Crowdsourcing
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- maikel0
I should not spend time adding myself to the queue of people lecturing a post from a fellow that sounds like some of the 20 y/o students that think they are the coolest thing in the world for using photoshop and would shit on their pants only from seeing more than £10,000 on an invoice... but here I go.
When working for the public sector there is always money poorly spent but, just to clarify, you don't 'crowdsource'. There is something called public tender, and is mandatory for most of the high profile projects (at least in uk, but mostly worldwide).
There is a short-listing process, when you shrink your number of possible companies from MANY to a FEW.
Then you have a pre-qualification process where people submit proposals AND plenty of documents (i.e. 'stuff' like showing your company has relevant experience, is financially sound, etc) to qualify.
Then, if qualifying, there are strict evaluation rules, in which is specified the criteria of awarding points. Usually cost is one of the most important items, and it could drive a tender entirely.
ONLY THEN you send your submission. You need to work upfront but you are ensured that you won't be 1 in 100,000 options but in 4 or 5, and you will be told who wins and why. You can also litigate if you believe your submission has not been fairly assessed, and you take that risk voluntarily.
Companies after half a million or a few millions take the risk.
This above is what happens in the world I live.
This '400k for a logo' is a bloody fairytale manipulated by some media cunt who was envious of seeing money going elsewhere than his pocket. Although the results are not the best, I'm sure there is though and effort enough for justifying that bill.
Note: I do NOT like the Olympics' logo.
- BaskerviIle0
Crowdsourcing as a concept is a great idea and works well for collaborative processes. Look at open source code.
The likes of firefox, wikipedia etc. all create by big groups of people and refined over time.What they did not do is let 1000s of people submit browser designs and code and pick the one they liked the most. No, it was a collaborative process that slowly built and refined a browser.
That is very different from crowd sourcing graphic design, especially branding.
The first thing to note is that branding is NOT drawing a logo. The logo is often the last part to be finalised. I work for a large international branding consultancy. When you hire branding experts you get a number of things:
Business insight – yes we actually have people who understand business, have MBAs and have studied finance etc. we advise blue chip companies about how to improve their businesses. Business strategy is not logos.
Analysis and strategy – we analyse the market, the competitors and find ways to stand out from the crowd, differentiate with ideas.
We design a brand not a logo. Everything is done for a reason, from choice of colour, photographic style, overall look and feel, tone of voice, use of sound, movement, an appropriate user interface.
The logo is the summation of all of the above. So if you crowd source just a logo, you not only miss out on 99% of what a real branding project should be, you also employ an amateur who has no idea about your company and what it should stand for.
Brand design needs to be a coherent set of ideas and arguments that inform every aspect of the company (we even run staff training programs for companies we rebrand). it cannot be done by those with no prior knowledge of the client.
To take 2012 as an example. Wolff Olins designed the brand, and you can be sure they worked on that project for a long time before you ever saw the final logo.
£400,000 is a small price to pay for a large international brand. I imagine the team would have consisted of between 5 and 8 people plus freelancers. that budget of 400k plays for client managers, designers, creative director, artworkers, strategists etc.
They're all probably charged out at from £200 to around £1000 a day. so as a team might cost as much as £5000 a day to run. So that might be 4 months of work.
That how much it costs, everyone has to earn a living. I personally think £400k is a great deal.
The 2012 logo is distinctive and memorable, it feels fresh compared to all the bland brush-stroke style olympic logos that went before:I'm talking about these:
I think the sydney one is one of the worst ever and yet there wasn't a big fuss about that!
now compare these, so fresh and different. London really stands out as creative and modern:
And, as to crowdsourcing an olympics logo, this is the tripe that you get when you ask the public to do logos:
http://www.fubra.com/london2012/…
One other thing. If you crowd source graphic design, then you might 100 people spending 5 hours working on their entry. but you only pick on design. Which means 495 hours wasted by those who didn't win. Not exactly the most efficient way of working.
- PIZZA0
Any designer suggesting crowd sourcing as a branding solution at this level clearly hasn't a clue about their career
- Miesfan0
should be allowed only in emergency projects or humanitarian aid.
A shelter, a project to hungary ... but by god, a fucking logo??
If a corporation wants to do something, why not do the same with the price of their products?- agreed, where money is not involved, competitions make sensemonospaced
- Tell that to architects. It's the opposite there: only small budgets are spent without contests. It's all spec work there.raf
- Sorry wrong box, it went up there ^raf
- you're still wrong...monospaced
- two times wrong!Miesfan
- how am I wrong?raf
- Countryman0
Lets be clear about something. The way clients and designers interact has been developing over the last century. What crowd sourcing does is lets the client decide that their personal opinion is more important than a process that has proven to be tried and true.
The idea of a contest is something that works at an amateur level. OR (this is a large or) at an extremely high quality highly competitive, and completely voluntary level between proven professionals.
Why does this work? Because they usually take place at craft fairs, highschools, and other amature venues that expect minimal results. What I mean by this is that there is only 1 thing involved. Take a photo, paint a picture, make a poster. Done. What the person who hosted the contest gets is something that works for the occasion (but is usually pretty crappy) or they get to hand out a fucking ribbon and call it a day.
