From Mark: Preaching ‘no spec work!’ is easy when you have more work than you know what to do with. But as a student just starting out on your career, the temptation to do work up front for little or no pay in the hope winning a project or future opportunity is hard to resist …
You’d think spec work sounds like a great way to be competitive and gain exposure when you’re just starting out. You’d be wrong …
So how do you break into the industry without compromising the value of what you do? By listening to Zeldman’s most salient point – that design is not merely decoration, but rather the art of problem solving. You are selling yourself to your clients, not pretty pictures. Your portfolio should include pieces that demonstrate your ability to solve problems (which most student work requires you to do).
Every client and situation is different, and there’s a lot more gray area here than I think some of the NO!SPEC evangelists acknowledge (but we still love them!). I agree in general that by doing work for free, especially in a competitive situation (contests, RFP’s, etc…) you’re setting yourself and your client up for disaster.
As Mark says, there are grey areas in the world of spec, grey areas the team over at NO!SPEC would like to make even less so. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact us.
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