James Wood is creative director at the Dubai office of TMH
“Recently, I attended the American University in Dubai graphic design final show with a view to sourcing a shining new design intern for the office. You’ll always pick the best fruit straight from the tree. Mingling with the crowd in a small and sweaty little space, I took the time to have a chat with nearly all the graduates while reviewing their work. And Bingo! In no time at all, I’d found a rough nugget of pure gold shining through the mud. With a little patience that will clean up nicely, I thought.
Which brings me to my point. In our brave new digital world, anyone requiring branding and advertising creative solutions has the option of using the troublesome concept known as crowd sourcing, an online service needing no verbal communication or meetings. No face time required.
If you are not familiar with the idea, it runs like this. As a client, you can register on a crowd sourcing site, post your brief and sit back and wait as dozens of designers toil away in metaphorical fields, deep into the night, creating unique solutions for whatever your project is. When the timer goes BING, sit back and watch endless designs shimmy and shake cross your screen. Select your favourite and a lucky designer can claim the glittering prize of about $295. Job done.
Well, no actually. Job not done at all. Dig a little deeper into the case studies provided, and you’ll see a sorry parade of ‘off the peg’ ideas, worn out layouts and recycled logos. All prepared, presumably, by very down-on-their-luck designers pitching to clients who have no idea about what they are buying. However, you maybe surprised by some of the big brands posting on these sites. In short, it’s the online network from hell.
So, should we all worried that the branding and advertising ‘biz’ is going to be put out of ‘biz’ by nothing more than a shabby online creative dating agency. Well no, not really. It is still an absolute truth that building client/agency relationships requires a spark of insight you only get by talking, meeting and generally engaging with real people, over a period of time. This has to be a key driving force behind any successful creative solution. Clients are buying a strategically led process, not just the end results.
However, let’s not be complacent and allow the gutter rats of ‘crowd sourcing’ to foul on everybody’s well-kept strategic front lawns. Pest control will be required. Don’t feed them or encourage them. Whether you are graduate designer, seasoned agency pro or a client, ‘crowd sourcing’ does nothing but devalue us all. So keep it real, keep it strategically led and keep talking.”