole approach by partaking in the first place! Why do we accept this approach ladies and gents? Why do…
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Pig Work on NO!SPEC
From Pig Work: The fact is if big fat wallets want to get five of us monkeys dancing on the chance one will get some money then it’s not a healthy situation for anyone. It devalues the designers and means when you do speculative work and don’t pull the contract you not only don’t get…
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Icograda on NO!SPEC
NO!SPEC would like to take this opportunity to thank Icograda’s Director, Brenda Sanderson for including the NO!SPEC launch in the Icograda Email News that went out to their members spread over the globe. Icograda, the International Council of Graphic Design Associations is a heavy supporter of the fight against spec in the design industry, and…
