Crowdsourcing (or, Why I’m Being a Hypocrite)
November 19th, 2008
Filed Under Design, Rant, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Recently I was introduced to crowdSPRING.com, a crowdsourcing site for creatives. I even went so far as to sign up, looking through many of the projects thinking to myself, “I can do way better than that.”
I’ve got mixed feelings when it comes to crowdsourcing. While I feel it works well for open source projects and similar projects, I don’t think it’s best suited to graphic design. On the one hand, I can see the benefits. For the buyer, they post their project and get many options to choose from. For the beginning designer, they get exposure and work they might otherwise not get. However, here’s what I see as the big downsides to crowdsourcing: 1) For the buyer, the quality of the entries aren’t always the best, many rather sub-par from designers who either didn’t read, didn’t understand or didn’t get the concept of the description of what you, the buyer, is looking for in a design and 2) for the designer, your hard work going into a design project for an entry more often than not goes unpaid because it wasn’t chosen by the buyer, and if it is chosen, the price paid to you is often well below market value and 3) (this is the big one) I feel it degrades the graphic design profession and professionals who work in this field.
So why did I sign up, and even participate in a few projects, given that I (and others) feel pretty strongly about crowdsourcing and spec work in general? For that, I ask you to look at the current state of the economy. We’ve got an economy in chaos, rising unemployment, and a shrinking pool of work for an already saturated graphic design market. I guess you could say I’m hedging my bets.
Right now, I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve got three steady clients that keep me in plenty of work and keep my bills paid and the lights (and heat!) on. One client is on the periphery of the construction industry, and for the time being, seems to be doing well, even expanding. While I’m glad things are going well for that client, I know that eventually the house-building (and commercial-building) crisis could hit him, and hit hard, at any time. This is what Ronnie Ray-gun called ‘trickle-down economics’. Another client deals in travel and incentive programs, and given that nobody has any money right now, I wonder how much longer his business will keep coming in. And the third deals in a startup VoIP/data backup/phone concierge service. I don’t have all the details on how well this company is doing, but they did just sponsor a NASCAR, so they must not be doing too terribly, or they have very good venture capital.
As great as my clients are, I know my income could dry up at the drop of a hat. That’s why I’m hedging my bets and participating in a crowdsourcing site, despite my feelings towards it. Now, I know there are NO!SPEC folks, and AIGA folks who will probably flame me for it. I’m willing to accept your ridicule. Because when it comes down to it, AIGA and NO!SPEC will not pay my bills. That’s up to me. And in an already sour (and worsening) economy, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do just to get by.
Suggestion for Chicago: Congestion Charging
July 12th, 2008
Filed Under Rant, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Despite average area gasoline prices being over $4.25 per gallon, the City of Chicago has a traffic problem. A major traffic problem. The city and county also have a revenue problem, as evidenced by the Cook County board voting to raise the sales tax another one percent, bringing our sales tax up to 10.25% in the city. I have a suggestion that might help both problems at once.
In the United Kingdom, London has introduced a ‘Congestion Charge’ to get into Central London. New York has considered something like this, but the fact that they have some high bridge tolls to get into Manhattan kind of negates the need for such a charge. London’s congestion charge is £8, or roughly $16. I’m not suggesting something that drastic. I’m suggesting a $5 congestion charge to get into four of the most congested parts of the city:
- The Loop
- River North (including the Gold Coast, Old Town, and Streeterville)
- Lincoln Park (including New Town)
- Lakeview (including Wrigleyville, Boystown and East Lakeview)
The boundaries, in my plan, would be Roosevelt Rd. to the south, along Halsted St. to the west from Roosevelt Rd. to North Ave., then Ashland Ave. from North Ave. to Irving Park Rd, and Irving Park Rd. forming the north boundary, and Lake Shore Drive being the easternmost boundary.
There would, of course, be a few exemptions. Travelling through these zones via the Kennedy Expressway and Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90/94), The Eisenhower Expressway (I-290), The Stevenson Expressway (I-55), or Lake Shore Drive (US 41) wouldn’t incur these charges. Exit these roadways, pass through the collection area, and you’ll be charged. Another exemption would be CTA buses and trains, as the aim of the congestion charge is to get people off the thoroughfares and to use public transportation more often. Taxi cabs would have to pay the congestion charge, but they would be allowed to pass on the $5 congestion charge to the customer. And of course pedestrians would be exempt. Bicycles, however, would be charged a lower fee of $2.50. People who live within these boundaries would also be exempt, and would be able to get a special transponder for their vehicles that indicates to the collection points that they are residents of this area.
