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http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/316945.page

That post is an outrageous exploitation of young people with limited business acumen and enthusiasm to see their designs used. Tunnel Rat should have gotten paid a lot more for his graphic design work.

Of course its common for companies to do this kind of thing for designs and photography because it saves them a ton of money. But no one can survive on the terrible income paid by these kinds of jobs. And they are jobs.

If you want to work as a graphic artist then demand a wage you can survive on. If you need graphic design you should hire a designer after looking over their portfolio, not hold a contest to pay bottom dollar for someones hard work under the guise of a contest.

Most likely the people who are graphic designers or artists by profession will not be looking into this anyway as they know what their time and skills are worth.

The people who entered it are most likely just regular people who experiment every now and then with Photoshop and took the chance to win some prizes for a little work.

Chill out, if they didn't want to enter because they thought they were being under valued they probably didn't enter.

Most likely doesn't cut it, that is not what's happening.

A legitimate job like this, includes a promise of future contract work.

As it is it's basically damaging the graphic arts business by putting downward pressure on prices so people can't survive as graphic artists.

If you were aware of the situation on a scale larger than this one contest you might understand my objections.

Its a contest.
People who enter it are more than aware of whats involved in every aspect of it.
You should also understand that winter has a very valid point.
You dont have to be a graphic designer to enter, you simply have to know how to use a computer to a decent degree.
So no, not everyone who enters is a graphic designer, and there for does not qualify for the money of one.

Now, if it advertised for graphic designers only, then it would be on the harsh side, but no one would enter if that was a problem to them.
But alas, it is not.

So, please enlighten us as to why you have taken such offence to this contest.

rdlb wrote:Most likely doesn't cut it, that is not what's happening.

A legitimate job like this, includes a promise of future contract work.

As it is it's basically damaging the graphic arts business by putting downward pressure on prices so people can't survive as graphic artists.

If you were aware of the situation on a scale larger than this one contest you might understand my objections.

I really don't think that any of the entrants were/are Graphic Designers by profession, and if they are, as I said before I imagine they would have weighed up the reward from possibly winning the "Contest" against the time it would take them to produce an entry that they were happy with.

As for downward pressure on prices on Graphic arts, there are other more important things (Torrents of Photoshop + other design programs, I rate up there. There are many people who do photo manipulation and other graphic work purely because they enjoy it (not for their profession), some of these people have fantastic talent and skills and this number increases daily as more and more practice and gain experience, that applies more pressure than a single contest on a Wargaming forum. Oh you also run into market saturation, at one stage every arty person pretty much wanted to enter Graphic design, now as there are so many competitors ina relatively closed market (meaning you all offer a similar product) you need to differentiate yourself in some way or another, PRICE generally gets changed first for this differentiation.) putting downward pressure on the graphics art industry than a contest for a single business logo for a currently not open business, that probably in the end won't be much larger than the LGS (No offence intended towards Empchild, I hope his/her business runs well.)

In the end if you are concerned about the situation of the Graphic Design industry on a larger scale, maybe it is a time for a career change? Or more interestingly you could enter yourself, score a prize worth $200 for maybe half an hour work and like most others think that wasn't a bad half hour spent.

Looks like a freakin' awesome contest to me...

Calm down. The contest gave someone an opportunity to show off some of their skills and given them an addition to their portfolio. Have you never under priced yourself to get exposure? When I started I sure as hell did. It built my portfolio and landed me better jobs.

Graphic arts is more or less screwed anyway. The rise of DIYers with photoshop will kill us. Yesterday in traffic I sat dumbfounded at two pieces of clip art, one on top of the other use as a logo; A tree on top of an anvil.

I've dealt with a lack of respect my entire career. Most people don't understand our business, and balk at the price tag. They like to look at the pretty pictures, but never pay for them. If your lucky enough to make a living off art, good for you. Respect on the other hand, only comes after your dead for artists.

So I assume the OP entered and didn't win then?

Crimson, the community isn't doomed, and no I have never under priced myself for exposure. That sets up the customer to think you are cheap to hire, so basically you're pricing yourself out of business from the get go.

I'm also dumbfounded by the GD and Photography that passes as legitimate. I charge a good amount and can explain to the customer what I bring to the table for that amount. There is a great book called 'better business practices for photographers' by John Harrington, and almost all of it applies to graphic design business.

He basically gives you an outline for solving the problems of people's perceptions of your value and costs, among a million other things.
If you're working for yourself check it out. I'm a photographer, (and no I didn't enter the contest Mr. Mystery Troll) but the designers I work with all use his books ideas as well.

