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Oh man that is so dodgy.
This is why you need to network and do a bit of research if you are going out on your own.
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Alot of graphic artists have a tendency to sell themselves short and being pushed around easily.. This in effect creates a snowball effect that ends up making it hard for anyone to make a decent living doing this shit.
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Hong Kong9151 Posts
That infographic is pretty useful for more than just designers I think. I've been considering getting more into photography as a side job, and part of that has been just researching how people run their business and stuff.
I just wish it was an image instead of text, heh.
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100 is ridiculously low, but I feel like this is just how business works. You lowball with the intention of haggling, especially if it's a freelancer. To do otherwise is just stupid business practice. As big name like Akiman apparently is (I've never heard of him), he should have standard prices, so I can understand why $100 is insulting, but I still at least understand why the companies do this.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 20 2011 14:58 Emporio wrote:
100 is ridiculously low, but I feel like this is just how business works. You lowball with the intention of haggling, especially if it's a freelancer. To do otherwise is just stupid business practice. As big name like Akiman apparently is (I've never heard of him), he should have standard prices, so I can understand why $100 is insulting, but I still at least understand why the companies do this.
I totally hear ya.
Japan as a whole is unprofessional in its business practices (even the multinationals!!), so I'm unsurprising to me that this sort of thing happens often there.
The individual designer (especially those who are starting out) is kind of at the mercy of "the businesses" though, since how are they supposed to get their basis for how much their work is worth?  It's a pity.
Kind of unrelated, but do you know how poorly animators get paid in Japan? Because they're paid "per sheet", some animators' hourly wage comes out to less than $3/hour!! (and that's accounting for the Strong Yen!!) Outrageous!!
(btw I didn't know who this guy was either, but looking at his work, I've DEFINITELY enjoyed his creations on more than one occasion!)
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 20 2011 14:54 Coagulation wrote:
Alot of graphic artists have a tendency to sell themselves short and being pushed around easily.. This in effect creates a snowball effect that ends up making it hard for anyone to make a decent living doing this shit.
Absolutely
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On October 20 2011 15:10 thedeadhaji wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2011 14:58 Emporio wrote:
100 is ridiculously low, but I feel like this is just how business works. You lowball with the intention of haggling, especially if it's a freelancer. To do otherwise is just stupid business practice. As big name like Akiman apparently is (I've never heard of him), he should have standard prices, so I can understand why $100 is insulting, but I still at least understand why the companies do this. I totally hear ya. Japan as a whole is unprofessional in its business practices (even the multinationals!!), so I'm unsurprising to me that this sort of thing happens often there. The individual designer (especially those who are starting out) is kind of at the mercy of "the businesses" though, since how are they supposed to get their basis for how much their work is worth? It's a pity. Kind of unrelated, but do you know how poorly animators get paid in Japan? Because they're paid "per sheet", some animators' hourly wage comes out to less than $3/hour!! (and that's accounting for the Strong Yen!!) Outrageous!! (btw I didn't know who this guy was either, but looking at his work, I've DEFINITELY enjoyed his creations on more than one occasion!)
Even then they still get outsourced to the Philippines AFAIK, where wages are even lower.
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Sad truth here. I'm in a graphic art school myself right now and they beat it into our heads not to get short-changed on free-lance projects. A lot of companies want to pay you in peanuts under the argument that it'd be a nice addition to your portfolio or that the company name would look good on your resume. It's all BS, but people get fooled into it time and time again.
A few years ago there was a guy at my school's career fair interested in hiring someone to create and manage some fledgling company's website. Swag Stop or some ridiculous name like that, it was a clothing store. He offered me $100 for the completion of the website and $25 a week to manage it. I thought he was joking so I mentioned that since I'm not majoring in web design I might consider the position for 10x that amount. That's when I realized he was serious, and he didn't appreciate my input at all. I'm not sure if anyone accepted his offer, but it wouldn't surprise me.
