Crowdsourcing and 99Designs
Last week at work, I reviewed 99Designs and Crowdspring. Both are fairly similar sites, specializing in logo design and art creation. What both sites use, and what I want to write about, is crowdsourcing. The idea is simple. Rather than go to a single person or entity for a solution, crowdsourcing employs the masses to solve a problem. So for logo design, sites like 99Desgins Crowdspring let users view potential designs from the masses - rather than just a single designer. And that’s exactly what happens, both sites have gone a long way in perfecting their product. When a user submits a draft (on both sites), he will on average get near 100 responses. From there the user can post comments to perfect designs, and ultimately pick a winner and pay the creator accordingly.
At first glance I loved this idea. Coming from a purely consumer standpoint, it’s incredible. I checked out a few of the logos people were making, and they were ones that I’d be satisfied with. Granted, I’m no professional designer and have very limited training. But if I was looking for a logo for some company I’m starting, the quality of the designs on 99Designs would be great. And from a price point, there’s no comparison. If I went the old fashioned way, and hired one professional designer, I’d be paying way more than what I pay at 99Designs. For 300 bucks, 99Designs will let me look at dozens (maybe hundreds) of options and give me the power to pick what I like best. With one designer, I’m limited to the mock-ups he creates, and there’s no guarantee that we see eye to eye or have compatible visions. And of course, I’d be paying him way more than 300 bucks. Using 99Designs is like hiring dozens of designers for the price of one - nothing else will take my dollar further.
Even outside the experience, the idea of crowdsourcing is something I fully support. The beauty of something like 99Designs is that maybe the design I like best is actually made by a bus driver who happens to have some photoshop skills. Or maybe it is made by that graphic designer who majored in design. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. Crowdsourcing breaks down barriers to entry, creates a condition of near perfect competition (knew those econ terms would come in handy someday), and gives the consumer more selection at a lower cost. Before, it’d be almost impossible that I would ask a bus driver to design my logo; it wouldn’t make any practical sense. Rather, I would ask a designer, something who’s tried and tested. Not surprisingly, it’s that group of people who most vehemently opposes crowdsourcing.
I get the designer perspective. If you’re a designer, you log onto this site, and see that there are thousands of people claiming to be “designers” when they do things like, well, drive buses. And you, the designer, spent a lot of time and money learning the ins and outs of true design. As if that’s not enough, crowdsourcing essentially makes it so that you have to do the work, and then maybe get paid. It’s called spec work, and to a designer it’s just a slap in the face. After spending that money and time, at the end of the day your painstakingly constructed submission might lose out to something a bus driver put together in a few minutes using a few Photoshop filters. And if you win, you just win a fraction of what you would have gotten working with a client individually. Either way, it sucks. And in response, many designers have banded toegether fighting against 99Designs and other forms of spec work. They say it degrades from the art of designs and severely dents designer salary.
Still, I’m in favor of crowdsourcing. I understand the opposition, but I really think every advancement comes at a cost. What designers say today is not so different from what laborers said in the past when machines replaced human jobs, and it’s not too different from what domestic workers have said about immigration/outsourcing. But both of those practices - technical progress and immigration, are huge net goods. Without either, America’s standard of living would be a lot lower. Crowdsourcing leaves consumers better off, for reasons I’ve already said. To quote an overused saying, “The customer is always right”. Trendy designers can complain that the submissions are not “true design” and a disgrace to the art. But if I like what I see, and think it’s going to serve my purposes, I don’t care if it was made by a designer who knows “true design” or a bus driver. All I care about is if it works.
Because I’m not a designer, I fully admit that it’s easier for me to support crowdsourcing. And honestly there are probably some designers out there who have lost their jobs or are living a tough life because of sites like 99Designs. I truly empathize with those people. But if we stopped advancing every time someone was negatively affected, horses would still be the fastest way of transport.