I'm calm now...

So you avoid the price at all costs then?
True, the company has forked out $100, but the designer actually got $200 in value (as he/she wouldnt get this discount)

So $200 for half an hours work isnt bad.
Infact, if i could do half hours work a day for a week i'd be happy at that price.

Granted, expertise does have a price, but how can you value such a thing?
There is no current item to date in which you can measure someones skill.

Also, prices will allways be undercut to get work.
Doesent matter what job you do, it happens everywhere.





So, can you now let us know why this topic has kicked you soo hard in the nuts?
Seems you have a gripe with it pretty bad, and your skipping around it with your posts.

JACK--read what I already wrote

I guess it was my mistake to bring this up in a gaming forum instead of a Graphic Design forum.
Thanks.

rdlb wrote:If you want to work as a graphic artist then demand a wage you can survive on.

or offer to do work for FREE to just to get good exposure.

So what if you undercut the "professionals", and drive their wages down - it's not like you're getting paid anyways, so who cares?

Or maybe it's just fun, and that's payment enough.

So what, you rant for a bit, realise no one will agree then decide we dont have valid comments anymore?
In which case, why post it here in the 1st place?

rdlb wrote:As it is it's basically damaging the graphic arts business by putting downward pressure on prices so people can't survive as graphic artists

@OP: Nobody owes you a job, or a wage, much less a "good" wage. You *earn* it.


Graphic artists are a dime a dozen, just like aspiring models and aspiring singers and aspiring actresses.

Be thankful if you have the talent, skills, and determination to make it a living.

But don't bemoan the bottom trying to stick out from the crowd.

For Artists, it's free advertising when you win a comp of any sort. I was at a speech some graphic designers had at my college back in August, one of was saying that she applied for them whenever she could, because it's exposure to your work. The more exposure your work gets, the bigger chance someone who is looking for something like it. It also looks good on ye olde resume.

Meh. It's just another "Feel like you're a graphic designer" contest.

There's even worse stuff out there, done by our industry. Like going to design schools and giving them a solid 3 weeks to work on something that your agency fails at (and of course not really giving anything back). I have a ton of horror stories about things like that from my two years.

The contest could've been even worse. It could have been a "promise" to work with their other promotion material later on (something that rarely happen). And added a "If you wanna do letterheads and stuff please add them to your zip-file".

But for the most part these contests are made up by people that wouldnt ever pay for what a graphic designer brings to the table anyways. So it's not like the clueless people doing clipart+photoshop stuff in the wild are suffering. Some of them might even like what they've done and want to know more about this "graphic design" business. And presto... a new student.

Now I'm off to do what -real-designers/typographers do. Making Office-templates for a major compnany so they'll be better at communicating their core values to their customers. God I hate Office templates... >_<

Thanks for the book tip. Im gonna pick that one up when I'm in town again.

I'm fairly sure the 'contest' was described as just that - a contest and as such, everything was CLEARLY laid out.

It was entirely 100% voluntary.

Unless I missed something?

Another way of looking at this is that someone could now put this in their portfolio and be able to point to something that was chosen AND is used for a new business.

Plus, they won some stuff too.

So...

۞ Jack ۞ wrote:So what, you rant for a bit, realise no one will agree then decide we dont have valid comments anymore?
In which case, why post it here in the 1st place?

Lots of people will agree with him, there's just nothing constructive about having the discussion here.
There's not a great deal of point in trying to win over a chartered accountant in Boston who plays 40k to the issue of work-for-hire contracts and other issues plaguing the industry that dilute the value of work.

Ordo Dakka wrote:Looks like a freakin' awesome contest to me...

You would say that...

and as a fellow Aussie, Im inclined to agree... Im not designer or artist, but if something I mock up on Photoshop or similar can earn em a few extra dollars, Im in.

However, anyone with some business acumen can then contact the company in question for future contracts if they are serious about your work.

rdlb wrote:
Tunnel Rat should have gotten paid a lot more for his graphic design work.

Based upon what? Graphical design has no innate value. It's worth what the market will bear. In this case, the sponsor offered a price, it was found to be an acceptable price (as there were entries) and the transaction was happily concluded. Free market in action.

Ouze wrote:

rdlb wrote:
Tunnel Rat should have gotten paid a lot more for his graphic design work.

Based upon what? Graphical design has no innate value. It's worth what the market will bear. In this case, the sponsor offered a price, it was found to be an acceptable price (as there were entries) and the transaction was happily concluded. Free market in action.

