Why Pay More?
April 15th, 2009
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
Old business model for start-ups:
1. Think of name
2. Employ expensive graphic designer and picture library to supply corporate theme and visual content
3. Trade happily ever after
New business model for start-ups:
1. Make up name not already registered as a dot com
2. Run competition to choose images and graphics
3. Award winner of competition the honor of seeing his work used by new megacorp
4. Save $000s
Clever it certainly is. But sustainable? Surely designers and photographers will come to their senses? Or is this solely aimed at the sub-graduate sector?
Whatever; if this really catches on there won’t be any jobs for them to graduate to. Designers and photographers need the protection of agencies such as fotoLibra to save them from themselves.
While I agree with the majority of what you say, sites that you describe give designers a place to showcase their work, and let’s face it we ALL like to show off what we do. While I’m in total agreement that it devalues the service we as graphic designers offer, when there is little work on the ground, due to budget contraints, the little potential work that is out there is good to keep us going!