Mark Boulton

25 Responses to “Wikipedia and Bowing to the Brand”

1. 
   Tim said on: May 16th, 2006 at 2:42 pm

   I mostly agree with you Mark, but wouldn’t it be the oppor­tun­ity to give back to wiki­pe­dia ? To “pay our debt” for all the times we used the site ?

2. 
   Stuart Maynard-Keene said on: May 16th, 2006 at 3:03 pm

   I sup­pose it’s a ques­tion of what you define as free. A designer may get the kind of expos­ure they could only dream of if their design was chosen.

3. 
   Mark Boulton said on: May 16th, 2006 at 3:14 pm

   Tim: It’s a sens­it­ive issue Tim, and yes this is prob­ably what Wiki­pe­dia will end up with: a designer who feels they ‘owe’ it to them. For me, that isn’t a good basis for a work­ing rela­tion­ship though. 

   Don’t get me wrong. This is a fant­astic oppor­tun­ity for a designer, me included. I just feel they’re going about it in the wrong way. As Andy poin­ted out, maybe they should be ask­ing for expres­sions of interest and then select­ing from there rather than, ‘post your visu­als up here and we’ll pick the best’. 

   Stu­art: I agree. I for one would love the expos­ure for a pro­ject of this scale and am still temp­ted to sub­mit a design. How­ever, eth­ic­ally, I just don’t agree with organ­isa­tions of this scale ask­ing for free work in this way.

4. 
   Mike Stenhouse said on: May 16th, 2006 at 3:44 pm

   I agree that it’s a risky approach for Wiki­me­dia to be tak­ing. Put­ting their brand in the hands of poten­tially untried and untested design­ers will leave them with A LOT of work to do after the fact to make sure that what they get is feas­able, access­ible etc — the kind of thing you would take for gran­ted if you com­mis­sioned a pro. 

   My place on the fence comes cour­tesy of the Zen Garden though. I got a design up there pretty early on, along with a lot of people who, thanks to that expos­ure, have gone on to be ‘names’. I would class the Zen Garden as a design com­pet­i­tion; the only prize is pub­li­city and a sense of achieve­ment. Is the Wiki­pe­dia com­pet­i­tion really so different?

5. 
   reese said on: May 16th, 2006 at 3:46 pm

   As a designer who is still grow­ing her busi­ness and look­ing for some higher-end cli­ents, I empath­ize with Mark’s tempta­tion to sub­mit a design but agree whole­heartedly on the eth­ics issues sur­round­ing this.

   What I see hap­pen­ing is a young designer with a lot of poten­tial and tal­ent tak­ing this on as a way to “break in,” and in many ways, I can’t fault their desire to gain that level of expos­ure and jump start a busi­ness by per­haps years. What’s unfor­tu­nate to me is that Wikipedia’s request reflects a prob­lem that I don’t see other indus­tries hav­ing. I don’t think you’d see, say, a call for “we’re hold­ing an account­ing contest–shape up our books!” Or even “We’re build­ing a new air­port and hold­ing a con­test on its design.” It seems unique to the graphic and web design world–why is that? Is the value and skill­set of a designer dis­reg­arded com­pared to other pro­fes­sion­als, and if so, why?

   Per­haps it’s partly a chicken and egg–as long as design­ers con­tinue to sub­mit spec work to com­pet­i­tions like this, some organ­iz­a­tions and people will con­tinue to ask for free work.

6. 
   Terry Tolleson said on: May 16th, 2006 at 4:01 pm

   Mike: I believe the dif­fer­ence between a design con­test of this nature and CSSZenGarden.com is that the Garden isn’t ask­ing for people to design its “look and feel”, whether for profit or oth­er­wise. It is merely a social gath­er­ing for CSS design­ers to illus­trate the power of CSS-based design. The home page for that site will never be done by any­one other than Mr. Shea and any­thing related to that site (out­side of the sub­mis­sions) will likely also be per­formed solely by him. 

   I have heard sev­eral design­ers try to relate the Garden to a design con­test, and I feel that they are not related at all. Yes, you can poten­tially get a lot of expos­ure by hav­ing a sub­mis­sion pos­ted on the site. How­ever, the only com­mon ele­ment amongst all those pages is the HTML markup. Design­ers are pro­mot­ing CSS-based design, not the Garden.

