Comments on: Why CrowdSpring Owners Should Be Ashamed of Their Business

By: crowd spring is ghetto

crowd spring is ghetto — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:59:09 +0000

I certainly can’t agree with the cS business model. But if grandma in tennessee wants to get paid a few dollars for her designs I guess that is her choice. If a stay at home mom wants to start a business and doesn’t have the money for a real identity, well then who are we to tell her she can’t. A real designer charges much more than $200 for a logo. But a real designer/client relationship is built on information and trust. A real identity is crafted over weeks not days. Not a lame excuse for a creative brief. I am very curious to see how many cS customers are still using their logo a year from now. Most people hold up apple and target as brand gods. These business models are centered around design and that is what is making them successful even in a recession. Also, most of the creative participants on cS are in countries where $200 is a lot of money – that makes a huge difference in the risk. For the most part it seems to me that it is people with bad taste designing for people with bad taste. Just my 2¢.

By: The Boy Next Door

The Boy Next Door — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:41:44 +0000

crowdSpring is the way of the future.

As Flash drive replaced the Floppy disk. So as cS will replace the traditional design business model.

By: Jared

Jared — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:54:03 +0000

Abso-freak’n'-lutely.

By: John

John — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:04:05 +0000

While there are some problems with crowdSPRING I don’t agree that it’s really hurting design firms much.

I have a degree in graphic design and I have worked for a design company which I loved but had to leave for family reasons. Due to the the economy I have “almost had” 2 other design jobs…several call backs and we love your stuff but then both companies laid off all their employees then shut their doors.

So for me…..I use crowdSPRING as my creative outlet. I am fortunate enough to be employed right now. I am also fortunate that I like my job….and even more fortunate that I have a lot of downtime in which I can participate on crowdSPRING. I have been fortunate enough to win a few. To me…I know I am taking a chance on not getting paid for my designs….but actually I am getting paid anyways by my current employer. Now, that might be a whole other ethical debate but doing something creative to me is better than doing nothing at all which happens in my line of work. You are either slammed or you’re waiting on the work to come in. When it’s slow I get to create some pretty cool stuff.

crowdSPRING isn’t perfect but it has helped me with a creative outlet. I have obtained and developed some relationships with clients for further freelance work.

I think there are three divisions of creatives on crowdspring. The people who God bless ‘em just suck…and have no business being a designer. There’s another group of people that have tinkered with Photoshop and Illustrator and can turn out a decent to good design now and again. Then there are the people with a design education and people that obviously put a lot of thought and effort into the designs…asking the buyers questions about target market and how they are going to use the designs etc. I believe I fall into the latter category.

Let creatives create. It’s not perfect but it’s worked out well for a lot of buyers and a lot of creatives so far.

Don’t hate…participate. My wife says that….I think it’s from some cheerleader movie. I can’t believe I just quoted a cheerleader movie.

By: Kreatiph

Kreatiph — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:24:05 +0000

rowdSPRING rocks. Why don’t you admit that you are afraid and angry at crowdSPRING for ripping clients from you? That is the real reason concealed behind a load of professionalism crap. I completely hate this. I believe degrees, or any of that crap are NOTHING. Someone somewhere can do things that you guys with your degrees and professionalism can’t. Check out http://www.innocentive.com/ . That is a good example of how rookies find solutions to problems that even PhD’s can’t find. Not that i mean PhD’s are wrong, on the contrary it is good. What i mean is that ANYBODY can be Creative, Inventive. Even grannies.

By the way, i am also a Creative at crowdSPRING and i just joined. Believe me i got so much inspiration from it and learnt so much than i could have learnt from design courses.

Their is just one thing: Jealousness, Envy at crowdSPRING. Eat your ego and let crowdSPRING help out people like us.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:40:49 +0000

The design of company logos should be left to the professionals, as they have to last the life of the company as their branding identity.

By: falci

falci — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:20:10 +0000

I think crowdspring is great,because it gives the Tennessee grandma a chance… and it also gives a chance to people like Audree, and well,I think it’s great. (I’m also a creative at crowdspring. I’m not good,I just like doing stuff like this,so it’s fun. I don’t see why it would hurt anyone.) Maybe some “true” designers are jealous and irritated just because it can turn out that a talented grandma can easily take their jobs. Not with the pro skills,I know.

By: Alan

Alan — Mon, 25 May 2009 17:23:28 +0000

I dont think you'll ever get by the legal aspect of people ripping off designs for the contests. I thinks its just a case of alot of hard work with regards to the screening, which might so much work thats its not practical. Alan's last blog post..elottery syndicate is now free to join

By: ProjectCenter

ProjectCenter — Sat, 09 May 2009 20:46:40 +0000

I certainly can understand the threat that something like CrowdSpring offers, especially on a margin degradation level. On the other hand, this model of business is nothing new, and I believe designers can over come this. Just take the printing business as an example. Everyone had their own print shop and it was mainly a local business model. In a short period of time, clients and designers started bidding out projects, looking for the lowest price. Then came the VistaPrints of the world. In both cases, time always tells the truth, and people realize the shortcomings of such outfits and practices. ProjectCenter's last blog post..The Lost Art Of Typography

By: Smarter Than Your Average Bear

Smarter Than Your Average Bear — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:35:17 +0000

I have done work on CrowdSpring and it’s better than other spec sites in the fact you get the impression that they actually try to listen to the users who frequent their site. or should we call that the illusion of!

Anyone that designs on these sort of sites has to have rocks in their head if they enjoy it. The whole premiss is utterly evil and i completely agree that most buyers have little or know clue about what logo would be good for their business and choose designs that are typically a dime a dozen web 2.0 garbage.

Now if they had hired a decent designer then this would not happen because the designer/firm would do there appropriate searches to make sure that their wasn’t a similar logo in existence in the same field .e.t.c

Back to crowdspring. The contests are flooded with Idea theft and what’s trendy in Web 2.0. Not to mention you get the luxury of getting blown off by the contest holder with absolutely no feedback or you get really lucky and get a contest holder that has designed there previous version of their logo in MS Word from clip art and is your worlds greatest cheerleader and critique.

I get at least 10 private messages a week at these sort of sites asking to enter submissions. ‘We love your work please submit something’.

At first it was flattering that my work was enjoyed but then it started to get annoying and now all i can think is if you like my work so much then have a little respect for me and offer me the work and stop being so greedy.

The prices are cheap at these sites and the contest holders have a bunch of people running around spooning them for the win. These sites are ok for mom and pops business but I’m frequently seeing large corporations that really should know better using these sites. The only people that benefit from this is the sites themselves. For the people participating, its a gamble and nothing more.