Students That Freelance

Basically what that offer is asking for is work with no promise of pay. Often times called “speculative work” or spec work for short. Spec work, as defined by the NO-SPEC! campaign, is “any kind of creative work rendered and submitted, either partial or completed, by a designer to a prospective client/employer before taking steps to secure both their work and an equitable fee.” Thus, in a nutshell, any work that you do to try to get a job, that other freelancers are doing as well to get the same job, and you are not paid for it ahead of time, is spec work.

Students, in an attempt to build their portfolio, often fall into this type of situation. Desperately trying to build a professional portfolio so that they can either freelance on their own or work to obtain their first full-time job, student freelancers often don’t know or fully understand the consequences of doing such spec work.
In my opinion, spec work devalues the creative process and hurts the designer while the client reaps all the benefits of getting to chose the best design out of several designer submissions and paying very little to the “winning” designer for the work. It is not fair to the designers who put in time and energy into a project with no promise of being paid.

The way to avoid spec work is to make your client sign a contract with you stating—among many other things—that you are guaranteed payment for the work you complete. It is also highly advised to require a deposit or a down payment before you start working on a project. This insures that not only is your client serious in the project, but that you also have received some compensation ahead of time in case the client decides to walk.

Why do clients often like to resort to spec work or these types of design competitions? Mainly the reasons include not trusting a designer to create what they want and to save money by not paying for the time involved in the design, but only paying for what the client feels is the value of the design. Both reasons are very common among clients who do not work with designers on the regular basis or who have never hired a designer before.

As a creative professional community, most designers are very particular and can get very upset and heated about spec work, and with good reason. Doing spec work tells the client that you are ok with working for free and competing with other designers. Also, once the spec work is completed, often the promises of the client are never lived up to, such as promise of more paying work in the future, gaining recognition or exposure, and they often lose the rights to their own work.

However, it is important to point out that there is a difference between spec work and pro-bono work, often confused by starting student freelancers as being one in the same. Spec work involves many designers “competing” for a project by submitting completed work to a client, where the client then chooses the winning work, often providing very little pay or recognition. Pro-bono work, on the other hand, is often providing your design and services free of charge to a client, however that client is not requesting other designers to do the same exact design or service you are offering, such as designing a website for free.

For example, if your church asked you to design a website for them as a gift to the church, and you agree to provide your services to the church for free, then this is considered pro-bono work. However, if your church advertised (putting aside the fact that it is a non-profit organization) that it would like designers in the area to design a website, and designers submit completed designs with only one designer being chosen as the winning one, then that is considered spec work.

Another example, let’s say Brandy’s Bakery opened up in your city and they ran an ad in the paper stating that they are looking for a designer to design a new logo for the bakery, and asked designers to submit completed logos for Brandy’s Bakery that used the colors pink and purple, and the winning designer will receive $300. Fifteen designers submit 25 total logos designed especially for Brandy’s Bakery that meets the specs of the color scheme. Joe Blow’s logo is then chosen as the official logo for Brandy’s Bakery and receives the $300 prize. This is spec work. However, you see that Brandy’s Bakery opens up and you want to approach them about doing design work. You approach them and knowing that they are a new business you offer to do the logo design for free, as long as you can put up some free advertising of your own in the business (such as a poster) and you can use the logo in your portfolio to help gain more work. This is considered pro-bono work because you chose to do the work for free and you are not competing at a chance for the work to be used.

The examples above are watered down examples, however the best way to describe it is the difference of competing for the design to be used, or actually having it used with no payment and on your terms. As you can see the difference between spec work and pro-bono work can be a bit grey. The NO-SPEC! campaign website provides an awesome overview of the issue of spec work that can help you understand better here and since they know a lot of students don’t understand the issue of spec work well right out of college or while they are still in school, they have provided a great list of links to help you learn more about how it pertains to you. There is also this great article discussing the differences of spec work and pro-bono work (from the NO-SPEC! list above) that is a great read as well.

The most important thing as a student is to make sure that you are not being taken advantage of when it comes to spec work and pro-bono work. The articles and sites above will help you form an opinion and decision about how to approach such situations, but always remember that there are many other great ways to build work for your portfolio other than constantly competing in the form of spec work.