Nov 06
Free of charge please!
2006 at 08.06 pm posted by Veerle Pieters
Today’s topic has been on my mind on several occasions but I always postponed writing about it. Something that happened on Saturday triggered this again. It’s an example out of the real world. One of those things that is on our to-do list is some new office/house furniture. So we visited a design shop and after some looking around we kinda found some great ideas. Before making a final decision we thought it would be a great idea to have some interior advice to see if all fits well in the available space.
Services
The services include a measurement at your place, color advice, ground layout with the furniture placed etc. So if this was similar to the world I work in, in most cases they would be required to do this free of charge. Guess what, they charge you for it. Which is only fair, it takes effort and time. If you buy a certain amount of furniture the amount gets deducted from the total invoice.
Our world has a different set of rules
What is so different between an interior design proposal and a website/cms proposal? It's simple in our world a vision, ideas, advice and even design mockups in most situations are free. These practices are most often used in bidding for a larger project. Almost always it is in black and white mentioned in the RFP that we can't charge one Euro for it unless we get the job. Yeah right that brings bread on the table. Promises, promises...
We get them all the time but recently we had the pleasure to receive an RFP from a city at our coast that spans the crown. That particular city wasn't content with a design mockup alone oh no they even had the audacity to state that the design revisions to that mockup had to be free too. You only got to have the nerve to think that's normal. This pisses me off and I have one clear message to all those freeloaders "stick it where the sun doesn't shine"! I don't work for free! Somebody has to say it out-loud.
Time to put a stop to it
The purpose of creative pitches are to give clients a better understanding of the creative capacity of the selected agencies. To me it is a lame excuse to not browse around in the portfolios and let someone else do the work for free. I wonder what goes on in the mind of the people who write that stuff down, do they expect the freebies in everything else also? From what understand it is not only a Belgian problem but an international one.
So when was the last time that somebody did a day of work for free for you? Think about, let a painter do a few rooms as a proposal and maybe you'll order the rest later. Good luck in finding one that will do so. Those RPF's are 8 to 10 pages if you are lucky and doing everything to the letter it will cost at least a day of work. A day that you don't earn anything, how uneconomic is that and not to mention unfair. Bigger agencies even employ someone just to handle those. No wonder that studies prove that it costs agencies approximately 11% of their gross income.
There are other ways
As agencies we need to start to show clients that there is another way too. What about reputation, a credentials presentation and chemistry? Looking at someone's portfolio is how I choose my freelancers. I don't demand free work from them to prove themselves.
Luckily not all clients/brands are like that. Those earn my upmost respect and I can only hope that others will become as wise. I know it's utopia to think this will change something but I want the world to know that I had enough and I hope other colleagues will think in a similar way.
41served
1
Strange, how this seems to be common practice in the web design world, but nowhere else ... Indeed, working a day or two on a proposal just to get to hear you weren’t selected, well that’s just two days completely lost. No income, and a good chance the company steals some (or all) of your ideas. A portfolio is a good thing, but what about beginners who don’t have that luxury. Everyone has to start somewhere. And it’s often those beginners that get forced into making a mock-up of a site but end up seeing no money at all.
My advice: don’t bother with those kinds of potential customers. They’re not worth your time or energy.
2
It doesn’t seem to be web only here in the States. It’s across the design board, from print to voiceover to motion graphics. Check out… http://www.no-spec.com/ for a focus on Visual Communication/Design and speculative work.
3
I’ve written about this topic before, too, and completely agree with you. Here’s how I said it in an article about hiring a web designer: “It’s business. You are doing business with someone. Don’t expect free services, such as examples of what they would do with your site before you’ll agree to hire them or before you pay them any money. Imagine that you own a women’s clothing store. Would you let me walk into your store and ask for eight or ten dresses free so I can be sure I like the way they look, because if I did, then I might come back and really buy a dress from you?“
4
Well, Veerle, I find this rather strange. The people I know that do interior design always give a predesign for free. If you want changes made, and an final plan drawn, you sign a contract. Which I find reasonable. Of course, the drawback is that people can ‘take’ the predesign and go somehwere else with it, but that’s the risk the sellers take.
I think that an initial design could be offered for free, but anything after that, upon acceptance on the initial idea, should be paid for.
5
I would never offer a mockup or initial design for free. No way, no how.