Congestion Charge collection could be linked up with the Illinois Tollway system’s I-PASS transponders to make the whole thing easier. Enforcement could be setup with traffic cameras, recording license plates, and automatically mailing out $120 fines (plus the $5 congestion charge and a $25 ticketing fee, of course).
So what do you say, Chicago? Would you be in favor of congestion charging if that meant we could repeal the additional sales tax?
Christmas Wishes
December 21st, 2007
Filed Under Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Why didn’t I think of this? Insanely useful websites…
July 3rd, 2007
Filed Under Politics, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
The Sunlight Foundation has a collection of Insanely Useful Links for government transparency. No more can we cry foul that we can’t get the information we need, and that the House and Senate’s websites are too hard to navigate (well, they are! But that’s beside the point). There are many gems in this listing, such as Congressopedia, OpenCongress, OpenSecrets, OpenHearings, and FedSpending, among many others. From these sources, I’m able to see what my House Rep has been voting on, where he gets his campaign financing, what bills he sponsors, who he often votes with, who he often does not vote with, and other great bits of information. This is all information that would have been hard to dig through, but these great sites put it all right there at my fingertips.
You’ve got to love “Web 2.0,” clichéd as it may be.
I’m hoping that one day there will be an OpenWhiteHouse site. We badly need it, especially in light of a president and vice president who feel they are above the law, and that everything should be a secret. What are you two hiding, exactly?
I want to work here
June 16th, 2007
Filed Under Randomness, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Safari 3.0 Beta for Windows
June 15th, 2007
Filed Under News, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
I must confess, I’ve been waiting for Apple to port Safari over to Windows for a long time. As soon as it was announced as I was watching the news feeds from Apple’s WWDC last week, I immediately downloaded and installed it. It was followed a day and a half later with a security update.
It’s a nimble little browser, nice and light, and I especially like the FreeType font rendering engine Apple chose to go with. Though, it doesn’t seem many Windows users appreciate it, given all the moaning they all seem to do about it. Another moan and groan I heard about Safari for Windows was the lack of ability to add extensions and skins. To me, this isn’t very important. Safari for Windows, in my opinion, isn’t meant to be someone’s primary browser. Instead, I think it’s tailor-made for people like me who want to test their sites on Safari to ensure their Mac users aren’t alienated, but don’t have access to a Macintosh. Also, I think it was released especially for developers given the coming of the iPhone.
There are some who bemoan the entry of the Safari web browser into the perceived fight of Internet Explorer 7 vs. Firefox 2.0, but I’m of the mind of more competition could only make things better. Firefox, while a great browser and one that I use daily, is starting to show signs of bloat. Though, I hear good things about the development of Firefox 3.0, and how they’re working to eliminate some of the bloat.
So would I use Safari as my everyday web browser? No. But it is handy to have around to test things out in. And it also makes some nice screenshots, too. Safari has won a spot on my hard drive.
It’s like they are participating in mocking themselves
May 20th, 2007
Filed Under Thoughts | Leave a Comment
On a recent visit to PCWorld to view an article in which the state of New York is suing Dell, what do I see? Dell advertising on the same page. It’s almost like they’re mocking themselves. Click the image for a larger version.
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That’s Farked Up!
April 26th, 2007
Filed Under Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Fark has a new copyright policy: All your photoshops are belong to us.
From TFA:
It’s a big deal, one of FARK’s more popular features is its recurring Photoshop challenge, where users post remixed images to FARK’s forums. FARK already earns ad dollars from the traffic these challenges generate, but according to the new policy, it now also owns the copyright to anything a user posts there in perpetuity. Although it does state that users can re-publish their own works. Which is nice. Sort of. But not really.
How kind of them to ALLOW you to republish your own handiwork. Will Farker’s revolt? Probably not.
UPDATE:(From BoingBoing) Fark’s Drew Curtis has gone on record saying that this agreement isn’t good and will be fixed soonest — great news!
We’re not, we’re asking for a non-exclusive right to republish. Submitters still own their submissions, we’re asking for reprint rights in case we can use it. We have no intention of acquiring ownership of submission.
ANOTHER UPDATE: (from Boing Boing again) Fark’s Drew Curtis adds:
“Something else no one knows, because no one asked, is that since the inception of the website, I have been contacted on multiple occasions by mainstream media people (or otherwise, such as when Thomas Dolby asked permission to blow up submissions to a PS contest with him as the subject to poster size for his own house) about using Fark PS submissions. I have refused to give the permission, and instead have on every occasion contacted the individual who owned the work and told them that the didn’t need to respond to the media inquiry but if they wanted to they could. Because of this, if you ever saw a Fark PS in Mainstream Media that was uncreditted, it was used without permission.”keep looking »
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It's Web 2.0, baby.
