So it seems the President and his team heard our complaints about working for free…

I think perhaps the people on the Obama Administration’s team still don’t get the irony behind asking designers to work for free creating posters about putting Americans back to work. Uhm, pssst, we’re out of work too…

Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate that you responded to us after we spoke up about it. However, the thing that gets me, and always does, is comparing qualified and good design work with other ‘easy’ tasks that almost ‘anyone can do.’ So in this case, we’re being compared to people calling constituents or knocking on doors. And, saying it is like any other request for volunteering is incorrect. You didn’t put a call out asking for volunteers, you put a call out as a CONTEST which is a totally different beast. In a contest there are winners and losers, as a volunteer you do something selflessly with no expectation of payment or ‘reward.’ Consider setting it up a different way – what if you has asked for designers to volunteer their time for this campaign and every designer who submitted a poster concept/design would receive a signed poster of the design chosen by the president’s team? This takes the winner/loser out of it and makes it much more appealing to most designers without the guise of a ‘contest.’

For the record, in the past I looked favorably, and considered, your previous requests for designer volunteers on your campaign. A shame you didn’t just call for ‘volunteers’ here.

Good luck with your competition…

Below is the email I received:

Hi,

I’m Josh Higgins, design director for President Obama’s 2012 campaign.

A few weeks ago, the campaign launched Art Works, a poster project inviting artists from around the country to contribute designs that show support for President Obama.

Here’s the idea behind this project: We want to give creative people the opportunity to pitch in their talents and further a cause we’re all behind — putting Americans back to work.

Thousands of supporters donate their talents to the campaign every day. Some knock on doors. Others make phone calls. Some organize rallies, and others organize house meetings. This project was developed to help the campaign spread a message — just as a supporter knocking on doors does.

This campaign values art and design, which is part of the reason we’re building a large in-house creative team here as we speak. But we also know there are a lot of great creatives out there who might not be in a position to move to Chicago and work for us full-time, but still want to contribute to the cause.

So if you’re not interested in participating, we understand. But if you’re feeling inspired by this president and what the campaign is doing, the submission deadline is this Friday, November 4th, 2011. For more information, and to contribute to the project, click here:

http://my.barackobama.com/Art-Works

Thanks,

Josh

Josh Higgins
Design Director
Obama for America

P.S. — If you would like to design for our campaign full-time, our team is growing — and fast. You can find out more and apply for a design job with the campaign here: http://my.barackobama.com/Design-Jobs

Really Mr President, Asking Designers to Work for Free? No thank you.

I think perhaps the people on the Obama Administration’s team don’t get the irony here: 

Make art. Make progress. Submit a design to support American jobs.

Asking designers to work for free via ‘crowdsourcing’ for a poster on getting people back to work. Uhm, pardon me, Mr. President, but graphic design is one of many of the hardest hit industries lacking jobs and you want us to work for free? Wouldn’t it be better to LEAD the way and SHOW the nation you too are supporting paying people who are out of work for doing WORK. I really just think this nation doesn’t understand that graphic design requires skill and talent and it deserves to be PAID FOR. We are trained, educated and hard workers, so why do we constantly have to answer to ‘contests’ and ‘crowdsourcing’ games where people are asking us to work for free on the notion that if you like what we do, you MIGHT pay us something. If I liked your job as president, I MIGHT pay your salary, Mr. President. But I don’t get the choice. No one does when it comes to other industries. When you order a burger, you don’t get to eat it first and then decide to pay for it if you like it. So why is it OK for designers to be asked to work this way? The answer is, it’s NOT OK. You of all people should know this! Please consider reading the NoSpec site about why this is bad for us and the economy in general. Educate yourself and your team. Please.

It is the least you could do during this economic climate to pay for design work you ask for to promote jobs. Really.

Hey All… Just moving my blog over to MK Design Haus

Hello and welcome to my new blog. I’m moving my blog over to ‘Mk Design Haus’ for consitency. My old blog at MaryKoster.wordpress.com will be for my new business with Rodan and Fields Dermatologists. Thanks for following and new content to both blogs will hopefully be forthcoming! In the meantime, enjoy this horse photo…

Goal to raise $15K for fellow Artist, Rabbit.

Lately, I’ve felt like, “I wish I could do something” on a lot of occasions. And you may have noticed that my former response of “why isn’t someone doing something” has slowly changed into, “What can I do about this?” So, with that in mind… I give you Rabbit.