Lets all agree that a multinational corporations needs in terms of branding is a little bit more complicated (this is an understatement in case your having a hard time following along).
With that complexity comes more responsibility and a large number of projects each of which have a large number of tasks till completion. Is 1 logo going to determine who is best fit to handle such a responsibility? Does making a logo mean you have done research, you know the market, you have a library of successful tactics and a team of talented individuals who are going to be able to execute with impecable skill?
NO
Think of it as a pyramid. The most talented and qualified for large jobs are at the top: hence they get the larger projects, get more money, and can execute in a timely manner.
You can trickle down the pyramid reducing the price, level of execution, professionalism, size of job till you get to the bottom.
What is at the bottom????? ART STUDENTS AND CONTESTS.
What crowd sourcing does it take large (top of pyramid) projects and tells the amateurs and beginners to take a crack at it. Now apply all the other variable that are tied to a large project. and see how well the bottom of the barrel is going to handle it. Then ask yourself if you have made the right decision.
If anything, I would say the problem of the "omg you spent 400k on that?" comes from clients and corporations not managing their money well and going with a company that was too high status for their project, thus paying inappropriately.
SO FUCK YOU
- amen, brothamonospaced
- Tell that to architects. It's the opposite there: only small budgets are spent without contests. It's all spec work there.raf
- such bullshit...architect... are commissioned all the time, hired with contracts, wtf!?monospaced
- scarabin0
i think what i'm saying is i'm somehow not threatened by hack designers and poor businesses
- scarabin0
if we're so sure that expensive design is necessary for a business, we can rest easy knowing that those businesses will all fail, leaving us with nothing but the clients with big budgets who understand and want to give us their money. also, the crowd-designers will all fail because they can't support themselves, leaving us with no competition
so we win
- "those businesses" meaning those businesses who used crowdsourcing, i meanscarabin
- lukus_W0
If someone is spending time, working on an idea, for _you_ .... you should expect to have to pay them for it.
- Daithi0
3.
The olympics is a particularly poor example. Millions have been spent on the design of buildings and infrastructure, the figure of 400,000 for an identity is a tiny fraction of the overall design spend.
- Daithi0
2.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." - Red Adair- so truemonospaced
- on second thought...
+1,000,000monospaced - brilliantbabaganush
- +1Glitterati_Duane
- Daithi0
1.
"the comfy situation of being paid what we like to be paid for work"
What planet do you live on? I want to be there.
- JSK0
crowd sourcing is more about marketing effort.
Engaging consumers with the brand directly with an illusion that they are helping to create the brand or design.
It is same as any design competition sans exclusivity of design community.
- raf0
Just for the record, 400K sounds very low if production work was included, it's unthinkable applying Olympic brand would cost this little.
I assumed it was for identity and research associated with it only, I might be wrong. 400K is a likely sum and not a small one for brand design alone.My assumption was there would be a hundred agencies in London alone who would line up to take part in an Olympic branding contest even with just a small portion of that 400K budget to be won.
I based this on my experience in how advertising budgets are often overblown at corporate level and especially when nobody's (public) money is involved.
Talking about quality, I used the Olympic logo as an example because as much as it stands out among some lame games identities of the last decade, it will go down in history as an example of bad design. Funny we usually refer to 60-80's games when talking about classic games identities.
I still think spec work is good for clients and obviously something our industry, being on the other side of the table, should oppose very vigorously – this thread being an example.
Spec work works in architecture, doesn't it? Actually, it's how architectural contracts work, correct me if I am wrong on this.
- I don't know for sure, but I HIGHLY doubt this is how the architecture industry works.monospaced
- I really have no problem with it. It may be unorthodox but whatever it grows on you.Countryman
- monospaced0
< frustrated that this discussion is even happening here
- polytechnic0
No agency could afford to take on a project on the scale of the olympics branding "for peanuts". It would bankrupt them.
- monNom0
as to raf's original question:
I do not believe a government agency could conduct the production of a new identity as efficiently, nor to the level of quality, as a seasoned, professional design firm can. No matter if they hired in-house designers or crowdsourced all materials, they don't have the experience nor the knowledge of the landscape that a focussed service provider does.
With respect to the fee: These large numbers often reflect the entire project cost to the government; not just drawing the logo but applying it, everywhere. 400,000 pounds actually sounds on the low side, but probably reflects the scope of the project.
Think of it this way: How much would it cost to change all of McDonald's signs to another logo? That's where the cost comes in, not the 5 minutes it takes to draw another 'M'.
- 400,000 IS chump change for this sort of thing! I bet CP+B is being paid 10x that for the GAP debacle...NONEIS
- monNom0
crowdsourcing (should be called CHUMPsourcing) must be absolutely fantastic for the company running the service. They get a 15% cut of everything for basically having an operating web server and disclaiming any sort of legal obligation to the contest holders or entrants. It's like a recipe to print money. Who cares if you're raping eager young designers, facilitating copyright violation, and credit card fraud/money laundering. DRILL BABY DRILL!
- akrokdesign0
raf, do you think you could make a living out of crowd-sourcing work?
- not that you would probably work on this project alone. i am sure you would hire freelancers.akrokdesign
- I am arguing crowdsourcing is good for clients. We're on the other side and must oppose it vigorously, don't we?raf