And then, design became a commodity

And then, design became a commodity(blog.stylej.am)

16 points by stylejam 15 years ago | 13 comments

tomjen3 15 years ago |

The thing he glosses over is that most businesses don't need or even want a perfect logo - good enough is perfectly fine especially as it can be had for a tenth of the price.

And that is properly a bigger change than these spec work sites.

stylejam 15 years ago | |

Good enough in web design is a website that is kind of clear and kind of converts. If it's ok for the customer it's ok for me, but considering that I hardly believe it's ok for the customer here we have a big problem. And there's no such thing as a "perfect logo" :)

ippisl 15 years ago | | |

But conversion rates are easily measurable. in theory it's possible to offer a results based service: improved conversion rate for a fee or profit sharing.usually businesses go for this sort of arrangement because it's low risk investment.

I bet there are some services like this , but i'm not sure it's a service fit for a small company: it just seems like a lot of work and takes a lot of time and traffic to do it right.

And it's mostly not about graphic design , but interaction design and content.

tomjen3 15 years ago | | |

Unless the logo is extremely bad it won't effect conversation, and it's more important to be able to change parts of the rest of the graphics cheaply for ab testing purposes than devine the result initially (a great design can improve conversation say 15% better than the result from one of those sites, but that can be done with a few an tests).

mathgladiator 15 years ago |

Everything is a commodity.

When you hire an employee, you hire a probabilistic machine that may produce stuff closer to what you want. When you contract out, then you pay a probabilistic machine that may produce what you have specified which hopefully was what you wanted.

lobster_johnson 15 years ago | |

> Everything is a commodity.

Well, no. That's a very unhelpful generalization that tries to subvert an established nomenclature for an easy, hip-sounding soundbite. The term "commodity" is very precisely defined and has nothing to do with "hiring probabilistic machines".

A commodity is a product which can be supplied and purchased at no difference in quality. It doesn't matter if I buy petroleum from maker A or maker B, because both are, to the extent that I care, petroleum. Commodities allow you to deal with abstract notions of goods, separate from the physical goods, thereby fundamentally changing the way you trade goods, since (for example) you can buy from the cheapest supplier and sell to the highest bidder, with no concern for the actual stuff being exchanged.

stylejam 15 years ago | |

What I'm pointing out is that "what you want" or "your spec" is wrong. What you can and should ask to a designer is: here is my homepage, I want people to understand this and then signup. What happens now is that customers ask for a website they like. You see the problem?

You're probably a developer (my wild guess), you don't have a problem like this. If I have to make a parallel, it's like your CEO comments your code because he coded on the CBM 64 during the 80s. Exactly the same thing.

null_ptr 15 years ago |

Just as demeaning as the equivalent "cheap coder" marketplaces. If you're a company in a developed nation, you should be forced to pay your employees and contractors salaries on par with life in your country, not theirs. It's the only way to be fair. Hiring someone from Bangladesh should not entitle you to pay them twenty cents an hour.

meric 15 years ago | |

>> Hiring someone from Bangladesh should not entitle you to pay them twenty cents an hour.

Developing countries lack the capital to compete; Instead they compete on price, and now you're suggesting a price floor should be instituted.

Unless, of course, the law will discriminate between workers who are a "commodity" and those who are not, so that those "commodity" workers can continue to compete on price.

Now we're back at square one, demeaningly calling other people a "cheap X".

enra 15 years ago | |

> If you're a company in a developed nation, you should be forced to pay your employees and contractors salaries on par with life in your country, not theirs. It's the only way to be fair.

Sounds like a line from Atlas Shrugged, when goverment forced rules to the market since "it was not fair" that some companies had better offering with cheaper price. It's fair if both parties voluntarily agree, there is no other way.

I think the point was more about degreading of "design" , and the potential "cost" for the customer, when the business owner doesn't care or know what he/she is buying.

If know that you're buying a graphic to present your company and choosing it by your personal taste, then it's ok, but it's not necessarily good design. Like if you order a painting of yourself, it probably will not end up being the Mona Lisa.

tomjen3 15 years ago | |

Life isn't fair.

And besides with those rules the companies would simply move out of the country.