7. 
   Mark Boulton said on: May 16th, 2006 at 4:20 pm

   reese: I think this does exist to a degree in other indus­tries, but more around the ten­der­ing pro­cess rather than the actual con­tract. Pro bono work, espe­cially char­ity work, is a ser­i­ous busi­ness con­sid­er­a­tion. When to do it, and how much time and effort to ded­ic­ate to it. But this is Wiki­pe­dia! It’s a huge pro­ject and my feel­ing is the designer(s) who get the gig will be regret­ting it in a few months time.

8. 
   Matthew Pennell said on: May 16th, 2006 at 4:46 pm

   It seems to be spec-work sea­son; as well as Wiki­pe­dia, both the BBC and Slash­dot (I think) are hold­ing “redesign our site for free” com­pet­i­tions (although the BBC’s is not for keeps). 

   I feel the same as you, Mark — I’d love to have the time to devote to a reima­gin­ing of Wiki­pe­dia or the BBC homepage, and the expos­ure would be incred­ible… but on the other hand I entirely agree with the No!Spec guys. 

   That’s poten­tially another part of the prob­lem; the sort of people likely to have the time to do a free-of-charge design are those that are not doing this pro­fes­sion­ally (as the lat­ter will have pay­ing work to do), so the final ‘win­ning’ design(s) suf­fer from that lack of professionalism.

9. 
   quis said on: May 16th, 2006 at 4:48 pm

   I think that ulti­mately, with a site like Wiki­pe­dia, the pub­li­city will more than pay for the design work, so per­haps it is an excep­tion. There’s been sim­ilar dis­cus­sion over the recent Slash­dot redesign con­test, where there is also a guar­an­teed prize for the win­ner (a laptop). Espe­cially in the case of Slash­dot, which has his­tor­ic­ally looked ter­rible, these con­tests could be seen by some as high-profile web­sites recog­nising the value of design, rather than devalu­ing or com­mod­it­ising it. Albeit, I wouldn’t like to see more sites, espe­cially less-trafficked ones, try the same thing. Oh yeah, and I’m actu­ally quite fond of Wikipedia’s cur­rent design.

10. 
    Sophie said on: May 16th, 2006 at 5:37 pm

    I’m sorry I might be the among those who star­ted this (in com­ments here : http://notablog.notafish.com/index.php/2006/03/07/10-what-about-the-reader)

    I might not be a ‘real’ designer… but isn’t pro­gram­ming a pro­cess, just like design­ing ? Some pro­gram­mers in the open source com­munity con­trib­ute for free, even to pro­grams that are only par­tially open-source (I’m think­ing of the com­munity around Safari here).

    I don’t pro­duce work before I have a signed con­tract, but I do free work from time to time, as I wish, for vari­ous people, asso­ci­ations or pro­jects I respect or want to help. Like a pro­gram­mer who works the day job and comes back home to con­trib­ute to free soft­ware in the evening.

11. 
    Mark Boulton said on: May 16th, 2006 at 8:23 pm

    Yes Sophie, pro­gram­ming is a pro­cess and I too some­times do design work for free. My gripe isn’t about the under­tak­ing of pro bono, or open source work, which is of course a vital part of our industry. 

    How­ever, I feel Wiki­pe­dia are going about it in the wrong way if they are after qual­ity work. As Mat­thew states above, the type of designer who could under­take this work and really run with it are likely to be busy any­way with the day job and, you know, hav­ing a life.

12. 
    Graham Sanders said on: May 16th, 2006 at 8:35 pm

    Hi Mark, totally agree with what you’re say­ing here. It would be a dis­ser­vice for any designer to take part in this com­pet­i­tion as essen­tially they will not only be devalu­ing them­selves but the pro­fes­sion as a whole. 

    Unpaid pitches are a blight on the design com­munity. Thank­fully I work for a com­pany where we have taken a decision where this doesn’t hap­pen. Instead we mar­ket ourselves by our repu­ta­tion and proven track record in deliv­er­ing highly cre­at­ive solutions. 

