So who’s heard of NO!SPEC? Anyone? Some of you? Ok, well, lets have a little chat about what it stands for. NO!SPEC is an initiative whose “mission is to educate the public about speculative, or ’spec’ work”. What is spec work you ask – well “Spec has become the short form for any work done on a speculative basis. In other words, any requested work for which a fair and reasonable fee has not been agreed upon.” In the UK we might say a “pitch” or a “tender” or if we need it spelt out in simple terms it is “doing work that we are not definitely going to be paid for”.

So these guys want to educate us. What - you say – educate me? Why? Because Speculative work is the bane of the design industry. In every pitch you might have 4 out of 5 companies who do not win that contract. If we take that as an average that means that 4 fifths of the industry do not get paid for spec work. So what? So these people that miss out have wasted there time, their money, and their passion on something that has been a waste of time. Their clients may have suffered and they have a team of demoralised designers. They have given over ideas that have not been completed under contract and could be used or could influence the client without them having to pay a penny and also they have condoned this whole approach by partaking in the first place! Why do we accept this approach ladies and gents? Why do we allow people to make us work for free? Because they can. But why can they? Because WE let them.

So the time has come for us all to stand together, shoulder to shoulder and stand up and just say loud and clear “NO”.

Or is it? Maybe you feel that spec work is a good thing?! If so share your views. I for one would be interest to find out if anyone in the design industry thinks that spec work is a good thing. If you agree with no spec however. Why not join the initiative (like have) and add a logo to your site. Let hear what you think on this people…

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