What can I say? I’m prone to topics that makes people’s skin crawl? I have some basic idea of where this story will go, but I will tell you now that I have no idea how it is going to end. We’ve been looking at these three and six part story arcs and finding they work quite well in the format we’re in. Today’s strip (and those that follow) was inspired by a Tweet made by one my friends at What Cheer. They don’t know that yet, I guess, but Twitter has become a surprisingly good resource for lunacy afoot in the design world.
–nv–
0 I Like!
36 Point: 
Lynne Door: 
Neenah Paper: 
JamieSaunders: 
Ryan Rushing: 
Nate Voss is a designer, illustrator, talkshow host and design journalist. Working in Omaha since 2001, Nate served four years on the Board of Directors for 
Donovan oversees all creative development at
Great comic today Nate. Its such a good subject to talk about always.
I get requests like this all the time. It’s very frustrating and hard to respond in a positive way when you just want to tell the person to F off and ask them if they like working for free. But i guess education is key.
ha ha, spot on! education and, let’s face it, compensation is the key. The strip illustrates a good point that there is always someone out there who will take the legs out from under us all by actually DOING the spec. Not always maliciously but it’s like buying a lottery ticket in the off chance that you really feel like you have the winner when chances are Sunrise Ultra Mega is going to say “better luck next time”, take all of the submitted ideas like a sketchbook and Frankenstein those beasts and you’ll get nothing and like it!
So if a mere ONE person or shop says yes, then the 100 NO(s) mean nothing aaaaaand back to square one.
PS: as great an idea as it is, anyone ever realize that Threadless is ’spec’ and making a ton of money off of the wellspring of free creative work. I love Threadless and i think a lot of the art is dope and I’ve even submitted something 4 years ago… never again after seeing the light. I’ll just print and market my own, thanks.
Hahahahah!
I might just show it to the client :)
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller
Here is one giant piece of spec work. Enough already with the reality shows. This is why I don’t have cable. http://www.cmykamerica.com/index.html
Steve, Agreed about Threadless. I think many professionals have stopped participating in their ongoing competition because of the point you brought up. That may be why I’ve noticed many of their shirts in the last couple years have had a bit of an amateur look. It’s also interesting that the AIGA site at once speaks out about spec work and competitions yet simultaneously praises Threadless.