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Peter Boyd

Should a Web Designer Work on Spec and Provide Free Samples? No.

Posted by Peter Boyd on May 29, 2009 in Rants & Raves

A few times a year we are asked to work on spec, meaning we provide free concepts to win the project. We always respond politely to this, but ultimately we do not provide free samples for a few main reasons (two based on the clients’ needs and two based on our agency’s needs):

  1. Unknown Client. How can you design for an unknown client?”  Seriously, this is the most important issue. If you do not have a creative brief filled out, a goal for the site, a research period, and a get to know your client period, how can you design anything?”  Your design will NOT be on point, it will suck, and be merely a canned template or a shot in the dark.
  2. Unique Approach. Our agency is unique, we work on a flat fee AND we really do keep designing until the client is happy. As a testament to this dedication, we have gone to 15 different concepts before and 35 revisions on one specific project. So for us, the first concept may not be right, but we will ultimately produce the right concept; so why should our work be judged upon a single concept.
  3. Time. All of the prep and design takes an EXTREME amount of time. Seriously, just researching and understanding a client can be a 10 to 20 hour project. Then you have to design the actual concepts, which can be another 10 to 40 hours depending on what you are producing. So now you have invested 20 to 60 hours of work (a full work week), with no promise that you will win the proposal at all (or even knowing your odds). Which leads us to the business issue….
  4. Business Failure. How can you work for free and sustain a business?”  Even the most talented designers, and we have them, cannot win 100% of the time. Every time you don’t win a proposal means that you are down time and money. So then you have two choices:”  (1) eat the time or (2) raise your rates. Basically, most people are forced to raise rates for actual clients, to make up for the time you have lost on other projects. This is not fair to clients who can trust in your skills. This is no way to sustain your business.

Again, the main reason not to design on spec is that you have an unknown client and are simply guessing at what they want. However, for your own business reasons, it may not be a good idea too. If any other agency wants to know how we respond, this is a good example that has worked well:

If you wish to see a sample to get a feel for the quality of our work, our portfolio of 300-plus web sites is a great reflection of our design excellence. We are proud to show it off at www.paperstreet.com/portfolio/. We do not design individual sample pages for prospective clients because of the in-depth nature of our development process, which includes a creative brief, tailored site structure, unique branding, and targeted market research. To skip this process would do a disservice to you and would not be a true reflection of our work product. If your company is concerned about being satisfied with what they pay for, consider this: at PaperStreet, we keep designing until the client is happy. Feel free to call up any of our clients to confirm that PaperStreet rocks!

It’s polite, helps the client understand the nature of the process, and why it benefits them to not receive free “sample” designs. If you want to see what other people say on “spec work”, check out AIGA – http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/position-spec-work. Good stuff.

  • Danny

    Hah! It didn’t take him long to remove the evidence.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/human3rror human3rror

    Wow, that's whack!

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/paperstreet paperstreet

    He has since removed the design from the portfolio and the designinformer.com web site. He has also apologized and posted an article here – http://designinformer.com/dealing-with-your-mista…

  • http://soaringbirdenterprises.com Shawn Bird

    At least this site is different enough that it doesn't look exactly the same like the elegant theme that was put up for free.

    I see a lot of similarities but some things, like logo placement, are really so common that I don't think there is any point in making a fuss over them.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/paperstreet paperstreet

    I think they are about 95% identical. The only changes between the sites are:

    Background color – a bit stronger blue on the copy.
    Footer – more of a new web 2.0 organization.
    Sidebar – a light background color vs. our dark background for each widget

    Sure, logo in top left cannot be copyrighted, but every other element and the overall theme can be. I would never make a fuss over just a logo placement, as probably 98% of English sites have a top left logo. It's everything else that we are making a fuss over.

    Thanks.

  • http://www.acuitydesigns.net Mel Ndiweni

    There are some similarities undoubtedly, but I would be surprised not to find one or tow more sites around the web which aren't far off the same style / layout etc. The fine line between inspiration and debate is one that is soo blurry at times.

    What seems good about the whole situation is that as soon as you explained your query to the site, they responded accordingly in what seems a respectable manner and even put up a full explanation!

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/paperstreet paperstreet

    I really do not think there is a fine line in this instance. The designs are identical, only a few elements were changed. Imagine if I took a Porsche 911 car and simply changed the color, headlights, and called it my own design to sell and compete against them. Porsche would not be pleased.

    We spent about 100 hours creating a great site. This site makes our client millions of dollars per year. In just a half day the design was copied and put online for others to mimic. In the competitive legal market, this can make or break a law firm's business. That deprives our firm and our client of all that time, energy, and ultimately profits.

