Lost in the Crowd:
How crowdsourcing design projects can backfire on a business
July 2007

Participation in crowdsourced design projects has become the embarrassing past act that designers explain away with phrases like, “I was young and needed the money,” or, “I only tried it once.” The things people will say to convince someone to participate in a crowdsourced design project are equally reminiscent of other socially deviant job industries. Things like, “It's a great way to start a career,” or, “You can use this project to build a portfolio,” and, “Doing this will help you get discovered in the business.”

For designers, taking part in speculative projects is a topic of much controversy and varrying opinions on how such activities can help or harm a young career. Yet the damage that can be caused to businesses who turn to crowdsourcing as a means of obtaining cheap graphic design labor is often overlooked in the discussion.

It can be hard to see beyond the surface appeal of getting many designs from many designers while only having to pay one or two of them, usually at a wage far below market value. However the pitfalls of crowdsourcing from the perspective of a business owner are too risky to ignore.

Crowdsourcing in design is most commonly done through online design contests. Typically a project brief will be drafted and posted at one of the more popular websites that offer crowdsourcing project directories, and the designs will immediately begin flowing in.

Right away, this quick response should throw up red flags for any business owner. Often times a response is so quick that it can only have come from a designer who simply took a past project, changed the company name in the design, and submitted it to this new design contest. Later that same day they may even take that design and submit it to yet another contest.

More concerning, though, than the idea that this submitted design may have been used before, is the simple fact that almost no thought was given to the project. This is a common practice in design contests, where little consideration is given to the project requirements and the designer simply wishes to submit a visually appealing yet conceptually void design. No insight into the specific needs of the business is evident in the design, no unique strategy is formed to solve the specific design problem, and the submitted design is generic and uninteresting. The designer has no motivation to see that the design is relevant, interesting, and unique. Projects commissioned through speculative design contests almost always result in work that is off the mark in terms of scope, target, and effective communication.

One of the worst-case scenarios a business can face when seeking design work is to receive work that contains copyrights held by another company or organization. Copyright infringement is a fact of life in the design field, and unfortunately there are many unprofessional characters in the business who will not hesitate to pass off another individual's or company's work as their own. This complication is only multiplied in spec work. It is not uncommon to see copyright infringement in a design contest, and quite often an early entry to a contest will be modified by another designer and resubmitted as a new entry. This is not to say that all crowdsourcing endeavors will result in copyright infringements, but offering a project to a global audience and providing little or no compensation greatly increases the probability that a business will receive (and possibly pay for) work that is not original.

One of the most overlooked stages in a project timeline when it comes to considering crowdsourcing a project is the period of time after the crowd work is done. The project coordinator then must work with the winning designer to bring the project to completion and deliver the necessary files. From this point, things can easily become difficult and often times the deal will fall apart.

In choosing a design from the entries received, the client may be choosing work that best suits their needs, but they are also choosing a designer to work with. Anything specific about that designer, however, is largely unknown until this stage. It is common for clients to reach this stage in the project only to find that their designer is impossible to work with, they cannot or will not deliver the required files or formats, they want additional funds to complete the project, or they simply disappear. Sometimes a client will find that they have difficulty contacting the designer, or in some cases the designer is located in a different country and speaks a different language.

The appeal of crowdsourcing as an alternative of hiring a designer or design firm is easily understood. Initial costs are dramatically lower, often times more concepts are presented throughout the various stages of the project, and a wide variety of styles are represented. In all the glitz and glamour of crowdsourcing and how much you could potentially receive while offering so little in return, it is also easy to overlook a tried and true pearl of wisdom that applies to any business deal; you often get what you pay for. This is not to say that good design should cost a small fortune, or that no good design ever came from a crowdsourced project. Simply that if you should choose to go the crowdsourcing route, you should realistically lower your expectations for a great finished product and acceptable final outcome. It is also important to consider the potential for total failure of a project that is undertaken through crowdsourcing. It is possible that crowdsourcing can result in an acceptable outcome for some business owners. It is far more likely, however, that a crowdsourced project will suffer some sort of delay or total failure before completion, or that the resulting finished product will be a disappointment.

Crowdsourcing may be more than a fad, most likely evolving and continuing to be an attractive option for businesses with tight budgets for years to come. Crowdsourcing is not even all bad, under the right circumstances and when properly applied to a problem that requires a solution that a single worker could not accomplish. What business owners must know, however, is that there are far more ways a crowdsourced project can fall apart than one might expect, and they must be prepared to accept the increased likelihood that a crowdsourced project will require more time, resources, and money beyond the initial deadline and project specs.

Copyright © 2008 Open Path Design