He was probably the worst example, but a lot of people seem to use college career fairs as a way to hire naive kids for a fraction of what they deserve for the work they put in. It's like being in the Wild West and everyone's trying to stab you in the back
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 20 2011 15:13 Ciryandor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2011 15:10 thedeadhaji wrote:On October 20 2011 14:58 Emporio wrote:
100 is ridiculously low, but I feel like this is just how business works. You lowball with the intention of haggling, especially if it's a freelancer. To do otherwise is just stupid business practice. As big name like Akiman apparently is (I've never heard of him), he should have standard prices, so I can understand why $100 is insulting, but I still at least understand why the companies do this. I totally hear ya. Japan as a whole is unprofessional in its business practices (even the multinationals!!), so I'm unsurprising to me that this sort of thing happens often there. The individual designer (especially those who are starting out) is kind of at the mercy of "the businesses" though, since how are they supposed to get their basis for how much their work is worth? It's a pity. Kind of unrelated, but do you know how poorly animators get paid in Japan? Because they're paid "per sheet", some animators' hourly wage comes out to less than $3/hour!! (and that's accounting for the Strong Yen!!) Outrageous!! (btw I didn't know who this guy was either, but looking at his work, I've DEFINITELY enjoyed his creations on more than one occasion!) Even then they still get outsourced to the Philippines AFAIK, where wages are even lower.
and quality suffers.
And I become a Sad Panda.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 20 2011 15:20 Sc2Requiem wrote:
Sad truth here. I'm in a graphic art school myself right now and they beat it into our heads not to get short-changed on free-lance projects. A lot of companies want to pay you in peanuts under the argument that it'd be a nice addition to your portfolio or that the company name would look good on your resume. It's all BS, but people get fooled into it time and time again.
A few years ago there was a guy at my school's career fair interested in hiring someone to create and manage some fledgling company's website. Swag Stop or some ridiculous name like that, it was a clothing store. He offered me $100 for the completion of the website and $25 a week to manage it. I thought he was joking so I mentioned that since I'm not majoring in web design I might consider the position for 10x that amount. That's when I realized he was serious, and he didn't appreciate my input at all. I'm not sure if anyone accepted his offer, but it wouldn't surprise me.
He was probably the worst example, but a lot of people seem to use college career fairs as a way to hire naive kids for a fraction of what they deserve for the work they put in. It's like being in the Wild West and everyone's trying to stab you in the back
This also reminds me of an article I read on Hacker News, which was titled along the lines of "Never accept an internship where you don't get paid, ever"
Companies taking advantage of semi-desperate college kids... same book, different chapter.
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On October 20 2011 15:36 thedeadhaji wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2011 15:13 Ciryandor wrote:On October 20 2011 15:10 thedeadhaji wrote:On October 20 2011 14:58 Emporio wrote:
100 is ridiculously low, but I feel like this is just how business works. You lowball with the intention of haggling, especially if it's a freelancer. To do otherwise is just stupid business practice. As big name like Akiman apparently is (I've never heard of him), he should have standard prices, so I can understand why $100 is insulting, but I still at least understand why the companies do this. I totally hear ya. Japan as a whole is unprofessional in its business practices (even the multinationals!!), so I'm unsurprising to me that this sort of thing happens often there. The individual designer (especially those who are starting out) is kind of at the mercy of "the businesses" though, since how are they supposed to get their basis for how much their work is worth? It's a pity. Kind of unrelated, but do you know how poorly animators get paid in Japan? Because they're paid "per sheet", some animators' hourly wage comes out to less than $3/hour!! (and that's accounting for the Strong Yen!!) Outrageous!! (btw I didn't know who this guy was either, but looking at his work, I've DEFINITELY enjoyed his creations on more than one occasion!) Even then they still get outsourced to the Philippines AFAIK, where wages are even lower. and quality suffers. And I become a Sad Panda.
So do I, because good artists there are pushed too hard for them to get their work done. I wouldn't even mention the subtle artistic changes that are the result of this outsourcing.
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I'm not a professional artist or graphic designer but I did a lot of stuff for school clubs and such. Of course you rarely if ever get paid for that stuff cause it's just a favour for a buddy and such. It was definitely good practice and fun for a beginner like myself.
That being said, I STILL came out of the whole experience knowing that you must VERY wary of doing stuff for free, no matter who it is. You can easily pour in 10 hours into a project (which is a lot when you're doing this in your free time and also being a full time student) and people just blow you off. Hardly a thanks. Maybe they use it, maybe they don't. You also get a lot of "Oh, yeah uh do whatever it's all good!" when you ask for more details on a project. Then you come up with something and get shot down cause it's not what they wanted.
There's just a big misconception out there that designing is quick and easy.
I just started another degree in a design field (undergrad was in science)
Balls.
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Yes it is quick and easy. And it's also effortless. It's all natural talent, no? You're either born an artist or not. Kind of greedy trying to exploit that or rather the ones without it. Shame on you.
