Workers of the world strike back

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!