    As to the fine line, layouts are harder to copyright, although you still can under US law. When you combine the layout with a unique background, header, fonts, colors, and other detail elements that we designed, then you end up with a "work of art". A work of art can be copyrighted under US law.

    Yes, we are glad the design was pulled without a fight. Of course, as a lawyer, I take that as a direct admission that it was infringing. I do appreciate the efforts in righting this wrong though and the owning up to the mistake.

    Now if I could only get http://mangotreeonline.com/website/ to respond to our other copyright infringement complaint in a timely manner. Take a look at that site and our site at http://www.paperstreet.com. They have basically taken our ideas, design and put it online as theirs (and they are a web design company too). More on that next week.

  • Laura

    You've got to be kidding me. Do you seriously have nothing better to do than to scout around on the internet and make claims that people are copying you? Your designs are no different than the hundreds of similar designs already out there. The Mangotreeonline site looks nothing like yours (except for the top left logo, the nav bar across the top). Really? Your lawyer site looks A LOT like the 'Page' Template from YooThemes.com released in 2008. Should they sue you? Give your heads a shake and get back to real life.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/paperstreet paperstreet

    The designinformer.com infringement in this post was sent to us by our designer Danny who designed the site. He was reading on the blog in his own time and was like "Hey that is my design!" Danny emailed me and since I practice copyright law as an attorney, I sent a standard letter/email that I have on file to end the copying.

    So 15 minutes of our time to send an email to the site to take it down is a perfectly good use of our time. This is especially true when we spent 100 hours creating the site and they were giving it away for free.

    As for MangoTreeOnline, I found them when I clicked on a search result in Google. Read and compare the sites in more detail. You will see that they are basically taking our ideas and mimicking them on their site.

    * "How we can Help?" contact area and button is exactly the same. It was just changed to "Discover How We Can Help?" today. Coincidence? I think not. I have an original screenshot saved though on our blog post.

    * Menu Bar Height / Fonts / and most importantly Labels. Yes, the menu bar is grey and everyone has a menu bar, but again when you start adding up all the similarities, you can get to the conclusion that the site was copied, especially when you start off with Web Print Marketing.

    * Text in the header block next to the gallery. That was our original text, with very small changes (i.e. realtors added in theirs). We since changed the text to improve usability and conversions. They changed "Impress and Get Results" to "Stand Out from the Crowd". Hmmm…seems a bit similar.

    * Layout of the header area (i.e. text / calls to action / portfolio snapshots). This is an identical idea, although they went with a Flash panel in the right block, but again very similar idea.

    * Same tabbed navigation idea on the home page. Their tabs are different, but again very similar idea.

    * Same three case studies on the lower right – of course with different text. Again, we have three case studies and now they suddenly have three too. Hmm…..

    * Their "Promises" is very similar to our "Guarantees" area. Again our idea.

    * Roughly the same footer map in the lower left and grey footer area. This is again identical and our idea.

    So the combined weight of all these elements is similar. Things do not have to be identical to win a case, but if you add it all up then they are taking our ideas.

    As for the "Page" template of YooThemes, they look nothing like our site.
    http://demo.yootheme.com/index.php?show=feb08/ind…

    Page Template Features that are different:
    1. Different menu style. Raised tab vs. standard hover.
    2. Different background style that extends into the actual content block vs. a clean separation.
    3. One large carousel vs. text / carousel. This is key as the main feature on the Page template is the cool carousel.
    4. Double column design in the main content area with side menus.
    5. Top centered submenu with toppanel pull down
    6. Footer is completely different
    7. Overall square design vs. rounded corners
    8. Breadcrumbs
    9. Login area
    10. Search
    11. PDF / Print / Email
    12. Drop downs are different
    13. etc. etc. etc

    That is just a cursory look at both. So I think we are safe there and if YooThemes has any issue, which they probably don't, then they can contact us.

    Thanks for your comment though.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/paperstreet paperstreet

    On a side note, we just found out that a site listed in MangoTreeOnline.com's web portfolio is not theirs at all. They list http://www.mcnair.net as their work, but it is really ContentPilot.com's work. So more proof that we are not the only one's affected by this company's site – they are claiming other's works as their own.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/paperstreet paperstreet

    On a side note, we just found out that a site listed in MangoTreeOnline.com's web portfolio is not theirs at all. They list http://www.mcnair.net as their work, but it is really ContentPilot.com's work. So more proof that we are not the only one's affected by this company's site – they are claiming other's works as their own.




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