This issue has come up on the CORA Group on LinkedIn, so I thought I would raise the same topic here and see how many are aware of it. This is something I've been watching for a few years and I think will have a decided impact on our Profession.
Competition sites began springing up for Graphic Design in the past 5 years - there are several successful platforms out there. What they do is allow a person seeking graphic design services to create a mini design competition by which they can procure designs from dozens of graphic designers and choose the one they like best. Designers voluntarily submit custom design work to fulfill the competition brief posted by the prospective client, and comes away with broad rights to the submitted work.
You could understand the appeal of this to a prospective client who might otherwise pay a large sum to contract with a single Graphic Designer or Design firm and get a narrow selection of options that are within that Designer's range of output. Instead they post a prize which is a fraction of the corresponding custom design fee, and they are able to procure dozens of design options, including at some of these web sites a round of critique and revision.
Such sites are:
http://www.designcrowd.com/ http://logotournament.com/ The typical objection is that the design output of these competitions is in no way comparable to a custom design process with a Graphic consultant, who will interact with the client, get inside their head, understand their needs in a way that no competition entry ever could. And of course that costs more, and can't be done for the paltry sums offered as prizes in these "design competitions". And as you might expect, these arguments are not particularly compelling to the people who use these sites. I'd encourage you to speak to a friend in the Graphic Design business and see how they regard sites such as these, and get familiar with those feelings.
This kind of "design competition" market place is coming to the field of Architecture and particularly Residential Architecture very soon, in fact its already here. Residential is the natural opportunity for this because of the widespread Exceptions for single family residential design in the US. Yes, the same code loopholes that allow any chump to declare himself a Residential Designer will now allow any chump with an internet connection in Bangalore the opportunity to compete for that residential addition down the street. This site launched over a year ago:
http://www.arcbazar.com/ This site is built on the same "competition" model as the Graphics sites above, and no doubt was inspired by them. Whether or not this entire site represents a violation of practice law I'll leave for other experts to determine. This site may not fly, it may be the next one, or the one after that in a MySpace/Facebook/Google+ like succession. But its coming.
What will be the AIA response to the emergence of such a design marketplace? Fight it on a legal basis? Launch their own competing site that offers fair compensation? Stare at the table and twiddle their thumbs? Get back to fighting for fair terms on GSA competitions and ignoring Residential practice?
CRAN members may be inclined to brush this off. "This will never impact the class of clients that I work for." You do so at your own peril.
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Gregory La Vardera
Architect
Gregory La Vardera Architect
Merchantville NJ
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