So, in the specific case, I just disagree with the way it was done, setting somewhat of a wrong example on how to ask the community for a contribution.

I can personally draw a line between that kind of spec work and a playful competition like carsonified’s, which does nothing but provide an opportunity to be creative, expressive and to just have fun. It’s something a designer might have a bit of a blast with, and spend no more than an hour or two on, perhaps on his/her day off.

I think it all boils down to how the competition is percieved. If a designer feels the need to enter to reap some kind of reward, and for that reason treats the competition just like a paid for brief, then it’s missing the point, and is damaging. If a designer treats the competition as an opportunity to have fun then it’s not damaging.

It’s the responsibility of the people who run these competitions that they package them like that. I take my hat off to carsonified for being pretty much on the mark in that respect.

[<stromg>Matt Henderson’s</strong>] take on spec work, if I understood this correctly, was that the market will dictate the practice. If both sides of the market – the supplier (the designers), and the consumer (the client) – find that speculative work is mutually beneficial, then the practice would become an industry norm

I’m not sure whether the practice will ever become the norm, especially with so many vociferious voices against it; however, I’m of the opinion that there will always be clients who’ll want to get something for as cheap as possible — or rather on their terms — and suppliers who are willing to do it for them.

Taking Lea‘s example, clients will either understand the situation i.e. you don’t get something for nothing, or disregard the value of the design work — whether it be because spec work is common practice in other fields, as Mark points out, or because they are playing the exploitation card — and walk away from the deal until they can find someone who fits their terms.

Talking about vociferous voices against, David Carson’s comments during the “]SWSW No Spec debate are interesting. He believes that designers who have previously done no spec work for notorious web brands that dabble in this area are, or will be, ostrisised from the credible, professional design community. Perhaps this dishonourable charge will sway future design students away from doing spec work; perhaps it will creative two more pronounced sides in the no spec debate.

Whether Carsonified’s compeition is no spec work is clearly a matter of opinion. It’s clear from this and [many] other debates on the topic that no spec work is not a black and white issue; we’ll still be debating it for yearsto come and this is why I think such practice won’t become the norm.

No way! You have these sites dedicated to spec work or people posting on craigslist for free samples and pay upon acceptance… No quality design comes from this type of thing. First of all most of the people working on spec basis aren’t exactly quality designers. Secondly, the fact that everyone knows they are competing against droves of other designers is not exactly a catalyst for great design. If anything people are going to put as little time and effort into designing on spec since there is almost no chance if winning anyway. Then to top it off the people posting the projects aren’t art directors or designers. These contests essentially end up turing into a bunch of unskilled “designers” being art directed by people who took an art class once in high school fourteen years ago.

So, this is bad news all around. The designers either don’t get paid because the did not “win”. The “winner” gets paid peanuts because no one posting spec work ever has a budget to start with. Finally people are essentially paying people a few bucks to ruin their business image since they are getting sh!t quality work.

There is okay design that won’t affect anything, there is great design that will lead to sales, and there is bad design which will hurt sales. Spec work breeds bad design and hurts sales.

Bares repeating: placing _value_ over one brand over the other is dangerous and should not be used in anyway to define what is or is not spec.