Debbie Millman on spec work

Daivd Airey currently features a post with some quotes by Debbie Millman, the newly-appointed AIGA President, on the topic of spec work:

I am personally vigorously, passionately and fundamentally AGAINST designers being asked to do work on spec and neither I nor my firm will ever participate in speculative work. I have said it before and I will say it again: Speculative work denigrates both the agencies and the designers that participate. If we give away our work for free, if we give away our talent and our expertise, we give away more than the work. We give away our souls.

Read the full interview over at NO!SPEC with Debbie Millman.

In his post David points to a great list of no-spec articles:

Don’t design on spec, by Jeffrey Zeldman
Spec Work Arithmetic, from the Speak Up Archive
Spec Work Is Evil / Why I Hate CrowdSpring, by Andrew Hyde
Spec Watch on design contests, on Logo Design Love
More logo design contest nonsense, on The Logo Factor
An interview with SpecWatch, on Web Designer Depot
Pay the Designer, on 8164
The Personal Cost of Designing on Spec, by Mark Boulton

AIGA President Debbie Millman on spec work.

7 Comments leave a comment below

  1. So timely. Thank you.

    B
    Aug 11th, 2009 / 12:59 pm

  2. excellent reading. It’s so tempting right now to chase work but it doesn’t work out well when that involves spec.

    Marc
    Aug 11th, 2009 / 2:50 pm

  3. Thanks for the mention Tina.

    Catherine
    Aug 11th, 2009 / 9:24 pm

  4. Tina, great that you pointed folks to the interview. It’s a shame, though, that you didn’t mention the author. :-(

    Neil
    Aug 11th, 2009 / 9:54 pm

  5. “We give away our souls.”

    That’s a bit much. I fully agree with the sentiment and respect her passion, but giving away your soul? The remark is meant to resonate (and I’m sure it does) with those who may have had to do spec work, but to a larger audience it makes her sound quackish.

    andy bons
    Aug 12th, 2009 / 9:32 pm

  6. I could have done without the last sentence of this post. Isn’t that a little dramatic?

    Liz
    Aug 14th, 2009 / 7:58 am

  7. This is another good one to add to this list of articles:

    http://www.winwithoutpitching.com/manifesto

    Blair Enns’s manifesto on winning without pitching.

    Katie Jamison
    Aug 17th, 2009 / 4:28 pm