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This thread also reminded me about this from the TL graphic designer recruitment thread:
On September 20 2011 08:34 disciple wrote:
least appreciated staff position on TL imo
I don't know if TL graphic designers get any compensation other than some satisfaction. Maybe they do?
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I don't know if you can really use Mel Kishida's work as an example of random internet character design.
Unless that's someone else drawing outfits for Totori?
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I have a friend who is a pixel artist for a video game design company (nowadays mostly cell phone/android/ios games) and even as a big gamer she refused to do those contests for anything like E3 vip passes, sold out blizzcon tickets, etc. and says that people who are professional artists should never do those contests as it just devalues all of their work. I completely agree, and its a damn shame when there are those sort of contests. Design this tshirt and win 50 dollars and a copy of the tshirt! its like uhhh thats NOTHING for the actual value that the contest runner gets for that design
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 20 2011 16:33 Skipper240 wrote:
I don't know if you can really use Mel Kishida's work as an example of random internet character design.
Unless that's someone else drawing outfits for Totori?
oh that was cited to explain what "character design" entails (ie not just one illustration)
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 20 2011 16:33 Zlasher wrote:I have a friend who is a pixel artist for a video game design company (nowadays mostly cell phone/android/ios games) and even as a big gamer she refused to do those contests for anything like E3 vip passes, sold out blizzcon tickets, etc. and says that people who are professional artists should never do those contests as it just devalues all of their work. I completely agree, and its a damn shame when there are those sort of contests. Design this tshirt and win 50 dollars and a copy of the tshirt! its like uhhh thats NOTHING for the actual value that the contest runner gets for that design
Man you're absolutely right. There's SO much of that going on.
Maybe the more honorable thing to do is to revenue share with the designer who wins those contests?
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 20 2011 16:19 ven wrote:
Yes it is quick and easy. And it's also effortless. It's all natural talent, no? You're either born an artist or not. Kind of greedy trying to exploit that or rather the ones without it. Shame on you.
Hmm not sure if you caught my sarcasm.
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This got me thinking in a wider context. There was a prominent article earlier this year (though I can't remember where exactly) talking about unpaid internships. When you mention the idea of designers being convinced to do work cheap because it would look good in your portfolio, it reminded me a lot of the notion of people in other fields doing unpaid internships because they'd "look good on your resume".
Our generation is expected to work for free and then people wonder why we don't have jobs or money. Sorry, thats a little political I guess but its where my mind goes thinking about this.
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Sorry, I guess I must've missed that post. I haven't been able to find that article, though it doesnt really matter because the essence of it is "unpaid internships are bullshit and you shouldn't do them".
In most of the other "arts industries", unions came into existence specifically to try and prevent this kind of abuse. Musicians' unions, actors' unions, screenwriters' unions, and so on. I know a decent number of people who are actors (and a few classical musicians) and the rules are really strict, but noone really complains because they have to be. Eg, orchestras have a mandated amount of time between breaks and its often kept right to the second. I suppose that graphic designers never managed to unionize.
The problem is that when people get involved in something not because it pays well but because its what they want to do (which is almost universally true for the arts) its really easy to accept a shitty deal as being better than nothing, or to accept abuse etc. The same applies for internships too, they're generally in fields where people go because its what they're interested in (I have a friend who interned in the Canadian embassy in Latvia; he wasn't paid but this was, of course, justified by being such a great "opportunity". Actually I think he had to pay to get into the program he was doing).
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
"Calling Bullshit on Unpaid Internships"
http://www.irishstu.com/stublog/2011/06/30/calling-bullshit-on-unpaid-interships/
I didn't know the history about artists and unionization. That makes sense though. In general I'm not a fan of unions but in this case it's honestly hard to object to their purpose.
Graphic designers (particularly digital) are such a new incarnation that perhaps they really haven't gained enough momentum to unionize. I'm not sure if it's practical or beneficial, but it is surprising that we don't hear anything about it.
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What about doing free shit for ESPORTS?
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this reminds me of the worst comments thread over on cgtalk:
this thread is so full of earthshakingly bad stories it boggles the mind;
(not necessarily about ripped off designers but just bad encounters with customers/ clueless people)
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=2&t=43177&highlight=worst comments
Example:
+ Show Spoiler +The very first freelance job me and my partner ever took on, the one which lured us to leave our jobs and go freelance in the first place.
