This is Part 3 of the 4-Part series, How to Educate Your Clients, where we will examine the important role that education plays in your Freelance Illustration business. I’ll be releasing the future articles in the series over the next 4 days. If you’d like to follow along, simply bookmark this page, because I’ll be updating the links in the list below to direct you to those topics as I post them. If you prefer, you can follow updates via email or RSS.
Spec Work
To many Illustrators, these are the two filthiest four-letter words in the industry.
Part of the reason is that every day clients are asking artists to create work without guaranteeing that it will be used, or more importantly, that they will be paid.
The fact is, spec work is never going away. No matter how much you may disagree with the ethics involved, some clients will still be requesting this lowly form of free work until the end of time. You can, and in my opinion should, avoid doing spec work like the plague that it is. Many professionals claim that it devalues the industry, and to those who would debate this, I would say that at the very least, it certainly devalues your own worth as an Illustrator.
There are two main reasons that spec work will always exist:
1. There will always be Illustrators who will agree to do spec work.
2. Most clients who ask for spec work don’t know or understand that it is bad, or why.
While all the education in the world won’t alleviate the hunger that drives artists to accept spec work, there are healthy ways to refuse to work for free while teaching your potential clients at the same time.
Some Misconceptions About Spec Work
Some creative professionals will react to a request for spec work by attacking or insulting the person asking for it. I understand the anger that spec work evokes, but this response assumes that the client is knowingly trying to take advantage of hungry artists. While this may or may not be the case, I propose that it’s a better idea to give the client the benefit of the doubt.
As Illustrators, we hear the term spec work spat out of each others’ mouths everyday with enough distaste to make our mothers cringe. Because of this, it’s easy to forget that many of the people who ask for spec work have probably never heard the term before in their lives. They simply don’t live in our world.
Therefore, rather than persecute them, we can take the opportunity to educate them and maybe even get them to pay for our services.
How You Can Enlighten the Lost
Before I share my own personal approach to educating my clients, I’d like to highlight two resources where you can find more information:
- No!Spec (no-spec.com) – A campaign that takes a very aggressive stance on spec work and strives to spread the word.
- AIGA – The professional association for design shares its position on spec work and offers a sample letter to send in response to spec work.
Now I’ll share an example of how I generally respond to a client who requests spec work via email:
Thank you for contacting me. I would love to discuss your project in greater detail. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to create work on speculation, because my time is reserved for my paying clients. That being said, I stand by the quality of the work in my portfolio, and if you’d like to commision me to create comps before you commit to hiring me for the overall project, I’m happy to negotiate a reasonable rate.
I look forward to the possibility of working with you.
What I like about this response is that it assumes the client’s innocence, asserts the value of my time, and opens the door to a fair, contracted relationship. Of course, if they are not interested in these terms, they will simply move on. At the very least, they will hopefully get the impression that if they want something of value, they are going to have to pay for it, without me having to confront them in a negative way.
More often than not, clients with good intentions will in turn hire me to create comps, and sometimes more.
Assert and Avert
Whatever strategy you use, taking the time to educate potential clients about spec work will help to encourage them to pursue ethical business practices and turn away those who would rather waste your valuable time for no pay. In the meantime, you can make this task a little easier by asking your fellow Illustrators to do the same.
Escapee has spoken.
Check back tomorrow to find out how to educate your clients about Spec Work.
Now it’s your turn to share.
Do you take the time to explain industry standards?
How do you justify your price quotes?
I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Read more of How to Educate Your Clients.
Read More Escapee Speaks Business.
Who is this Escapee guy anyway?
I had an agent who asked me to do this. It was bad all around. She also rarely found work that was suitable to my style. It was not a good fit. No agent is better than one who does not represent you well, or who does not have your best interests in mind.
TJ and Edd,
I am in the process now of finding an art rep to help me AVOID these very types of job offers.
From what I understand agents are to not only help you get work, but to also help filter out the crap job offers that you get from clients not familiar with the art business. Largely this is because dealing with these types of clients can be a huge waste of time, talent, resources and income. Not just for the artist but for the rep as well.
I’m looking for an agent to get me connected to legitimate profesionals who understand the amount of work that goes into what I and others like me do. Clients that I may lack the resources to find myself. I can get solicitations from clients asking for spec work all on my own. (And have been for a while now!)So an agent sending me those types of jobs would feel like a waste of time and that new representation may be needed.
Now my question to you TJ is, should we as artists ask for a way to get out of our contracts written into them. Maybe a 90 day probationary period that we can use to get out of it. An artist recently told me that he has had a rep for over a year who hasn’t gotten him a single job. If his contract says that the representation is exclusive, he has no way to seek representation with someone else. And he’s stuck! Is there a way for an artist to protect themselves from these types of things?
-Wilson
I had the same thing with my first agent. They seemed surprised when I asked them if it was normal practise. They used the reasoning that even if you didn’t get the job you would have produced new portfolio pieces… but then often sent me jobs that were really wrong for me (black & white line drawings of David Beckham?!) so they were things that I would never want in my portfolio anyway.
Wilson,
Your contract with an agent is just as important as the one you have with your clients. Any time you sign something that affects the way you do business, you have to make sure that the benefits are greater than the cost. So, the first step is signing the right contract.
Without knowing about your friend’s specific contract, I can’t tell you what is allowed for him to do, but I will say that if something isn’t working for you or your business, you can always look into the possibility of moving away from it.
Thomas
I have a different perspective than most of you on spec work I guess. Most of my art experience in the past 30 years has been as an advertising designer. My first job was for an award winning ad agency in a major city. I moved on to owning a design business where I worked directly with the clients. I showed my portfolio to prospective clients. I expected that they would hire me based on my previous work and the samples in my portfolio. I did not do spec work for advertising/design.
Then I started working for a manufacturer that hires licensed art work for all their products. It is an industry standard to submit your design work in digital form or printouts in a 3-ring binder. The manufacturer will choose work from those images for specific use. If they like something you have done they might ask you to do more of the same style. If you want a chance at the job then you do the spec work. I am also a licensed artist and have an agent, I have done tons of spec work, and have gotten a lot of jobs by doing this. Working directly with manufacturers is a different industry than being a children’s book illustrator, or an advertising designer. Spec work is an industry standard. I have worked on both sides of the manufacturing and licensing work for 11 years and have come to accept this practice as part of the industry. It is true that I have been asked to submit design for a project that ultimately weren’t chosen, but I have later sold the same images to someone else. So was it time wasted? I guess this is a question that we all get to answer for ourselves. Thanks for letting me voice my opinion. Best to all of you in your artistic ventures!