Hello! You may have arrived here via Google, or a link on someone else’s site.
Unfortunately I don’t blog much anymore so I’ve removed these pages from the main navigation. You’re welcome to read all you like, though. Use the search box below to look through posts, or dig through the archives here. You can also check out my Tumblr blog instead: http://luclatulippe.tumblr.com/.
Jul 19 2006
Unfinanced Entrepreneurs
Big thanks to Leif Peng for his post in Today's Inspiration regarding spec work. It seems that since the No!Spec site went live a few months back, it has really opened up discussion about the topic, and this, as Martha would say, is a good thing.
For those of you who don't know, "spec work" would be a project that a creative professional (such as a writer, an illustrator, a musician, etc...) gets asked to do for free ("on spec"), usually with the promise of either possible future riches, or shares in the company, or because "you might get noticed and get paying work out of it!"
I can't stress enough to any beginning commerical artist how utterly futile and pointless spec work is to you and your career. Not "can be" or "might be," but "is." You can argue all you want, but any one of us who's been around long enough and who has fallen prey to this kind of crap will tell you: Don't do it. Don't let people treat your work as though it has no value, and don't be wooed by empty promises of possible super-stardom. You can't pay your rent with that crap.
I'm not talking about personal projects you choose to do for free, or if you are choosing to volunteer your skills for a non-profit. In both those cases, you are choosing to do the work, and you ARE getting something out of it. It's not money, but it's something meaningful to YOU. In the end, that's what's most important.
Leif's post also provides a link to this wonderful article by writer Mark Evanier about working on spec. In his article, Evanier refers to "Unfinanced Entrepreneurs" and defines such people as:
How do these con-artists keep popping up? Partly because we fuel their beliefs every time one of us agrees to their terms and accepts work from them. We are basically telling them that we feel our work has no value. Mark elaborates:
It's a long article, but it's really worth reading.
For those of you who don't know, "spec work" would be a project that a creative professional (such as a writer, an illustrator, a musician, etc...) gets asked to do for free ("on spec"), usually with the promise of either possible future riches, or shares in the company, or because "you might get noticed and get paying work out of it!"
I can't stress enough to any beginning commerical artist how utterly futile and pointless spec work is to you and your career. Not "can be" or "might be," but "is." You can argue all you want, but any one of us who's been around long enough and who has fallen prey to this kind of crap will tell you: Don't do it. Don't let people treat your work as though it has no value, and don't be wooed by empty promises of possible super-stardom. You can't pay your rent with that crap.
I'm not talking about personal projects you choose to do for free, or if you are choosing to volunteer your skills for a non-profit. In both those cases, you are choosing to do the work, and you ARE getting something out of it. It's not money, but it's something meaningful to YOU. In the end, that's what's most important.
Leif's post also provides a link to this wonderful article by writer Mark Evanier about working on spec. In his article, Evanier refers to "Unfinanced Entrepreneurs" and defines such people as:
"(...) people who are attempting to put together a movie/TV show/comic book/strip/video game (pick one) — but not in the way that real producers or publishers do this. Real producers and publishers have money or access to money. That's what they bring to the table.
Unfinanced entrepreneurs don't have any money — or, if they do, they're not dumb enough to risk it on their own projects. They want you to assume the risk.
They want you to take their little idea — their project, not yours — and flesh it out, jazz it up, draw it out, or otherwise turn it into something that they can go out and sell. (They also have few — usually, no — credits in the field they're looking to get into. You're going to help them do that, too.)
How do these con-artists keep popping up? Partly because we fuel their beliefs every time one of us agrees to their terms and accepts work from them. We are basically telling them that we feel our work has no value. Mark elaborates:
Unfinanced Entrepreneurs exist because of a fiction about creative people, so widely believed that even some of us writers and artists accept it. The fiction is that writing and drawing are not assets... they are things we whip up out of thin air and which cost nothing to create. If someone steals your work from you, you can always bat out another for nothing.
