You've been working as a freelance designer with moderate success for about a year; that is, you're able to pay your bills and you like your apartment, but you haven't started your own firm, and you aren't taking any vacations to Fiji. You see a $1000 crowdsourcing project posted on a job board or website that seems to be a perfect fit with a project that you've been working on in your spare time for a while now, so you decide to submit that completely original design that you've probably put about 50 hours of work into. Then, surprise: The company picks your design, and they contact you via email, sending along a WMFH contract for you to sign, handing over all of your rights to anything related to that design, for eternity. Hm. You poke around online, and find that this company has a track record of using, reproducing, altering, and often selling off designs that they've bought from neophyte designers. So, what do you do? Why do you make this decision?
Knowing that I would not receive any credit for my design if it won the competition, I would not agree to the WMFH. As an interior design student I feel like I have a good understanding of the pride that a designer has in all of their designs that they create; especially the designs that are acknowledged as being the best of the best. If I were to enter a design in a contest I would be sure to put a lot of time and effort in creating the "perfect" design for the client. Design presentations take hours and hours to develop and put together. I would hate it if I did not receive any credit for a winning design of mine after dedicating myself to the project. I would pass on this opportunity and would much rather find a client on my own to ensure that I would get credit my designs. Receiving credit for designs is much more important that the possible money that could be made by entering this contest. Money can only get people so far, but having the reputation of a prestegious designer will get designers much farther in their careers.
No comments:
Post a Comment