The brief is for us to work for 4 weeks to make some short animation clips of 3 hospital rooms, about 10 seconds each, to run as part of a presentation for cds they send out and for their sales guy to use on the projector. In short they want a hospital reception, stock room and operating theatre to show some key bits of new technology.
So, based on this request we leave our jobs...
The first problem is that they say they want us to work at their site, even though its entirely doable from our home studio, but they insist, so we get them to book us a hotel room. Then the problems start, the only machines they have are 300MHz 128 meg ram G3 macs, this was just as the G5's were coming out by the way, so they were a piece of shit even back then.
We tell the boss its impossible to get what they want on these piss poor excuses for computers, theyll have to get us something remotely modern if they want the job doing; so with this, they go out to a pc store and buy two craptastic machines which arent that much better than what they had. ie. it was an onboard intel gfx card.
After telling them these suck too, we basically inform them we're returning home to finish the project, because otherwise its not going to happen. At this point the boss goes on holiday for 2 weeks but refuses to give any member of his company permission to help us with the project, at this stage we still havent been given the mockups, storyboard etc, we have no idea what they actually want to happen 1 week into the 4 weeks.
This is where the fun begins, we get the storyboards through...
They want half a dozen modelled, rigged, animated surgeons accurately reproducing what happens in a medical video they have... Yes, they just threw character animation into the middle of an internal architecture job with just 1 week left to go.
So, my partner manages to hack some poser models into some surgeons outfits somehow and we make it to the end, having technically given them what they asked for. Naturally they didnt like it and then decided we should give them every single scene file and project file so they can fix everything themselves (on their G3's naturally)
We tell them if they want project files it'll cost them a lot extra, they threaten to not pay us. In the end we say screw it, subdivided every scene up to 10 million polys, saved every texture as a 0% quality jpg and slapped it on a cd and sent it off.
Took the money, never spoke to them again, nor would we wish to.
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Damn thats a ridiculous offer. Glad he stood up (as everyone should in this case) and made an counteroffer.
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Yup, this is a disturbing thing that goes on in freelance art industries (probably others too). There's a gross lack of appreciation how much time/effort/expertise goes into designs and illustrations that is ingrained in public opinion. Even the Obama campaign is resorting to spec work (ironically for a jobs poster) 
It's going to be a tough battle given: 1)the prevalent undervaluing and 2) artists arent in the driver seat and too often settle. I've seen industry veterans quote what they consider fair figures, and I'd imagine they are way higher than what most people feel they should pay, and what most artists would be comfortable asking for. (One Example)
I was looking through Craigslist and it is funny how many jobs asking for illustrations and designs flat out say they wont pay anything(or much) on a for profit project... AND always add in the classic guilt lines like "only people passionate about art pls". None of those fake artists that want to eat or had to pay for schooling.
As a side note, obviously there are exceptions where its ok to work for free- namely non-profit projects, trades/ favours etc- but in practice, a lot of the situations are just straight out exploiting people that are in a vulnerable position.
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On October 20 2011 14:39 thedeadhaji wrote:
Free lance programmers seem to be at least decently compensated, but for some reason designers are shit on so constantly that I wanted to remind everyone to avoid the shit at all costs!
I think it is because they really like what they do and they have more freedom in their work. Hence they don't feel the need to be paid as much. There are also more "designers" available than competent programmers. I mean programmers or a devs aren't artists, they have to make a good software or site or application for his client and that's it. They are more of the builder type.
It reminds me a bit of low level equestrian jobs, where people work a lot but are paid like shit. Why ? Because they all love horses and many would do to the work for free if they had no other choices lol.
Artists still make drawings even if they don't get a designer job.
On October 20 2011 17:14 Treadmill wrote:
The same applies for internships too, they're generally in fields where people go because its what they're interested in (I have a friend who interned in the Canadian embassy in Latvia; he wasn't paid but this was, of course, justified by being such a great "opportunity". Actually I think he had to pay to get into the program he was doing).
I completly disagree with your opinion about internships, at least in Europe. People are expected to work for free here because:
- They have thousands of others students available and the employment rate is terrible.
- You, as a student have absolutly no experience and you NEED to put things on your resume if you want to get a proper job.
Many people don't really enjoy it. But again we are not talking of artists here. They are not creative minds ( usually ).
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What I find regretful about all this is that it forces a lof of artists into protecting the value of their work and having a lot less freedom when it comes to hobby projects.