Yeah, that's it in a nutshell.

Much as there are different tiers of design ability, there are different levels of acceptable pay. Someone who has proven their ability to be worth top money is not likely to look at a low-paying gig. However that same "rip-off" seems great to someone who hasn't earned that kind of recognition. Almost nobody enters a field and immediately demands top dollar without being laughed out of their respective industry, and this is especially true in the arts.

I see no problem here. Plus art is well known for absolute crap getting insane amount of money where people with real skill are scraping by. This is the situation for most to all arts.

If you feel you are being underpaid for the work you done in the contest then don't enter a contest that doesnt have a good enough prize - and think of all they people that put in their work and got nothing.

I know what your point is, but I am a pro with my own business, and still submitted. It took me literally 5 minutes to design the submission, and the prize was worth 5 minutes of my pro time.

Hiring a designer and paying them peanuts for skilled work is wrong. Having a volunatry contest where people elect to submit work is completely fine.

MajorTom11 wrote: Hiring a designer and paying them peanuts for skilled work is wrong. Having a volunatry contest where people elect to submit work is completely fine.

Any designer who accepts a low-paying job gets what he deserves. It's not like the buyer somehow held a gun to the designer's head. If the job pays badly, the designer is always free to accept any higher-paying job that's available.

Absolutely, I don't disagree. The problem with design and other creative careers is that most clients have no idea what's involved, either in terms of skill, study or expertise. A lot of people think it is just 'drawing' or that the computer somehow does it for you at the push of a button.

There are also a glut of people out there calling themselves designers because they fiddled with photoshop for 15 minutes one weekend. And they can get away with it too, because clients often can't tell the difference between pro work and what my circle lovingly calls 'basement designers' as they simply don't have the eye, education or experience to understand what high quality work is either.

There aren't many other fields other than creative ones where you can just arbitrarily decide to be professional. Im a writer. Im a designer. Im a photographer. Im a painter. That can be pulled off at a whim, at least to get 1 job lol. Not so much with other stuff like I'm a financial advisor, Im a fireman or shockingly enough, even Im a taxi driver.

Real designers have to compete with these fakes, and unless you are lucky or part of a larger company, getting people to understand that the faux designer that is charging them 20% of what you asked is a bad idea can be pretty tough. I am lucky as I have been lucky enough to cultivate corporate clients like reebok, who understand the difference. I have seen a lot of my former classmates and colleagues get out of the design business alltogether after being unable to find smaller clients willing to pay anywhere near a professional fee, they make more money managing a blockbuster than designing for smalltime jobs. This is directly because of unnatural competition from unqualified people. That is why many designers who strike out on their own are forced to take low paying jobs, there isnt much of a middle ground anymore. There are cheap jobs where you compete with young, uneducated freelancers who will work almost for free because they still live at home, or huge jobs that only a bigger agency can get (usually).

That being said, the contest in question got what it asked for, an amateur logo. The guy didn't get a marketing agency level piece of work, nor did he expect one. No one, including myself, put a professional level of work into their submissions from what I saw. To me the contest was fair in it's prize vs the work asked, plus the voluntary nature of it.

So some guy who knew what he was doing decided to do this in his spare time. Big whoop. The original poster gave exact, and clear definitions of the contest in the original post. Obviously, Tunnel Rat was not looking on dakka for an actual job (at least I hope not....). and this was done voluntarily in his own spare time. I personally liked the design, as it was simple enough to be used in many different situations, detailed enough to give an idea of what they do, and not too gritty or obscure.

@MT11: well put. The only thing I'd add is that the guy probably couldn't have afforded a marketing agency-level job, even if he wanted one. For a small shop, he got something that's "good enough" and within his budget - that's a win all around.

I just reread the op, and I'm wondering, where in the contest's rules/guidelines did it promise future work? I read no such thing, and it appeared to be a one-time contest, to be entered voluntarily. And, yes, you're right, you should go rant on a forum where people will agree and echo what you've already said. Note the number of threads on this site for hating on GW, except some people will defend GW.

Yup as long as EmpChild is happy then it's a total win! Don't get me wrong. I just dont agree with the original poster that EmpChilds contest took advantage of anyone, or was somehow unfair. Everyone entered, had fun, and a deserving winner took home a nice prize. no harm, no foul.

I have some sympathy with the OP, though I disagree with his specific attack on the contest promoter and entrants.

There isn't an unfair exploitation if you offer a prize and people volunteer to compete for it.