Why We Don’t Make Speculative Presentations

CMYKreative receives its fair share of Request For Proposal/Pricing (RFP) or Request For Quote (RFQ) which we are more than happy to provide. The main product of our business is ideas; creative design solutions to address the communication problems or opportunities that face our numerous clients and good ideas can be difficult to define or agree upon. Remember – one man's meat is another man's poison

"A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried to death by a frown on the right person's brow."
Charles Brower

Often potential clients ask us to take on a project on speculation – to try out our creative product (by asking us to supply layouts or visuals for their project for free) in the same way they may try out other types of products or services before purchasing. Unfortunately, we must decline such projects and working on spec. There are a number of reasons why we take this position and the following will help to explain why doing so actually makes us a better, more stable and more reliable supplier for you to do business with.

We want to give you our best and ensure the client always receives the most appropriate solution for their individual needs.
Successful design work comes from a close collaboration between the client and the designer. The designer needs to develop a clear sense of the client’s goals, needs and their competitive situation before even starting on a design for the client. Design is only partially decoration; mostly it is problem-solving.

Most times a client will give you the bare bones of a brief in the early stages and you really cannot create an award-winning and successful design on merely this, it takes a lot more time, effort and information on both the designer’s part and the clients. If a design is created using only this minimal information, then the resulting design will be superficial at best and perhaps simply a worked over version of something that has been done previously. At worst, our best effort may well end up being misdirected; a great shot that hits the wrong target.

A good design creates value for the client and is a result of the approach a good designer will take in addressing the problems or needs of that particular client. Only at the end of this process is a design created. Speculative design work, whether done by us or by another firm, usually requires cutting every creative corner and will never result in the best design solution for a client.

"The secret of all effective advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships."
Leo Burnett

Professional designers do not work for free.
Whilst there will always be designers out there that are more than happy to create designs on spec without any assurance that they will be compensated for the time and effort that they will put in, by asking for spec work the client is immediately relegating their choice to those designers that are least likely to be experienced and capable. Experienced designers work according to the high standards of their profession and are highly qualified with many years of experience and production knowledge under their belts. They will produce the excellent work that you expect, but they also expect to be paid for their time and creativity.