PRoposals are a little trickier, though. I think it depends on what the person is looking for. I’ve recently charged for a couple of proposals that include detailed analysis of current site problems and propositions for solutions as well as generic branding suggestions.
However, I don’t charge if someone simply wants a quote. That gets tricky, though…they can take so long to write :(
One thing I do is immediately point people toward an inquiry form I have, which has a ‘budget’ line on it. Or, sometimes I give people an initial ballpark quote. If they are still interested after that, I put more time into a detailed proposal. I’ve gotten to the point where I just need to weed out who is serious and who is not.
6
Perhaps we shall charge a non-refundable proposal fee and apply it to the total development cost should our proposal be selected.
On a slightly different note, I received a call from a potential client who asked me if he purchased a flash template from template monster I would customize it with his information so he could see what it looked like. Unfortunately, I don’t run a assembly-line here. Just thought I mention that…
Veele, based on you personal web log, it would probably be safe to assume you know what you are doing. How’s that for a free proposal?
7
Veerle, this was a great read. I wish all client knew that what we do is acutal work. Just like building a house, we have to start from the ground up. The initial design is like the foundation. And I’m pretty sure that they dont do it for free.
8
If I want 3 opinions from 3 doctors before I receive any treatment I will be paying 3 consultation fees. Quite frankly, I charge for consultation by the hour. You make a meeting with me, you pay. That way clients come prepared and ready to talk shop, and take my work seriously.
You want a free proposal? Sorry you’re too late, my girlfriends has the rights on that one.
You want it for free? You’re going to have to wait… a veeeery long time.
9
Running a one-man business I simply cannot afford to pitch for free. Larger companies may be able to absorb this cost, but time spent free pitching is time I could be actually earning money.
As far as I’m concerned I spend long enough meeting with prospective clients and preparing site proposals and quotes for them. It’s easy to spend a full day on this process, which I do not charge for. To have to execute free design mockups on top of this workload I consider would be unacceptable.
If a client is hesitant to hire me without seeing mockups, then I will quote separately for this work. So far I have lost only one prospective client due to a refusal to offer free designs.
But it is not always so cut and dry, especially at the top end of town. Some friends run a two-person design firm which is starting to attract a lot of attention. They are now added to the pitch list for almost every major arts festival in our city, and are never paid to do so. If they refused to pitch unless paid, they would miss these opportunities completely - it’s a tough call for a design firm to make.
10
You’re so right. But I will not do these kind of freebies. If requested I give them a seperate price for it first, which will be deducted from the final proposal. If they respond negative to it I’m sure in many cases they weren’t really serious about it anyway.
I must admit my brother advised me to do it that way. As a photographer he gets a lot of clients who seem to think he should supply them with free photo’s.
11
I’ve never let anyone have mockups for free, but when I started my business I original thought I would be able to offer an unlimited number of revisions for free.
Well, luckily for me, my very first client taught me that lesson the hard way. They wanted visual mockups for EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF PAGE before committing to anything. What with all of the pages, and all of the revisions to each page, I ended up doing more than 75 mockups for the one project. (before I put a stop to it)
After such a hard lesson, I’ve always been very careful to say exactly how many concepts I will deliver for that project in the estimate itself, and that it only includes minor revisions. If they want more than that, it’s a change order.
12
So that’s what goes on in the high spheres of the industry, huh?... Is speculative work always expected by big clients?
In the little league, most decent clients are only looking for a cost quote. My proposals typically include a summary of the project scope (i.e. goals and requirements), a cost estimate, and an approximate date of delivery.
Most small clients have not thought throughly of their own goals, so my direction during the process (via client survey and follow-up discussion) — free of charge, of course — is valuable to them. I know… it’s significant time, and other kinds of professionals charge for this, but for some reason our industry doesn’t. Should we collude?...
Sure, every now and then I get prospective clients asking me to come up with ideas, and designs so they can evaluate. But if the client can’t understand that such work is valuable, and therefore billable, that’s not the right client for me anyway. Design work only begins for me after an agreement is signed, and an initial deposit is on my way. No better way to filter serious clients from bad ones.
13
I hear you on this Veerle! Unfortunately I think a lot of the blame is on us as designers, if we (or some other firm) offer this stuff free to the client at one point or another, they will always expect it for free. I guess if mechanics started giving me a free estimate for car repair here and there, I would eventually expect them to do it for free too.
