Pixish
Ed. I’ve added further links to the discussion of spec work and Pixish. As the only non-illustrator blogger at IF, I often post things that appeal to me without full awareness of the implications for artists, professional or otherwise, though I try to be mindful. It’s a great lesson to me that this casual endorsement has exploded across the blogosphere – I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts on this issue! Check out the comments for more input from IF’ers and IF bloggers.
- Brianna
A Metafilter discussion about Pixish, with several good links that follow the widening sphere of opinions on whether Pixish is a useful tool for artists or just a marketplace for spec work and rights-damaging practice.
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From Derek Powazek (Fray, JPG Magazine) comes a great new community site that aims to bring publishers and artists together in collaboration. People can post assignments and prizes that they’re offering, artists submit their work and the community votes on the best. From the About page at Pixish:
“Pixish is a place where people who want images and people who make images can easily find each other and collaborate on creative projects together.
There’s so much talent online ?? we want to get your work out there!
The problem we’re trying to solve:
Say you’re a magazine. You have a story that you need an illustration for. Your options are to find an artist for a custom job (time-consuming and expensive) or spend all day trolling microstock sites to find the perfect image (cheap, but just as time-consuming, and very frustrating).
Pixish is a middle path. With Pixish, you can create an Assignment that asks for what you want. Pixish peeps can submit their work and collaboratively vote the best up. All you have to do is pick the winning entry!”
Sounds pretty good, but my artist alarm bells were going off when I thought “Well, isn’t this just spec work?” and Pixish addresses that question:
“We acknowledge that some artists are against working before there’s a contract in place, so they may not want to participate here. And that’s fine – Pixish isn’t for everyone. If you’re already making a living as a pro, hooray! We’re thrilled for you. But you’re lucky. There are a lot of really talented folks who aren’t. We want to give them a chance to get out there, get seen, and get paid.”
Sounds like it could be fun and a great way to make new contacts, as well as earn cool prizes and cash for your work.
Derek’s updated us in the comments:
http://pixish.com/news/3
Posted: February 12th, 2008 under artists, contests/projects.
Comments: 17
Comments
Comment from Steve James
Time: February 12, 2008, 12:32 pm
After looking over the Pixish website- I feel really sad. While it’s great to see people have the chance to get paid for illustration work. It turns my stomach to see people asking for work for less than the price of a sandwich and a drink. As Derek said in his blog- I hope that people “Don’t do it!”. Even at a fair price this is still spec work and does nothing but devalue art and the artist.
Comment from Bone
Time: February 12, 2008, 12:57 pm
“I just wanted to say that the concern over spec work is understood on our end and we??re going to be making some changes to the site to make it more clear that it??s not what the site is about.”
But that is what it’s about.
“With Pixish, you can create an Assignment that asks for what you want. Pixish peeps can submit their work” [without payment] “and collaboratively vote the best up. All you have to do is pick the winning entry!”
This is an implicit definition of spec work.
Further, since when is voting collaborative?
I say this with the utmost respect for Derek. I loved his JPG project. And have refused to participate in any way since his departure.
Unfortunately, the current explanations do not float right now.
- Bone
Comment from rama
Time: February 12, 2008, 9:33 pm
i’m curious about it. i don’t intend to participate but i did sign up just now to see what the fuss is about and i’ll definitely pass it along to my students and “i’m not a REAL artist” friends. with enough feedback in this beta stage, it could become a good place for amateurs and young artists to hone their skills and just have fun.
Comment from rama
Time: February 12, 2008, 9:59 pm
having read some of the debate, i left a longer comment on drawn:
it seems like an igeneration version of ??my friend??s mom needs someone to draw her cat for a birthday card.?
to those who worry that it will circumvent the business of illustration, i can understand that anxiety but i really don??t think pixish will do more damage than craigslist or elance? which is not much at all.
respectable art directors know the value of a commissioned illustrator and experienced illustrators will know better than to battle for low paying jobs.
the truth is that not EVERYONE can get published because not everyone is that good yet. pixish seems like just another place where cheap people can find those unseasoned artists while they are still just grateful to have a project on their drawing board.
when i was just getting started, i took dozens of crappy jobs (low pay, bad assignments, bad clients) before i realized that they weren??t worth my time. i could regret it but i don??t. i learned a lot through that process and i got better and more savvy with every project. i imagine that pixish will give a lot of young artists that same education. if it??s developed well, they could even get some money and joy out of it.
Comment from Melanie
Time: February 13, 2008, 6:55 am
Admittedly, I have to investigate this more and I understand it is still an idea in evolution, but right now, I’ve got to tell you… Pixish is making me very nervous.
I particularly objected to this point made in the News section of Pixish under “Getting Published, Getting Paid” posted by Derek Powazek.