    What should hap­pen is as you said intially that people can sub­mit their port­fo­lio for Wiki­pe­dia to look at. I would then hope that there would be a paid pitch phase where say 5 design­ers sub­mit­ted their work. 

    Unpiad pitches, just say NO!!!

13. 
    Lowell Wood said on: May 16th, 2006 at 8:44 pm

    I think that the issue is not whether someone would be will­ing to do it for free or not, because I am sure they could find a cap­able designer who would be will­ing to do the work for free (to get expos­ure, etc). 

    The real issue is about the amount of time every­body who sub­mits a design (except the “win­ner”) will have wasted on cre­at­ing con­cepts that Wiki­pe­dia has no inten­tion of using. Which is the same thing as doing the biggest pro­ject in your life­time (which for most people sub­mit­ing designs it will be), spend­ing dozens of hours on just a solid concept, and then hav­ing that shot down.

14. 
    Mark Boulton said on: May 16th, 2006 at 8:50 pm

    You’re right Low­ell, Wiki­pe­dia will get a great designer to do this pro­ject, in spite of the pro­cess in which they’re going through. Like I said in the ini­tial post, I’m temp­ted myself. The expos­ure would be incred­ible, but it’s not just one visual is it? The amount of work involved in a pro­ject like this is an incred­ible amount to do for the kudos.

15. 
    The Wife said on: May 16th, 2006 at 10:32 pm

    I may have missed the point and hey I work in a com­mu­nic­a­tions depart­ment, but it seems to me that great design hap­pens partly as a res­ult of clear com­mu­nic­a­tion between the cli­ent and sup­plier. From the brief­ing to end res­ult, it’s a ‘pro­cess’ as Mark points out and this requires input from the cli­ent and the designer along the way. 

    It sounds to me like Wiki­pe­dia think that a design for a web­site is a flat visual and are thus approach­ing this task like a children’s paint­ing com­pet­i­tion. Reminds me of all those art com­pet­i­tions on Blue Peter. Did Mark ever tell you that he had a pic­ture on Tony Hart’s Gal­lery ;0) (one for the Brits that).

16. 
    Chris Wible said on: May 16th, 2006 at 11:16 pm

    For rel­at­ive unknowns like myself, an oppor­tun­ity at this level of expos­ure is extremely tempt­ing. I won­der if there was a “big break” like that in the his­tory of some of the gurus whose blogs I read. 

    Many of these design­ers seem to have, from my POV, a his­tory that just begins with some­thing impress­ive — as far back as I dig in their port­fo­lios I find no crappy tiny nobody-knows-em cli­ents like I’ve got­ten over the years. Like, all of the sud­den they were design­ing for Nike or some­thing — I always wanted to land a cli­ent like that (not with the state of my cur­rent port­fo­lio, how­ever!). I won­der if doing what I admit would be spec design for Wiki­pe­dia would qual­ify as a “big break” for those like myself. 

    Not say­ing I’m dump­ing the time into it — I’ve paid that bill before.

17. 
    Ben Adlin said on: May 17th, 2006 at 1:01 am

    I have no prob­lem with Wiki­pe­dia ask­ing for work pro-bono. After all, they’re one of the largest open-source, free-content sites around. Their entire mis­sion is one of col­lab­or­a­tion and unpaid con­tri­bu­tion. So in regard to those who say, simply, “Unpiad pitches, just say NO!!!”, I entirely disagree. 

    What I think is offens­ive is the way in which Wiki­pe­dia is fram­ing the job: as a con­test. By refer­ring to the selec­ted designer as the “win­ner,” and prom­ising hav­ing “their work on one of the most heav­ily traf­ficked web­sites on the Inter­net and the pride of help­ing make know­ledge more access­ible to all,” Wiki­pe­dia is abso­lutely devalu­ing the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of the design field.