So I think you’re right, as long as we don’t support the freeloading attitude, we shouldn’t have a problem getting paid for our hard work!
14
I told this before (in Dutch): http://outerthought.org/site/columns/lastigeboeken.html
15
Good article Veerle. I hope to be starting myself next year with a webdesign agency, and this will undoubtely be one of the problems I’ll be facing, but I stand with you on this! Hope I can change something about this in the Netherlands as well.
16
Zeldman posted about this very issue in January 2004, linking to http://www.no-spec.com/ too. It’s a shame that by the end of 2006 the same problems are around.
http://www.zeldman.com/daily/0104h.shtml
17
Honestly, I don’t know anyone that does mockups for free. I don’t get much freelance work, but I depend on my portfolio to sale my services and expect potential clients to check it out. If they’re to lazy to do their home work, then they’re probably to lazy for me to work with. Maybe that’s why I don’t get much work, but I only want to work for people that want high quality work. And someone who doesn’t do their home work on people they’re hiring raises a red flag for me.
The way I usually work is I’ll just write up a one page proposal telling them what I will give them for their website. I’ll list the prices and total price. That’s all I give them up front. It’s maybe one or two hours of work at the most. If they decide to move forward I’ll do a mockup, but they’re getting charged for it. Mockups take to much time for me to do for free.
I’m sure I’ll probably never score a big job with a really big client with this method, but it’s worked for me so far. It’s a matter of trust really. They’re trusting me by believing I can do what I say I’m going to do and I’m trusting them that they’re going to pay me.
18
Veerle,
You are absolutely right about not wanting to work for free. We have had heated discussions about this very topic here in the U.S. (on the DCwebwomen list-serve). It seems there are many clients out there who think you owe them a lot of free stuff before they’ll commit to you as a designer, plus changes whenever they want, without charge. In reality they are just taking advantage. I have heard though, that people do charge here for their time to do comps and mock-ups. If the client doesn’t like it, then they should get someone else, but you should set up an initial fee for your time and make it known before anything starts. I think you should tell them up-front before you start working with them that you will charge for the comps and your time - not as much as the finished product, but something. If they don’t like it, then they shouldn’t get your work. I think that’s the only way to get respect from people like that, especially when they don’t have a lot of experience or understanding of what is involved with design work and how much time it takes. They think that you are there just to fill their needs. I run into it all the time - people are so dumb about stuff, especially what it takes to construct and maintain a website. They are clueless, and I always end up having to explain things to them over and over so they know what’s involved. Sometimes the clients have to be taught, too.
19
I agree with you that it’s not a pleasant way to find work. However, I’ve been required to produce RFPs in the past, the reason being that some element of competition has been required.
There are many agencies and organisations who will not believe there is not an element of personal interest if a designer is engaged without competition.
20
it’s good that you write that, because someone has to start talking about it. only I fear that for certain projects/customers, it won’t change anything if you just say “No!“, because as you say, the bigger agencies won’t care because they can easily carry the extra weight of someone who was just hired for that. So they’ll rather do the work free of charge instead of not being in the pitch…sad but true…
I think saying “no” is one good start to make people think about it and maybe change a few customers’ mind, but it will take a long time until spec work will become extinct, if at all.
I am in the status of having my own “design bureau” as a second job, so I can always reject, and I try to build my portfolio with customers that are fun working with, and that appreciate my work.
21
I don’t think there is a solution to the problem. My experience is that:
1. there are always individuals or companies who will participate in this form of competition. Some do it because they’re young and hungry, or need the work to expand their portfolio, or because they have the costs of lost-leaders built into their general fee structure;
2. the more formal the organisation you work for, the more likely it is to have a requirement that tendering in some way is necessary. For many it is a legal requirement;
3. I don’t believe it will go away.
From the designers’ point of view they will have to make the decision on a case by case basis on whether they will participate. There is the real risk that by saying ‘no’ they are likely to be disbarred from any future invitation.
From the clients’ point of view the best I have been able to come up with is making a serious attempt to qualify like with like so that those selected know they are competing on relatively equal terms. It follows that the numbers competing should be low - perhaps no more than four - and that, particularly, they should be paid for their efforts. Curiously, if the pre-qualification is done well, it is likely that a contract committee will agree to all being paid a nominal sum for their efforts.
