5 Reasons Spec Design Work is Not Considered

February 14th, 2012 // michael // Topic: Business, opinion, process

For some the term spec work is foreign slang that may lead to guessing its about sweaty people exercising their spec muscles. Actually it is designers exercising their sweaty mouse fingers — its short for “speculative” work — free work in hopes of getting paid for it. I understand the motivation for potential clients to [...]

The un-Santa of Pro-bono Work

December 9th, 2010 // michael // Topic: Business, non-profit, opinion

‘Doing good’ is alluring — a great elixir to induce happy feelings like a warm embrace from a Grandma smelling of cookies. But what does ‘doing good’ mean to design studios? Is doing good a casual activity or a company pursuit? Santa gave equally, even to capitalists During this Christmas season of remembering the charity [...]