He wrote: “3. Generally, when people talk about spec work, they’re talking about design. Pixish is not really for completed designs. It’s mainly for design elements: photos and illustrations that will be incorporated into a larger design project.”
Huh? What? Trust me… this is a fallacy. I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked to submit illustration work on spec, especially when I was fresh out of art school. This is ccertainly not something limited to the design world. Thankfully, I was smart enough and educated enough by my instructors to always turn those “opportunities” down.
As I said, I need to educate myself more about what Pixish is trying to accomplish. I think that there may be value in providing young amateurs and illustrators just starting out in having real world sort of assignments with real world limitations to “practice” with and then having those assignments critiqued by peers and professionals in the business much as you do when you are in school and much as we do here at Illustration Friday (albeit in a more formal way). But I think the buck stops there. I think competing for the opportunity to win a Free Flickr account while forking over supposedly professional level work is absolutely devaluing to the work, the artist and the market.
The one way I could see this idea working for all involved is if the companies and institutions submitting the work assignments were verified non-profit, charitable organizations. Then I would be happy to support this idea. It is one thing when a good cause is benefitting from essentially donated work and free labour, it is quite another when a for-profit business entity profits from your creativity and enjoys the benefits of your hard work.
And make no mistake, creativity is hard work. Illustration is a challenging profession. And at this point, I think the Pixish model is selling creative work short.
Comment from Brianna
Time: February 13, 2008, 7:13 am
Actually Melanie, I found the “clarification” that spec work was mostly limited to design just as challenging as you did – I think Derek’s career history as a designer might be narrowing his focus a bit. The assertion that it’s in beta and therefore open to interpretation is rather disarming as well – “beta” is a technical/engineering term for testing software, not the new Web 2.0 definition of “beta” testing business processes. However, as a programmer, I can see Derek’s side of it – they built a cool tool that they believed would expand on the model of community generated content, and perhaps didn’t think through the implications of adding prizes/content until a bunch of companies signed up the first day to get free or low cost (win an iPod!) design work.
I guess that’s what “beta” means in terms of working out a business plan.
I know that Penelope and I discussed the MOO giveaway for THREE MONTHS before we decided that as long as it didn’t turn into a competition for prizes it’d be a great thing to be able to offer our artist participants. Given how much time Penny and I spend trying to make sure that we don’t introduce a competitive element here and that we endorse things that are useful and helpful to artists, not detrimental, I’m regretting not spending more time thinking of Pixish from the artist perspective – instead, I saw it as more like the 43things challenges and other collaborative projects, and only took a deeper look when we first started getting comments on this entry.
I have to say, I’m beginning to understand that there is a big difference between launching projects because you feel passionately about them, and just creating startups based on a business model that’s worked out before. I know that I’ve been leery about how I see some places mining artists for content – the current state of JPG magazine just sort of squicks me – they’re running a full publishing office and staff on the work of unpaid contributors. The original JPG, which was print on-demand and largely supported by the same contributors, seemed more earnest and collaborative to me.
Just thinking out loud here. And glad for the discussion! :)
Comment from Melanie
Time: February 13, 2008, 7:50 am
Your point that Derek’s evaluation of the merits of design vs. illustration or photography is well observed, but again disturbing to me. I work both as a designer and an illustrator and indeed, graphic design is the backbone of my business consuming more of my energy if not my passion than illustration and paying more of my bills from month to month. And having worked both sides of the fence on projects big and small, illustration is by far the most difficult, the most consuming and most rewarding (for me at least.) The fact that Pixish is, at best, naive on that front worries me.
Interesting to note that he is now barring requests for design work, which I think further illustrates his design bias. Or perhaps strong reaction from his designer friends swayed him in that direction, I don’t know.
Truthfully though, I do not feel particularly threatened by the advent of sites like Pixish. Perhaps it will fill a gap of sorts in the market, but it is a gap that I would not be seeking to fill myself anyway. What concerns me is that Pixish may foster the idea that this is the way to get your toe in the market and build credibility as a professional creative worthy of professional rates. I have learned through hard experience that the undervaluing your work only leads to the further devaluation of future work.
To the fledging creatives out there who might be considering Pixish, I would caution them to think twice about what they are doing, be mindful of the pitfalls and also the fact that there are hundreds of other ways to get your work out there without compromising your worth or your time. Then make up your own mind!
Comment from rama
Time: February 13, 2008, 8:40 am
i stand by everything i wrote in my earlier comment but, having scoured the pixish site some more, i agree that derek is disappointingly naive about the business of illustration.
if he is as enthusiastic about feedback as he claims to be, he should create a public message board where visitors can post their suggestions for the site. it seems vital for a “beta” program and i was hoping that i would gain access to this sort of feature by signing up. the closest thing i could find was the “contact or report a bug” link.
even the “this so beta” message does not include a link for comments or suggestions. as a designer, derek should know that making it difficult to give feedback actually DISCOURAGES feedback.
so, if you are serious about feedback, derek, you have to make it easy for visitors to share their response. here are my first suggestions:
(1) create a public forum on the site where visitors (or members) can help you work out the technical AND ethical kinks in your site.