22
Although I can certainly see your frustration in not getting a penny for those mock-ups etc. I can assure you that you are not alone.
I work in a research environment (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) where we spend weeks writing a proposal for (hopefully) getting funds that allows the lab to (hopefully) employ one or two persons (for a period ranging from three months to two years).
Not getting paid for every hour is not pleasant, but that’s just how it goes. These are things that, in my opinion, you can keep in mind when you set up the contracts with the interested clients.
23
Well this is the angry side of Veerle, ;-)
Here in the NY Area this is just part of the business, especially for those in the creative services or any services for that matter, whether graphic design, architecture, landscape design, interior design, or software development. Mind you, only to provide a simple comp or proposal.
I am not saying I agree with this, but it is to be expected. It would be interesting to talk to someone who knows more about the history of the creative industry to see if they know when this all started…
24
I completely agree with your sentiment. Just be glad you are not an architect. They do competitions on complete projects, but only the winner gets paid.
25
I work as a professional web designer for a small software company as a full time job, but I also do freelance work during my nights and weekends. Fortunately for me my full time job pays well enough that I do not need the money from the free lance gigs. For this reason I don’t do any work for free, even the initial mock-ups. It’s simply not worth it to me.
26
I don’t charge for a proposal but I don’t design templates for free just so a potential client can see “what it might look like”.
It’s simple really, building a website for someone constitutes a relation of mutual respect and trust and that includes paying for my time and effort. If I client does not understand that than I don’t want him/her as a client. I’d rather earn less and feel good about every project I enter into than do a lot of spec work and get ripped off all the time.
But it’s comforting to hear that someone with your obvious skills still has to deal with this kind of attitude…
27
Hello Veere,
That’s a great rant. The free proposal idea came over from the big advertising agencies fighting over hundred million dollar accounts. They were called pitches and not RFP.
It certainly doesn’t apply to web design though. I’ve written up a a solution to the free proposal problem. There is a way out.
28
Veerle,
I posted earlier but somehow I guess my posted ended up somewhere in cyberspace along with some free mockups.
I doubt that clients would agree on the refundable scenario. They have a good understanding of what “free” means. I believe that the request for free proposals has more to do with attitude (not willing to pay) rather than the lack of imagination of what a great job you could do, once they have seen your portfolio.
At the end of the day you want your company to be successfull and unbillable hours are not the way to go. In webdesign, I bet a lot of time is allready spent on R&D, from which clients benefit allready.
My advice would be: don’t make free mockups or functional analyses, especially if there’s a good chance that they will end up as a perfect briefing for the lowest bidder.
29
I completely agree. From my experience only very big clients pay all the cost for a project proposal. However they expect them to be way longer and time consuming, too ;).
Imho a good approach when working for a smaller company or as a freelancer is doing an initial interview and a follow up discussion for free, so the potential clients get the feeling that you understand their business(and often they find out they actually dont know what they want or need). Make them understand that you are a professional, and if they expect professional work, they will have to pay for it.
Unfortunately there are too many of us out there who are willing to take every job they are offered, regardless of the conditions and the long term impact of their decisions on the whole design business. If you can afford it, refuse these jobs. However if you depend on this work and its “just common” in your business and if you want to make your living you will simply charge clients higher rates in the long run. Unfortunately smaller agencies often just let their designers work extra hours for free and base their cost estimates on exploting their employees.
30
I think that this is a major problem in our industry, but I guess that goes without saying. I actually just dropped out of pitching for an RFP (initally presented to me as just a project) - I’m pretty against the whole practice.
I was discussing the issue with a colleague today, and I think a contributing factor, or one of the roots of this problem, is the considerable lack of business education in design. I graduated with a degree that handles business consulting, and that has helped me tremendously in my work. Friends with pure design backgrounds seem to falter a bit coming out of the gate though, simply because they’re not prepared. I think with the tons of design graduates coming out each year, many forced to go into independent/freelance work, they simply approach work as if they’re trying to prove themselves to a design firm, rather than approaching a client like a client. I approach a lot of work like a consultant, my mind being the purchased good if you will. I feel like coding, illustrator and photoshop, etc can all be accomplished by so many parties, it’s negligible when approaching a client. Sure, there is some amazing things people are doing with code and making it dance, but a bulk of projects won’t require that skill the entire time. The key is the idea, the sketch, and proposed solution.
