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Comment by Cushman | Hacker News Reader

The "designer" gets a little bit of scratch and exposure they never would have gotten otherwise. The "client" gets a design that meets their budget, and which is likely to be much better than what a professional designer would do for the same price. Who's losing out here?

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> and which is likely to be much better than what a professional designer would do for the same price

Why would you think a novice on the web with Photoshop will automatically do better than a professional with experience and who is looking beyond making a cool design?

Logos aren't just pieces of art — they also brand a company. Crowdsourcing will never match a professional brand designer.

And why would you think that a novice on the web with Photoshop _couldn't_ do better than a 'professional' with blah blah blah, especially when this new logo is amateur hour at best and utter crap at worst.

I sincerely hope that the entire Internet is being trolled by The Gap on this one, given that the alternative is entirely depressing.

Either that or this logo is legit, meant to last, will work on consumers, and in turn will reduce designer's hourly rates around the world. :)

Is there any doubt that they were trolling with this new logo? It looked like a placeholder from the first moment I saw it, and I know nothing about design (see historious).

You're committing a fallacy in assuming that they have no choice. Even if there are a million novices with Photoshop and two professional designers, they'll still get a better deal than having chosen one professional designer. They'll pay the same money and get two professional designs they can choose from, instead of just one.

Depends. If the professional designers don't enter the competition, things may change.

Sure, but the Gap didn't commit to choosing one, as far as I know, so they still only stand to gain from this.

Exposure where?

The rhetoric involved is an extension of the line "I can't pay you for this, but you could use it in your portfolio".

The whole process reeks of exploitation. It's bullshit, imo.

Crowd sourcing doesn't mean "no pay", you should probably check some quality crowd sourcing sites, like TopCoder.

The winner gets paid, sure, but the "losers" get nothing for their time.

Which is exactly what would've happened if the "winner" was hired in the first place without crowdsourcing. What's your point?

No it isn't.

You have 99 people enter a crowdsourcing 'contest'. One design gets picked - and that person is paid.

98 people have worked on the project for nothing; which wouldn't be the case if the winner was hired in the first place.

So, are you pleading for the designers' "fear" of this crowdsourcing trend, a fear based on their time being wasted because designs from other people may be better (for any subjective definition of the term)? Are you honestly saying with a straight face that designers should be awarded for any and all their efforts regardless of the quality of their work?

I'm sorry, but they should just suck it up and change. Like the world around them is.

PS: I don't remember the last time that people rewarded me or anybody else just for trying. Perhaps kindergarten, but I have no clear recollections of the daily scrums in there.

No. I'm not suggesting that all participants should be paid.

I'm suggesting that the model put forth by crowdsourcing is ill-thought out and unfair.

"[..] they should just suck it up and change. Like the world around them is."

I completely disagree. People who exploit others for their own personal gain should always be challenged.

Since you're not referring to economic fairness, did you mean moral? I don't understand how crowdsourcing is immoral in that sense, or how does that constitute exploitation.

If someone works for the chance to earn money, how can that be fair in _any_ sense?

Wow. You just invalidated startups (among other things) in a single sentence. Nice.

Investing in your own idea is very different to working for someone else.

It can be fair, if he chooses to do it, no?

I understand one person gets paid. This doesn't make the system any better.

The problem is, so many people are still put in a situation where they end up with no payment.

I'd still like to know where the remaining participants will gain exposure.

At Topcoder:

* Top2 get paid directly

* Top5 get points to be ranked in a monthly leaderboard, they'll eventually get paid depending on their ranking in that leaderboard.

* Winning/ranking good will help you get a position in a review board to review other submissions and then get paid.

* You still can participate in bugraces, which generally doesn't take too much time (hours or even minutes) and get paid accordingly.

This is just a small portion of how you can make money. Granted, it is not easy, but if you're good, well, you are good.

Gain exposure? Working with big clients, AOL, ferguson, lendingTree, and a lot more - Plus, If you have a job interview, you still can get a recommendation from TopCoder with a list of your winnings/projects (it's visible in your profile anyway)

I'm speaking from experience here, It's so wrong on many levels to put all crowd sourcing websites in the same basket.

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