    Ask­ing users to volun­teer by tag­ging pic­tures, edit­ing copy, etc. makes sense; it’s rel­at­ively imme­di­ate work that can be done in one’s spare time. Ask­ing for design­ers to sub­mit an entire branding/image redesign, on the other hand, is a little bit ridicu­lous. I’m with Andy: ask for design­ers to sub­mit their port­fo­lios, then see whether any of the favor­ite firms would be will­ing to do the work pro bono (though I admit, this effect­ively bars any talented-yet-new design­ers from get­ting their feet in the door). 

    As a bud­ding graphic designer, the poten­tial of hav­ing my work vis­ible to such a large audi­ence is hugely allur­ing. At the same time, I’m so turned off by the idea of treat­ing this as a con­test that I prob­ably won’t do much more than sketch out a few logo concepts.

18. 
    Graham Sanders said on: May 17th, 2006 at 5:30 am

    FAO The Wife
    
    Any chance we can see the fam­ous Tony Hart painting?

19. 
    Catherine Morley said on: May 18th, 2006 at 9:26 am

    “I?m with Andy: ask for design­ers to sub­mit their port­fo­lios, then see whether any of the favor­ite firms would be will­ing to do the work pro bono (though I admit, this effect­ively bars any talented-yet-new design­ers from get­ting their feet in the door).” 

    I real­ise the pro bono aspect may x out the newer design­ers. If you think about it though, there are loads of sim­ilar oppor­tun­it­ies out there for the new­bie. Ok, per­haps not at this level but hey, some­times you have to pay your dues! 

    If Wiki­pe­dia handles this right (get­ting the advice of those in the know before choos­ing), by send­ing out a call for port­fo­lios they should assured of a decent range of exper­i­enced design­ers to select from, and not find out later on they are totally stuffed because they went with someone lack­ing in the exper­i­ence and know­ledge needed to pull this off. 

    I’m not say­ing there aren’t those com­ing up couldn’t do the job, but seems to me to be sure of a pos­it­ive out­come, a ser­i­ous pro­ject of this caliber calls for a seasoned, pro­fes­sional designer (or design team), not a youngin. 

    And think about it. As the cam­paign against spec and spec con­tests takes hold around the inter­net, there should be more decent pro bono jobs out there and less spec con­tests fly­ing around. Plenty for every­one who wants to make their mark by giv­ing back to their com­munit­ies without being taken advant­age of. 

    cat

20. 
    Ben Adlin said on: May 18th, 2006 at 11:19 am

    I think what frus­trates me most isn’t the fact that Wiki­pe­dia is ask­ing for a favor. Their entire com­pany is centered around the idea of free, open-source con­tent; it makes sense that they’d want the design to be a volun­teer, col­lab­or­at­ive effort, too. What really gets me is that rather than depict it as a favor the designer would be doing for Wiki­pe­dia, they’ve chosen to por­tray it as a favor Wiki­pe­dia would be doing for the designer.

21. 
    Criss Ittermann said on: May 18th, 2006 at 2:02 pm

    I think a lot of people aren’t get­ting it. 

    What does it mat­ter if the con­test prize is $1 or $1,000,000?

    If it’s a laptop or Wiki­pe­dia exposure? 

    It doesn’t mat­ter.  What mat­ters is that the one win­ner may put X hours into the con­test and get won­der­ful pay­ment in return while the other 100 or 1000 or 1,000,000 con­test­ants also put X hours into it and have “Here’s my failed con­test entry” to put into their portfolio. 

    Big name long-experienced designer or not—you’re on an almost anonym­ous play­ing field if you enter the con­test along with the ama­teurs.  Someone hits the nail on the head—beginner’s luck—and your time is gone.

    The spon­sor­ing com­pany, no mat­ter what they’re dangling, is wast­ing the loser’s time.  It’s dis­grace­ful.  I’ve said it before in com­ments on other design blogs, I’ll say it again: Time is my one finite commodity. 

    They are look­ing to waste people’s time.  If I wrote a reli­gious rule list­ing for what attains nir­vana and what gives you eternal pur­gat­ory, wast­ing one another’s time would be in the top 10, because the Deity only gives us so much, we can’t buy more, we can’t bor­row it from one another—and people who waste it are doing us a mor­tal disservice.

    NO!SPEC Period.  I don’t care if it’s a golden car­rot.  They’re still dangling a car­rot, and the best “man” is not always the one that wins.