As far as architect bids/competitions, those are usually handled by very prestigious architects, who have quite a cushion to float them for these endeavors. Depending on the competition, the architect gets I think somewhere around 10% of the total project cost (that’s construction and all), just for the idea and planning sketches, whereas the bulk work is handed to another firm (the unsung heroes I guess). The architect is only called back in when something really needs figuring out - not a bad deal, huh?
I guess the pitch thing should be left to larger firms (the ones who can afford it), if it remains at all, whereas the smaller firms simply should not participate for the sake of the profession. It’s a lot to ask, and nearly impossible to accomplish though. The designer now is like the starving artist with a computer instead of brushes, and when it comes down to it, food needs to reach the table, and bills need to be paid.
I honestly don’t know a good answer, just my thoughts, maybe someone else will have better insight? (sweet jesus, mother of god… that was a long post. apologies)
31
JG - architects get nothing like that, I promise you.
32
Nice
33
I have a question. What do you do if a client asks you to do something “that will stand out” (!?!?!) and he wants it before his meeting Monday morning? Then you spend all weekend working on this element, implementing something which he said we can do later, because there’s no time now. But you get it right in time for his meeting, and then he phones, an hour before the meeting and says, “Leave that out, I think we’re just going for the logo there, and a phone number.“ After I spent all weekend trying to do something, which he wanted implemented later anyway, that “stands out”. Now he only wants a logo. I could have gone to the beach, people! Instead I spent the whole of my weekend in my office.
Would it be too much to add an “anything under 7 days gets a 100% markup on price” clause?
AAGH! I could kick something.
34
There is no solution to this problem. Regrettably it will have to be up to each designer to make up their mind as to what they are prepared to do to obtain work.
In case it’s of use to anybody, one practice I have is that every conversation is recorded in written form and, where necessary, transmitted to the client as a record of agreement or intent. It’s always a good idea to have a trail of decisions.
A lawyer once said to me that all projects should be recorded as if the evidence of the work is being presented at a later date in front of a judge. It’s good advice.
35
Amen to that ! As a ‘client’ I agree that one should do his homework and check out portfolio’s, references, and least but not least one should have some faith. For my part I try to think more in terms of ‘partnership’ iso ‘client-supplier’.
36
Extra comment : although I said that a portfolio and references can give you a pretty good idea of the quality of a web designer, it’s amazing how many web designers have a very poor own web site (often with the excuse : I should but I don’t have time). I’ve never quite understood this. I would suggest ‘show what you can’, ‘don’t talk about it’.
37
I suggest you pre-calculate the mockup deisgn phase if required in a signed aproval of each milestone by your client.
38
In a slightly different area programming I keep a policy of talk is free, but if you want something documented it will have a cost.
39
Veerle, you are spot on about doing free work. It’s complete BS. I have often found myself in the same predicament with clients. They want to use your work as a checklist to shop around others - I simply refuse to do it for free. I would much rather turn down the job then to do free work because it cheapens everything about you - your work, your principles, everthing. I actually went through something similiar about two months ago.
I find that the majority of clients who have this “penny wise, dollar foolish” mentality are the ones who can certainly afford it in the first place!
I was contacted by a major bedding company here in the US regarding a micro-site to be used to collect marketing data during a large industry tradeshow.
The tradeshow was on a Thursday - I was contacted on Friday morning of the week prior, and didnt get the project details until Tuesday morning, 2 days before launch. Tuesday evening they received my quote and Wednesday mornign I got an email saying the project was killed. They didnt think it would “cost that much.“ I have often wondered what figure “that much” refers to.
It turns out, the company gave the project to their internal IT department. I dont think I have to say how their “design” turned out - not to mention they were late by 2 days!
40
exactly!
41
Hi Veerle
Isn’t it great that all around this planet we can all talk about how to do great design using the same tools, ie P’shop, Illustrator etc. (Thanks for your free tutorial development time. You’re a positive force in the design world). Isnt it sad that all around this planet we have the same problem ‘clients’ who try to waste that most precious tool that we as designers have at our disposal. I’m talking about ‘time’. Send them to this site and forget about them. And find one of the many other ‘good’ clients to spend your time with. http://www.gdc.net/for_business/ethics.php