Design-Design - Designing for business, academia and the arts

Essentially, speculative design is the process whereby a designer or group of different designers are asked to produce conceptual work, developments or mockup with a view to winning work with the company, organisation or individual running a project. There are many who strongly disagree with the use of this method for gaining new clients claiming that it devalues their profession and it  does not just apply to designers – but these are often the people who shout the loudest.

“Spec” has become the short form for any work done on a speculative basis. In other words, any requested work for which a fair and reasonable fee has not been agreed upon, preferably in writing.

This practice has become popular because many companies erroneously view it as a quick and easy way to get the best ideas from designers. Unfortunately, requesting speculative design is a poor business decision because it caters to the lowest common denominator of design. It also forces designers to engage in the poor design practice of making snap decisions.
- no-spec.com

The Business of Business

I would agree to a certain point with the no-spec team view on this but not entirely, and there is more to add. The problem with this method is that the energy, experience and time that is required to come up with even a reasonably professional design needs some kind of reward equivalent to the energy put in, after all, the business of business is business as they say.

The no-spec team imply that snap decisions automatically lead to poor design – not always! Any level of professional visual input is valid and useful even if it explains to the client what they don’t want or their reaction is that a design is inappropriate. Also, a client may use elements of a design either consciously or subconsciously that contribute to the final solution by providing influence – this may of course not be directly obvious or attributable to the originator of the idea. This is the fundamental problem – ideas from even fairly lightweight designers have some value and may even subconsciously steer the company’s identity, product or website in a way that leads to massive success that would never have been there without that freebie!

To be honest, sometimes the only way to learn is the hard way and over 8 years of self employment this has only really happened significantly once with a company who will remain nameless. A large project looking at online document storage put out a challenge to several designers and selected the best from a group. Not only did this take 3-4 hours of my time to produce ideas with clarity and reason, I also attended an hour long meeting with a 3 hour round trip. This was all getting a bit much before i knew it and a simple concept had now turned into a full days work with no pay. Lesson learned.

Don’t Frighten Them Away

The way to avoid this image of the obnoxious designer is not necessarily by badging-up your site with a NO-SPEC “brightly coloured alarm-bells ringing” badge or agressively demanding a signature on a contract before you will even speak to them, but almost to side-step the issue of speculative design altogether by discussing design work with potential clients in a general sense when you meet them. Examine their reaction to you and do not be afraid to ask for a limited budget to prove your worth to them in a bite sized mini-project from which they are given a set of quality ideas and continue working with you without having initially commited all of their budget to an unknown creative type. If you sense they are looking for speculative work or something for nothing then they are to be avoided or at the very least test their reaction to your reasoning as to why they should pay for your time even on a trial basis. Personally, I always request between 6-10 hours work with a client for my bite size trial period which to be fair is slightly easier job with my portfolio in existence.

Limited Portfolio?

If your problem is that you need to get on the design ladder to get your portfolio moving and you are starting in your design career then you may be tempted by speculative work, “design competitions” [often an alternative way of describing 'freebies from designers'] or freebies! Occasionally these may bring success but more often they bring frustration to both parties. Here are a few thoughts that may help:

• Consider consulting your previous educational establishment at what ever level this may be and see what sort of companies they may have contact with.
• Try to establish a trade off between the real-world skills you have to offer and the rewards you may receive – even if this is simply working for a well known respectable organisation for a few days in return for a slice of their reputation and experience [though caution is required here as work experience on a basis of more than a couple of weeks is a minefield also!]. I would normally recommend this very early on in a design career – school or university level but not much beyond that.
• Sometimes your payback is exposure and promotion – but do ensure that you will receive this to the extent that you expect it by clearly establishing with the client what is reasonable to expect and getting a copy or photograph of the end product! Personally, I only reserve this type of payment for situations where I was informally involved in visual creativity. For example, I recently took some photos of my friend’s kid’s karting race at a local circuit for fun and something to give my friend to remember the day. A magazine called me to ask me if they could use a couple of them in an article they were publishing about the event – I was happy to do this as selling these images on something like iStock would be difficult because of the many privacy and corporate laws that exist for selling an image [eg no logos, no people without model release forms etc]. So, the agreement was that they must include my website in the photo credit which could generate traffic and potentially have a monetary value.
• Be clear on what you can offer and honest about your skills along with a willingness to have your client or work experience at the centre of your world – ie want to succeed.