22. 
    Adam Glazer said on: May 19th, 2006 at 3:24 am

    Quite true in the sense that Wikipedia’s ‘con­test’ is wast­ing oth­ers time as Criss points out. I think it’s really the num­bers game on the kind of odds the design­ers have to win or suc­ceed in this.

    I mean…what are the odds of being chosen in this glob­ally recog­nized web­site? Extremely slim to none, I’m sure.
    
    I under­stand the tempta­tion to put your name out there in the expense of your time. What if you don’t win? Will future cli­en­tele believe your story that this was the actual piece in the port­fo­lio present­a­tion you sub­mit­ted to Wiki­pe­dia (or any other big name corp)? Would they care?
    
    In my approach, I see it as “sav­ing your energy for bet­ter things”. 

    “Golden” car­rots need to be banned or discouraged.

23. 
    Criss Ittermann said on: May 19th, 2006 at 12:05 pm

    I was explain­ing wast­ing people’s time to my son (8 years old), I told him about the design con­tests, we did some math.  He wanted to know how much time it would take to make the logo, includ­ing deal­ing with the con­test entry, and so on (bright kid!).  I estim­ated at least 10 hours. 

    The big­ger the prize, the more people who enter the con­test.  http://ecopedia.org had a logo design con­test and ended up with 6 pages of entries, with at least 10 logos to a page, maybe more.  About 60 people entered the con­test.  That would be 600 logo­hours.  Obvi­ously some of the designs took less time and used the insta-logo-design soft­ware pack­ages out there, but that’s a digres­sion I don’t wish to address, since I don’t really call that Design :P

    One per­son wins.  Say the prize is some­thing worthy—$300 or more ($30/hour, which is OK).  59 people are out a total of 590 logohours. 

    If those 59 people had walked into a gas sta­tion or gro­cery store, they could have spent 1 minute each play­ing the lot­tery ($1/2 games avail­ab­il­ity and price in your state may vary).  For far longer a shot at win­ning much more money.  They could even exchange 1 hour worth of their pay (say $30) to play the lot­tery (in NY that’s 60 chances to win).  It’s still a rather long shot, but look at the pay­back if you DO win… and how much less of your time you wasted—an hour of pay, a few minutes in the store you were prob­ably going to anyway.

    I’m think­ing the odds of win­ning the Wiki­pe­dia con­test are approach­ing those of the lot­tery.  Then there’s how much of your time you need to spend—both enter­ing their con­test, and after win­ning it.  Maybe sup­port­ing Wiki­pe­dia would become a full-time pro-bono occupation—exactly how much post-contest work is there to do?  Since you entered a con­test with no con­tract spe­cify­ing how much more sup­port is implied by win­ning (same goes for cash logo con­tests!) you don’t really know if you’re get­ting what you “paid for” in the end.  Will you have time for all that sup­posed expos­ure and extra busi­ness it might generate?

    Those $30/hr return con­tests, after deal­ing with the post-winning after­math could be $10/hr—$5/hr or “Oh, G-d how do I get out of this! What a huge mis­take!” per hour.  Not only is there poor return on the time you spend on them, that’s time you can’t spend with a full-price cli­ent, mar­ket­ing your­self, doing your taxes, play­ing Solit­aire, hug­ging your kids, plant­ing your garden.… 

    I hear most people who win the lot­tery end up broke rather quickly.  I won­der if that’s true of win­ners of logo design con­tests too.

24. 
    Ben Adlin said on: May 19th, 2006 at 7:27 pm

    While I agree with most of you, I think it’s import­ant to point out that, if this con­test is like the BBC’s recent one, no back-end work is neces­sary. My non-designer friend asked if he could just cre­ate a cool-looking lay­out that they could do the cod­ing for, and BBC said that’d be acceptable.

25. 
    Fabian, N?the said on: May 21st, 2006 at 1:33 pm

    great work! You’re abso­lutly right.
    
    Wiki­pe­dia hast to invest in a well thought-out concept. Oth­er­wise Google or Yahoo will fetch an altern­at­ive out of the box one day.