If you believe this, it's your right, but you do our profession a grave disservice. Every time someone tramples on our work — ruins it, changes it, mauls it, damages it — it's because they have no respect for it. And, generally speaking, they have no respect for that which cost them nothing.
They think writers and artists "just knock it out" but we don't...not really. And even when it seems like we do, it's because of a lifetime of developing whatever skills we bring to each project. My best pal, Sergio Aragonés, once was selling some sketches he'd done. A browser was interested in one but blanched at the hundred-buck price tag.
"How long did it take you to draw that?" he asked.
"About a half-hour," Sergio answered.
The man was horrified: "You expect me to pay you a hundred dollars for a half-hour's work?"
Sergio showed uncommon restraint — at least for Sergio. He calmly said, "You're not paying for the half-hour it took me to do the drawing. You're paying for the forty-one years it took me to learn how to do that."
It's a long article, but it's really worth reading.
5 Comments
4 years ago
Thanks for spreading the word, Luc - there’s a lot to digest on the subject, all of it turning up the heat on my already simmering blood. While I’ve been fairly adept at turning down spec-work for years (I usually fling my own chestnut back at them with the old “have you ever tried to pay your rent with exposure?”), I still manage to run into its attendant off-shoots like the surprise spec project. You know the kind; the kind that sounds like paying work until you’ve done the job, sent off the invoice, and then realize weeks later that you haven’t been paid.
There are always good and bad cycles in commercial art, I find, but I’ve been going through a lot of crap lately and it’s thoroughly sapping. I could go on about “super busy” art directors, lousy contracts, and chasing down owed loot, but the recent deadbeat antics of a certain ad agency - yes, AD AGENCY - has proven to be the rotten cherry on my dirt sundae and now I’m just sitting by the window playing with string. Pretty, pretty string.
——-
4 years ago
Luc, great article. I am barely a designer and have done numerous projects “on spec” and wow,you are right, it always ends up with me getting the shaft. Even a small project can take hours of work and no one wants to pay for it. Everyone wants something amazing for little-to-nothing. I used to do blog design on the side, now I have become so tired of people and their expectations for the amount that they are willing to pay that I just give up. I only design now for friends and myself. Thanks for the No Spec site link. I plan to add a link to my site today and to add a post to further the awareness. It is hard to put a price on creativity - but for crying out loud, one needs to be put on it and it needs to be paid!
4 years ago
I feel your pain guys, and I’m sorry to hear you’ve had so many shitty experiences. The best thing we can do is spread the word, and tell people what your experiences have been. Even if you do run into one person who claims to have gained a ton of jobs and money from doing spec work, the truth is that that person is probably one in a 1000. Or higher. Though it’s not impossible to gain work and money through spec, or to do spec work that pays off later because the client really was on-the-level, it’s also not impossible to be hit by lightning. By this I mean: the odds are against you no matter what. You are better of focussing on your own free projects, rather than spec work.
4 years ago
Thanks for posting this, Luc.
Being fresh-out-of-school (6 months…?) I’ve already begun to notice how little some people appreciate and aknowledge the time and work that goes into our art.
Also, its amazing how many designers are willing to accept work for such little amounts of money. (Recently saw a posting for an entire identity package to be done…“Will pay $15 for your time.”) And its people that continue to do this kind of work that cheapens our value. Why would a company needing design work pay someone a designer his/her full rate when they can easily get someone else to do the same amount of work for $5?
4 years ago
Thanks for posting this, Luc.
Being fresh-out-of-school (6 months…?) I’ve already begun to notice how little some people appreciate and aknowledge the time and work that goes into our art.
Also, its amazing how many designers are willing to accept work for such little amounts of money. (Recently saw a posting for an entire identity package to be done…”Will pay $15 for your time.”) And its people that continue to do this kind of work that cheapens our value. Why would a company needing design work pay a designer his/her full rate when they can easily get someone else to do the same amount of work for $5?
(5) Comments