’t to say that doing pro-bono work from time to time is necessarily a bad thing. However one needs to keep in mind the difference between pro-bono and speculative work. As a great example of pro-bono work, VSA Partners were approached by the Chicago Olympic Organizing Committee to develop a logo design for the 2016 Olympic GamesDesign competitions have been hitting the news more and more lately. Seemingly almost every week a ‘call for submissions’ request hits the headlines, asking for artists and designers to submit their ideas and proposals. Due to the seemingly large talent pool of designers available through the help of the internet, companies and organizations have been capitalizing on this new-found resource as a solution to their design needs.

What’s interesting is that there has been a backlash from the design community in regards to these competitions. There are a number of reasons for this. One is that ultimately, the ‘competition’ itself becomes the real news, while often times the contest organizer will fail to adequately promote the winning designer once the project is completed.

Another issue at hand is the waste of resources that occurs when artists compete to submit winning designs. This robs designers of their time and effort causing great inefficiencies. What’s worse is that the winning design may or may not be suitable for the client, as the designers are likely kept at arms length during the process. As a result, contest organizers may get ‘stuck’ with a particular logo design, or risk facing a public relations disaster if they decide to change it a month or two down the road.

That isn’t to say that doing pro-bono work from time to time is necessarily a bad thing. However one needs to keep in mind the difference between pro-bono and speculative work. As a great example of pro-bono work, VSA Partners were approached by the Chicago Olympic Organizing Committee to develop a logo design for the 2016 Olympic Games.

organizations have been capitalizing on this new-found resource as a solution to their design needs.

What’s interesting is that there has been a backlash from the design community in regards to these competitions. There are a number of reasons for this. One is that ultimately, the ‘competition’ itself becomes the real news, while often times the contest organizer will fail to adequately promote the winning designer once the project is completed.

Another issue at hand is the waste of resources that occurs when artists compete to submit winning designs. This robs designers of their time and effort causing great inefficiencies. What’s worse is that the winning design may or may not be suitable for the client, as the designers are likely kept at arms length during the process. As a result, contest organizers may get ‘stuck’ with a particular logo design, or risk facing a public relations disaster if they decide to change it a month or two down the road.

That isn’t to say that doing pro-bono work from time to time is necessarily a bad thing. However one needs to keep in mind the difference between pro-bono and speculative work. As a great example of pro-bono work, VSA Partners were approached by the Chicago Olympic Organizing Committee to develop a logo design for the 2016 Olympic Games

, while often times the contest organizer will fail to adequately promote the winning designer once the project is completed.

Another issue at hand is the waste of resources that occurs when artists compete to submit winning designs. This robs designers of their time and effort causing great inefficiencies. What’s worse is that the winning design may or may not be suitable for the client, as the designers are likely kept at arms length during the process. As a result, contest organizers may get ‘stuck’ with a particular logo design, or risk facing a public relations disaster if they decide to change it a month or two down the road.

That isn’t to say that doing pro-bono work from time to time is necessarily a bad thing. However one needs to keep in mind the difference between pro-bono and speculative work. As a great example of pro-bono work, VSA Partners were approached by the Chicago Olympic Organizing Committee to develop a logo design for the 2016 Olympic Games

that the winning design may or may not be suitable for the client, as the designers are likely kept at arms length during the process. As a result, contest organizers may get ‘stuck’ with a particular logo design, or risk facing a public relations disaster if they decide to change it a month or two down the road.

That isn’t to say that doing pro-bono work from time to time is necessarily a bad thing. However one needs to keep in mind the difference between pro-bono and speculative work. As a great example of pro-bono work, VSA Partners were approached by the Chicago Olympic Organizing Committee to develop a logo design for the 2016 Olympic Games

’t to say that doing pro-bono work from time to time is necessarily a bad thing. However one needs to keep in mind the difference between pro-bono and speculative work. As a great example of pro-bono work, VSA Partners were approached by the Chicago Olympic Organizing Committee to develop a logo design for the 2016 Olympic Games. Based out of Chicago themselves, VSA Partners took the best design elements of their native city when creating the logo. The Olympic Organizing Committee and VSA Partners stand to mutually benefit from the collaboration.

However, speculative work is different. It means that designers can never be sure that their work will be considered, and there is often no compensation offered for designs that aren’t selected. Pro-bono work means that you will essentially be doing the work for free, but it’s guaranteed that your work will be used in the project, something that is very important to designers looking to enhance their portfolios.

As a means to counter this new trend in the design industry, an initiative called NO-SPEC has started out. NO-SPEC is an organization dedicated to educating and promoting sound business practices in the design world. With the help of their website they hope to encourage designers to take a stand on doing excessive speculative work, while educating contest organizers on the negative influence these types of logo design competitions have on the industry.

Logo Bee also has a competition of its own which attempts to reverse this trend, called “LogoBee’s Design Makeover” for non-profits. LogoBee is the host of this annual contest where non-profits submit propos