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John Scarrott and the Design Business Association thought it would be interesting to get a client’s perspective on free pitching, so asked Tom Foulkes, marketing director of Peter Brett Associates, about how he buys design expertise.

“Fundamentally, we believe the creative pitch is commercially toxic and is a tradition the marketing profession can do without. Commercially toxic may sound a little over the top but here are some of the potential hidden consequences of the creative pitch that can have a negative impact on a business, post decision.”

Read about the consequences (and about Tom’s preferred method for buying design) over on the Design Business Association website.

Joe Rinaldi, VP of business development at Happy Cog, wrote an excellent article aimed at design clients about how spec work doesn’t just threaten the design businesses that take part, it threatens the clients’ companies and their projects, too.

“Each time agencies pre-invest in spec work, they mortgage their organizations on winning the work and the payment that will follow. Because their sales process includes unpaid design and development work before a project is officially “won,” the pressure is on the person in a business development position to “sell the creative.” If the work goes unsold, agencies operate at a deficit — one that increases as they continue to lose spec-work-driven pitches. Staff are often overtaxed having to create pitch work on top of a regular workload, which can contribute to more frequent staff turnover (another risk to your project).”

Read Joe’s full post here: War on Spec, on the Happy Cog blog.

DA&D’s past President Mike Dempsey shared his thoughts on the recent speech given to young design graduates by D&AD chairman Dick Powell. Mike Dempsey said:

“This attitude dovetails into the alarming increase in free pitching that now runs throughout our industry, from the smallest to the most prestigious firms. Every company that embraces this and the acceptance of unpaid work for graduates is devaluing the worth of what we do. Powell’s active recommendation of ‘working for free’ simply adds to the view that what we all do is pretty low-grade, worthless stuff. A very sad state of affairs to hear this communicated by D&AD.”

[…]

“For what it’s worth, my recommendation to any design graduate is to refuse to work for nothing. And while pursuing job prospects, keep active by initiating your own projects to keep the creative muscles sharp. When I first started out, I would visit bookshops, pinpoint badly designed covers and in my spare time at home I would redesign them. That act eventually led to a job. A paid job.

“Don’t give up: believe in yourself.”

Read the full article on Mike Dempsey’s Graphic Journey Blog.

Past D&AD President Mike Dempsey, photo via johnson banks

Lisa Barrett of Birmingham-based Sixth Story published the studio’s experience of speculative design, where the “pitches” they ultimately lost ended up looking very similar to the designs that were actually used.

“We produced some branding work, name generation and packaging concepts for a start up business in order for them to secure funding and investment to take a product to market. We agreed that if the product was successful in going into the production stage we would be the sole design agency and all work done to that date would be billable.

“It turned out that wasn’t to be the case and in fact our initial brand and product packaging ideas would be taken to the manufacturer for their in house designers to work with, and we wouldn’t be paid.

“A month or so later we find our work featuring on the website of the individual, with no accreditation or mention of our contribution. They even took our ideas and found themselves on a well known BBC programme.”

Sixth Story design work

Read the full post on the Sixth Story blog: The dangers of speculative design.

Via @MatDolphin.