On October 20 2011 16:43 thedeadhaji wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2011 16:19 ven wrote:
Yes it is quick and easy. And it's also effortless. It's all natural talent, no? You're either born an artist or not. Kind of greedy trying to exploit that or rather the ones without it. Shame on you. Hmm not sure if you caught my sarcasm.
That's sarcasm again, isn't it? See, I'm good at it after all. Sorry for the confusion. For being rude, too.
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I think any designer/programmers smart enough or being doing it long enough knows about this type of things.
The bottom line is, real clients understand the cost. So effectively you have
New Clients who have no clue and go around shopping for cheapest but get burned in the long run. Cheap work means no support or expensive support.
Clients that understands the cost but decides to low ball you. Well... lose the client I'd say. Not some one worth keeping.
This is of course assuming that you are good enough to have that position. Not so easy in this economy.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 20 2011 20:38 ven wrote:What I find regretful about all this is that it forces a lof of artists into protecting the value of their work and having a lot less freedom when it comes to hobby projects. Show nested quote +On October 20 2011 16:43 thedeadhaji wrote:On October 20 2011 16:19 ven wrote:
Yes it is quick and easy. And it's also effortless. It's all natural talent, no? You're either born an artist or not. Kind of greedy trying to exploit that or rather the ones without it. Shame on you. Hmm not sure if you caught my sarcasm. That's sarcasm again, isn't it? See, I'm good at it after all. Sorry for the confusion. For being rude, too.
haha np I wasn't sure if it was sarcasm
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Thanks for discussing this. I learned a lot in this blog.
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Well the shitty thing too is that in this economy people aren't spending money on frivolous things like artwork or whatever. So You're normal painting that would sell for say 200$ won't sell unless you shortchange yourself by a lot. Same kinda concept here with Graphic designers
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
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My girlfriend is a graphic designer and it really annoys me that they would be short-changed. I remember reading that Irish Stu link you posted and it rings true. Graphic design is much different to things like freelance programming, with graphic design so much of the work is obtuse and present in work the client doesn't see, so clients often don't understand, while thinking 'I could learn photoshop on youtube!' so they think it's easy. Clientsfromhell.com features many examples.
A great talk on this is called 'F*ck you, pay me.' by an American graphic designer, it's for graphic designers but is interesting: http://vimeo.com/22053820?ab
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...
Market demand price = (forced) equal supply price = equilibrium
Problem?
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Yeah, being freelance also means knowing how much you're worth. I've seen people who get depressed not getting a job for a couple months and then accept ridiculously bad contracts just to have something.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
Yet another example of screwing over designers, but of a more concealed nature.
Worst of all, it's by Moleskine, the darling of any designer.
http://antispec.com/hq/moleskine
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Holyyyyyyyy shieeet. Street Fighter AND Code Geass and they think they can fool that kind of artist? Wtf? Clearly Enterbrain is just bad at this.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
It's disgusting how Designers get low-balled and disrespected. It's as if people think designs and work magically appears out of no-where and don't see all the iterative processes behind it and think that some 5yr old could do it. If you work hard for someone, you deserve to be paid. Clientsfromhell just has so many examples of idiots it's depressing...
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On October 23 2011 10:36 Count9 wrote:
Yeah, being freelance also means knowing how much you're worth. I've seen people who get depressed not getting a job for a couple months and then accept ridiculously bad contracts just to have something.
Exactly. Why don't people get it still?
When quantity supply is greater than quantity demand what happens to the price?
+ Show Spoiler +When quantity supplied is more than quantity demanded price falls, upto the point at which some suppliers decide they would rather not sell the product at that low price. If the supply quantity is still more (after the above mentioned supplies have been taken out of the market) than quantity demanded, then price continues to fall upto the level where he next supplier takes supplies out of the market.
Also to be noted is that, when price falls, demand increases.
This continues to happen until, the quantity supplied equals demand. This method generally works for most commodities, because the suppliers could store the commodity for future use. Also the general assumption is at a price of $ 0, the demand is infinite.
But depending of the commodity there could be other effects, especially price floors due to substitute uses for the commodity etc.
Taken from wiki.answers.
It's clear the supply of labor in the designer industry is MUCH greater than the demand. So there is no "low-balling" involved whatsoever. The designers getting the "low-ball" deals are actually paying the fair market worth of what their labor is worth.