Rabbit is someone I only know online, but he has inspired me multiple times to do things outside of my comfort zone with art, and to not give up on myself without even trying to do so for me personally. He just inspires simply by who he is and what he does. His work goes from light to dark and all stages in between. He’s incredibly talented in his writing, painting, drawing and more. I have only begun to know him, but to know he is HIV+ and has AIDS and may die simply from not being able to afford care; this breaks my heart. More than that, it angers me that in this day and age issues like this still arise with some of the most advanced care available to us…but at a huge cost to those of us without insurance.

So as one artist to another, and one human being to another, I’m imploring you to pass this along to help raise some much needed funds for Rabbit to afford the medicine and care he needs until he does qualify for financial assistance of some kind. The tragedy of losing him in this fashion when it can be avoided is something I do not want to think about too long without acting in some way to try to help. It makes me break out in tears, quite honestly.

If you can’t offer financial support in this fashion, or if you also want to buy his work, you may support Rabbit in other ways through his art on facebook and through his online art gallery. You can also read more about him and his story through Jottergirl’s blog post interview with him. My goal is to raise $15,000 by the end of this year for him. You can contribute on chipin.com and all proceeds will go to Rabbit by December 31, 2011.

The DOI awarded prizes to the top 4 designs/designers, or something…

So, going back to look at the crowdspring site, it seems the DOI picked a winner, or rather, picked one artist and gave a nod to one other in the 4 prizes. Only one designer out of 600+ gets paid for work, and a second designer gets a pittance for ‘trying’ to win. Not very fair at all, is it? Good for that ONE designer to have made $1500 for his work (even though that may be below market value) on 3 designs/concepts for a logo, but bad for that sole designer who made only $250 for his single entry and anyone else that didn’t receive ANY money. (Which, obviously is the majority of participants.) I find it interested that they picked US-based designers (at least the designers claim to be)… and that they awarded THREE prizes to one person/designer. I wonder if, based on the citizenship-status of the artists alone, that our voice made a difference in who they chose as winners or chose among for the final options. What are your thoughts on the outcome? The DOI said that even though they would award a designer as winner, it didn’t mean they would use it in the end. What do you think? Will they? I am leaning toward thinking they will use this design, despite our public outcry…

Follow up to DOI Crowdsourcing their Logo Design

Hey everyone! If you’re like me, you were wondering what the final result of the logo contest and my petition against the DOI was… and frankly, I’m still wondering. It looks like the person I contacted at the DOI did not follow up as promised and there has been no word on facebook about the contest since it ended (ie, we have a winner, check out our new logo, etc. etc.). So, I’m thinking all of us had an impact on this! The design contest on crowdspring seems to be closed and they have NOT awarded a winner as of yet. They are ‘late,’ according to crowdspring’s policies, on making good on their promises on the spec work contest. Also, I noticed on the DOI’s main page today, a new logo on one of the index page’s feed items… but this logo may have been done for the IT department only since it’s heavily IT related. Still, it looks like they did that ‘in house’ instead of outsourcing/crowdsourcing it, perhaps due to the outcry against them we all created. This is all speculation of course because they have not contacted me to follow up, despite many requests to do so. Anyway, just thought you’d like to know where it stood… I was curious myself, after all. 🙂 It looks like we made an impact at any rate!

Update: It was brought to my attention that they are indeed choosing winners. The site has an update on the contest as follows: “Update 5-Jul-11 2:52 p.m. GMT: The top picks from our DOI-wide survey are now in another round of internal judging, which should wrap tomorrow night. Then it’s off to a final round (in committee) with the “best of the best” and we should have our three winners chosen. Expect posted results by July 15th.” This still doesn’t say anything for what they will end up using, if anything. I’m going to keep my eyes peeled and reach out to them again to see what they are doing. When we spoke to them last month, their original plan was to get the winners and have ‘the people’ (both citizens and the employees of the organization) vote on the ‘winner.’ I’m not sure if they plan to use what they choose, but my contact there did say they didn’t ‘have to use anything’ if they didn’t want to. Here’s hoping they pay and pick a winner, and let it go…

Crowdsourcing; now our US Government is participating?

