Design Fever

Costco sends out a magazine called Costco Connection, and my copy arrived today.  Costco is to be generally admired, and I am delighted they are going after the Washington State Stalin-era liquor control board.  It is safe to do so in these times.  It is tedious sometimes for me to get my booze in California, especially when it is no longer allowed to be carried on board an airplane, for no good reason whatsoever.

But on to design...  the Costco magazine letters to the editor has a note from a graphic artist, making the case contrary to an article in a previous edition.  The article in question apparently advocated crowdsourcing design requirements. (You can blow up the letter once you get to the page.)  The designer makes the case that working with one designer is better, as your desires are better executed. The point is fine, and I would agree.  But the writer, a graphic artist, makes a couple of common errors.

First she claims crowdsourcing is "one of the most hurtful practices to ever show up in the life of  designer."  The problem here is the ad hominem nature of the argument: She does not argue process and result, but feeling of a participant.  We who buy design capability are buying a result, not investing in the emotions of the players.

To claim something is hurtful implies one needs a remedy.  She does not warrant the claim:  how do I freely conversing with several hundred potential suppliers possible cause her harm?  I should be required to include her in people I desire might work with.  Since the designer feels hurt, I should somehow, by force a third party (paid for by a fourth party) be obliged to work with her, or her assigns?  Of course her impulse is precisely what is behind bar associations, medical accreditation, etc.  She even makes the ultimate claim: we can only be assured of quality, and not being ripped off, by working with people like her.

Second, the practice of a designer developing ideas on spec has been going on since time began.  Merely because more people are being reviewed in the crowdsource method makes it no worse, or better.  No doubt the writer "worked for free" while in school, and no doubt she has made up plenty of designs on spec.  We all do in all professions.

Instead of complaining about other people being free to do as they like, it is better to study the process yielding a result.  Figure out how one ought position oneself to yield a result.  In this case the designer might set up some computer program that sorts out inquiries so as to offer up the ones where upon a designer may put his best foot forward, or in this case her best foot.

Crowdsourcing is widening the access and lowering the cost of design, allowing a lot more people get into it it on both sides of the equation.  Instead of complaining about this, she could crowdsource herself, putting together a crew of excellent designers worldwide, and market them.  I'd love to see prequalified designers, I would resent being forced to work with only them.

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