Well—this is timely. In my post Tuesday about how
companies turn to crowdsourcing
for creative work, particularly design and what they call “content” (meaning,
you know, words that tell their story), I did not touch on one dirty little
fact.
Well, perhaps dirtier, seeing as to how it’s dirty
enough that corporations (and, actually, federal agencies) go to great
lengths to extract the lowest possible price from their creative vendors.
(In the case of the feds, they actually have the
chutzpah to open “design contests”, inviting designers to spend scores of hours
designing departmental logos for risible “prize money” and the glory of being
able to say that you designed the logo. E.g., Department
of Interior last year put out the call for a new logo; total available:
$1000. You should have heard the discussions on my various tech downloads on
that when some woman posted the “great opportunity” to the list. Professional
design guilds estimated that the job was worth $20K-$50K, approximately the
amount of money the GSA paid for one breakfast at their recent
taxpayer-funded Vegas bacchanal. One large wouldn’t even have bought
cocktail napkins for one of their many team-building activities.)
Okay, so as if expecting people with years of
training and experience, not to mention God-given talent to provide you with
highly creative, professional branding material, that’s going to tell your corporate
story at a single glance, for a fee that amounts to an hourly rate below
minimum wage isn’t enough of a Scrooge for you, client companies often…just don’t
even pay the niggardly amount they agreed to.
It’s appallingly easy to screw designers, developers and “content” creators. Take their work and just stop replying to their
emails or taking their calls. And as for writing a check—fuggedaboutit.
For most of us, the only recourse is bad client
ratings on the crowdsourcing site and small claims court. But here’s a
designer who took the street-justice route. Here's what you see if you go to the offending website:
Evidently the client is in financial straits and there’s
no one around to try to take back the site. Their difficulties are so great
that perhaps they never will.
But it’s a lovely site to see someone from the
corporate “job creators” class named and shamed.
Power to the people!
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