So this morning I was made aware of the US Department of the Interior offering up a logo design brief on crowdspring.com to ‘compete’ for winning their logo redesign. I’m definitely on the side of dislike over crowdsourcing, but understand a lot of small business and average joes going this route when it just looks so appealing on the surface. However, our US Government supporting NOT PAYING for work done – wow, I was floored to say the least. In response, I have started a petition. Please sign it if you feel the same way! I’d rather they pay a designer who is out of work, or a freelancer looking for work than source our US Government work out overseas, especially with the economy the way it is and the way it is for graphic designers right now. C’mon, US Department of the Interior. Really?

Connecting graphic artists with developers…

Last night I attended a Baltimore Designer and Developer speed-dating-style meet-n-greet! What a fun and interesting concept! The idea was to meet designers and developers and share information for 5 minute intervals while meeting as many of the attendees as possible in order to build our networks. Condensing information and skills, as well as work history and areas of expertise, into 5 minutes was a serious creative challenge. Sometimes there’s a match, much like dating, and sometimes there is not! Special shout out and thanks to Shawn Grimes (for putting the event together) and Jessica Watson (for jumping in to help coordinate during the event).

The biggest “take away” message from this event is the knowledge of the complete disconnect between developers and designers where two HUGE groups knew nothing about the existence of one another! After this meeting, it sounds like both groups will be working to change that. I hope to help make that happen and be a part of  helping people in each specialty find one another. While some designers are able to program/write code, most programmers and developers don’t do design and need our help but don’t know where to find it. Here’s to more meetings in the future and hoping we are making steps to bridge the gap! Go Baltimore! 😉

MD SPCA March for Animals

The MD SPCA March for Animals was a great success. They raised $358,000 with all the support of march participants. However, their goal was to exceed last year’s total and go beyond $364,000, so if you still want to help, please go to this link and give what you can! I had an absolute blast helping the MD SPCA by taking photos of the crowd, volunteers, and people with their pets. There were SO many wonderful people and dogs that made this event truly wonderful. Thank you! If you see a photo you like, please let me know and I’ll be happy to get you a higher resolution copy. You can view all my photos at Picasa here. Here are a few of my favorites below, so please enjoy!

National Volunteer Week – DO something!

My first day as the adoption went through for Naomi, my newest addition!

Today’s post is dedicated to National Volunteer Week. If you are anything at all like me, community and helping others is important  to you, but maybe you just don’t know where to start! Well, you’re in luck! There are SO many great resources out there online now for finding your ‘perfect match’ when it comes to volunteering, it’s easier than ever to get started!

My favorite website is Volunteer Match. You can search through what needs are out there and what ones you think you might be able to assist with. It’s REALLY easy. You just click on the “Volunteer” tab and click “search” to see what kinds of things are out there using your zip code or types of work you are looking for. You can also register to create an account and be able to leave feedback on the organizations asking for help. This is a great tool because, in my experience, not all places are great to work with so having the ability to leave feedback about how easy it was to volunteer and how much you enjoyed it is a good thing for others to steer clear of poor relationships and be able to give extra efforts to the good ones! I used this website to find local animal rescues in my area needing graphic design and photography help!

In addition, a few other sites I’ve found recently are “Do Something” (thus my title above!) and “I Participate!” Both sites also offer the ability to search for volunteer opportunities in your area, but they seem a little more ‘glitz and glam’ than the Volunteer Match site which just gets right to business. “Do Something” seems to be catering to a younger crowd and might be a good tool to use to get your teenagers and young adults interested. “I Participate” seems to rely on famous celebrities to put some shine on volunteering. Personally, I don’t need the glam, just the facts, but these sites give options to different personality types so that just about anybody can find a volunteer website that feels like ‘home’ to them!

Whatever you do and no matter how you find those volunteer opportunities, it’s most important to just DO SOMETHING! Yep, you heard me. 🙂 Just do it! This weekend the MD SPCA is having it’s annual fundraising event, March for Animals. And guess what? I’m doing something! I’ll be there photographing the event for them and hope to see your smiling faces (and furry friends!) there joining in on the fun! All it takes is reaching out to these organizations and asking if your skills or talents can be used. Honestly, it took 5 minutes out of my day to email the SPCA to see if they could use my help. It’ll be a fun afternoon with lots of animals and taking photos..how can I NOT enjoy helping in that environment?! I’m just SO excited they need me! So, find what is right for YOU, and just get out there and have fun! I know sometimes getting started is the hardest part… so take that leap and just try! You may be pleasantly surprised at the outcome! Happy Volunteer Week!