The problem with all of this however is that in other situation when this (supply > demand) happens, normally price continues to drop until supply decreases and demand increases to the point of equilibrium, but in the case of the labor market for designers supplier exit (quit design, pursue another profession) is difficult because designers have no real transferable skills to other industries once they quit, meaning they would have to start at the bottom.
Also, I think there should be better communication and knowledge among the designer community about offers, jobs and prices so that each would know one's own worth, and companies hiring for contracts/jobs can do so based on pre-determined standard rates based on # hours required to complete the jobs.
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On October 20 2011 14:39 thedeadhaji wrote:"dodgy"! I knew you had to be from part of the British Empire when I read that! Anyways... Free lance programmers seem to be at least decently compensated, but for some reason designers are shit on so constantly that I wanted to remind everyone to avoid the shit at all costs!
This is off-topic, but THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Even I, from faraway and non-English speaking Romania know that.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
To those of you arguing for the principle of supply and demand...
That principle assumes that the market is efficient. An efficient market assumes (among other things) that all its players have perfect and immediate information about the market.
The situation with freelance designers is that they do not have perfect information about the value of their goods. In fact, their exploitation is a direct consequence of the lack of timely and accurate market information. If there is an equilibrium point between supply and demand curves in design right now, freelancers are continuously offered a price below the equilibrium point.
Under this argument, I assert that your logic is flawed.
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You were kidding about the whole 99designs website right? That place is 100% awful.
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On October 24 2011 17:08 thedeadhaji wrote:
To those of you arguing for the principle of supply and demand...
That principle assumes that the market is efficient. An efficient market assumes (among other things) that all its players have perfect and immediate information about the market.
The situation with freelance designers is that they do not have perfect information about the value of their goods. In fact, their exploitation is a direct consequence of the lack of timely and accurate market information. If there is an equilibrium point between supply and demand curves in design right now, freelancers are continuously offered a price below the equilibrium point.
Under this argument, I assert that your logic is flawed.
I would argue that another contributing factor is that clients don't know the value of good design. clientsfromhell.com shows many examples of this, and I think it stems from the value of a designer's service not being easy to nail down.
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Graphic Designers: thoughts on your work in relation with the eSports industry? Proper handling of graphic designers is a problem that I had yet to resolve when it comes to my various eSports projects, so I am curious about your thoughts on your expectations in a fledgling industry.
Sorry if it's a derailment.
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This reminds me of a friend I used to work with who went to art school with the girl who drew all the Harry Potter covers. Now you could make the argument that they truely had no idea how big it would become, which to some extent is most likely true. But when you offer some art school student $1000 to draw 7 covers for a small childrens book series, it sounds like some much needed income to a student and that is just what happened.
to be fair it might have been 2k I was told this story when I brought book 7 to work to read when it came out (so like 2 years ago?) but yea, even at that amount after knowing what it ended up becoming she was pretty bitter about it.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 24 2011 20:55 UltimateHurl wrote:Show nested quote +On October 24 2011 17:08 thedeadhaji wrote:
To those of you arguing for the principle of supply and demand...
That principle assumes that the market is efficient. An efficient market assumes (among other things) that all its players have perfect and immediate information about the market.
The situation with freelance designers is that they do not have perfect information about the value of their goods. In fact, their exploitation is a direct consequence of the lack of timely and accurate market information. If there is an equilibrium point between supply and demand curves in design right now, freelancers are continuously offered a price below the equilibrium point.
Under this argument, I assert that your logic is flawed. I would argue that another contributing factor is that clients don't know the value of good design. clientsfromhell.com shows many examples of this, and I think it stems from the value of a designer's service not being easy to nail down.
So the problem with imperfect information compounds itself from both sides.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On October 24 2011 22:00 Slusher wrote:
This reminds me of a friend I used to work with who went to art school with the girl who drew all the Harry Potter covers. Now you could make the argument that they truely had no idea how big it would become, which to some extent is most likely true. But when you offer some art school student $1000 to draw 7 covers for a small childrens book series, it sounds like some much needed income to a student and that is just what happened.
to be fair it might have been 2k I was told this story when I brought book 7 to work to read when it came out (so like 2 years ago?) but yea, even at that amount after knowing what it ended up becoming she was pretty bitter about it.
Well, at least she did get a real portfolio out of it, which 99% of these underpaid contracts won't lead to. I hope she has continued to prosper
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