(2) allow visitors (or members) to comment on your news posts.
Comment from rama
Time: February 13, 2008, 9:24 am
(i just posted this on drawn and wanted to share it here also.)
pixish is just a well-designed bulletin board. it??s not going to derail our industry or warp young minds. at best, it will become another place where inexperienced artists will test their chops until they are experienced enough to find better work elsewhere.
if anything, the struggle for crappy jobs weeds out would-be illustrators the same way that medical schools weed out would-be doctors. in the end, that means bigger jobs and better pay for experienced illustrators.
this is how it has always been.
before craigslist, before the INTERNET, there were actual cork bulletin boards at art schools, art stores, and art museums. industrious art students scrambled for the jobs posted there! professional illustrators did not.
as scary as it might be to imagine a world where a single website could transform our entire industry, it??s not really going to happen.
Comment from julie oakley
Time: February 13, 2008, 2:34 pm
I joined up after reading your post, but i have to say it is very disappointing. No opportunity to give feedback and most of the projects posted seem to offer a prize of a t-shirt or eternal gratitude
Comment from rama
Time: February 13, 2008, 4:44 pm
there’s a conversation going on a drawn about this also. the address is http://drawn.ca/2008/02/12/much-ado-about-pixish/#comment-575322 and my latest comment (because i feel like i’m betraying IF when i post elsewhere) is:
i like dave??s ??another small wave that erodes our shores? analogy. that sounds about right to me.
…
i also like what luc said about doing our own projects on our own time. the most exciting trend that i??ve seen in illustration these days is the fact that it is easier than ever to create and promote our own projects.
everything ~ books, prints, apparel, music, movies ~ is easier to produce thanks to the internet. so, while pixish erodes the shore of client-driven illustration, blurb and lulu and bepublished and gocco and cafepress and our own ??desktop publishing? machines provide tools that we are already using to build an even better creator-driven industry.
Comment from amanda
Time: February 13, 2008, 11:02 pm
I’m not sure how pixish is going to make it clearer that the site is not about spec work because the whole basis is providing work that you may or may not be compensated for.
I run a design studio with my husband and also do my own illustration work. We don not under any circumstances participate in contests. Its truly our company policy :) We want our clients to work with us because they like the style of work we do and want to build a relationship with us. If we take on pro-bono we take it on for a reason that makes us feel good inside, not compete for it. It not only hurts our industry but it makes us feel low. I just get a bad vibe from that process…
I love the idea of creating our own projects and making them real. Why not create something wonderful and innovative and try to sell it? Agencies do it all the time… that’s how they win design awards, in fact :)
Sure Pixish might be a good place for the youngin’s to get their feet wet but honestly? I would suggest focusing on creating your own body of work rather than taking on spec or work for pennies. Unless its something that will grow a part of you in a positive way…
Comment from Darren
Time: February 14, 2008, 7:48 am
I just posted this comment on the DRAWN! blog…
I’ve just set this really simple site up!
:) I feel better for doing something and not just reading all these comments.
Comment from Abigail Marble
Time: February 14, 2008, 2:53 pm
Sounds like another great way to get artists to undermine fellow artists’ pricing and business practices, thus setting a pathetically low bar even lower. If you do this, just bear in mind, you are undercutting what could have been your own future income, and confirming naive clients’ belief that art is easy and should come cheap. Also, clients always value ‘exposure’ MUCH more highly than it deserves — don’t fall for it! Unless we’re talking about mags like the New Yorker and Rolling Stone, these little jobs aren’t likely to bring in anything more than other low-paid assignments that promise exposure. They are so not worth it.
Comment from Donna
Time: February 15, 2008, 9:51 pm
Darren, good job starting the We Don’t Do Spec! site. I agree, always better to feel proactive. :-)
Just wanted to remind everyone about another no spec site:
http://www.no-spec.com
Pingback from DaniDraws.com » Spec Work and the Pixish Debate
Time: February 19, 2008, 2:00 am
[...] Article and comments at Illustration Friday: http://illustrationfriday.com/blog/?p=762 [...]
Comment from Derek Powazek
Time: February 12, 2008, 8:53 am
Hi Illustration Friday folks! I’m Derek from Pixish. Thanks for the link! We’d love to see you do an assignment. :-)
I just wanted to say that the concern over spec work is understood on our end and we’re going to be making some changes to the site to make it more clear that it’s not what the site is about. Remember, we’re still in beta. We released it early to gather feedback, so thanks for that!
Here’s more thinking on the subject: http://pixish.com/news/3