Crowdsourced design work -- worth it? Anybody have experience on the client end?

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threeprong wrote: The end result though is that an overall devaluing of the creative process occurs.

I have to wonder if that's really the case. I set my own rate for about 10 years. For about 8 of that I really struggled with it. When people came to me and said "why would you charge $1000 for a logo when someone else charges $100?" I didn't have an answer. It took me a long time to realize the difference. There are people who will quickly slap something together that makes the client go "wow", without any regard to what makes a good logo. They please the client, not provide a valuable service to the client. In other words, they don't deliver a good logo but instead deliver the perception of a good logo.

I, (and it sounds like you) know what the difference is. But a lot of paying customers don't. Does that mean they're not ethical? I'm not sure on that.

I had a similar issue with website templates. I thought about it quite a bit, and basically it came down to this:
Know what your work is worth. If you know 40hrs of your work can make a company $30k, then don't have a problem charging $6k for it. When someone comes to you and say it's worth $400 to them, move on. That's what it's worth to them. You've got to find clients for whom you can produce more value in order to charge more.

You have to understand the value of your own work, and find clients that understand that as well. And plenty of businesses don't need a $1k logo. They need a $100 logo to get them off the ground. There's a need for that, just like there's a need for getting a business setup for $200 instead of $1500.

I've had clients hire me to design them a new website. I've done that, and then it didn't do anything for them more than their old site. What I didn't know then was they didn't have enough traffic or marketing for the design to make a difference. For example, a design could change a conversion rate on an ecomm site from 1% to 5% (and that would be extreme), but if they're only getting 20 visits a day, the money spent on design isn't worth it.

So now then I focused on doing what would give them the best bang for the buck. If I can do SEO work and get them 10x the traffic, that will net them more than a new site design. Once I've done that, then we can go back and work on the design. But if I charge someone $20k for a site, I had better well be able to justify the cost.

Years ago I joined a business networking group and the people in my own group laughed at me when they heard I charged more than $500 for a site. I left the group. They didn't get it. For what they did, they couldn't get more than a $500 return on a good site. It doesn't mean they don't need a site, it just means they don't need my level of service.

The value of the creative process is dependent upon the amount of (financial) impact it can have, not how much time & skill is put into it.