Re: Guild? (was: ISP needs Flash site, chance for exposure)

[christopher]

At 07:51 AM 6/29/98 -0500, you wrote:

>I agree with the other responses to this note!


Me too - free work eventually becomes an albatros from which it is

difficult to escape.  For anyone undertaking free or charity work - always

make people sign the same contract that you would do if they were paying

for the work.  That way you can't be messed around so much when they want

this changing and ooh, just that little bit extra adding... 


>Someone had mentioned earlier the thought of forming a Guild or trade

>association for Flash developers. This list is an incredible place to

>learn and exchange ideas, but IMHO, a Guild may in-fact be a great place

>to provide a united front to the general public in order to educate them

>regarding the artistic and technical talent required to make truly great

>presentations.


My experiences with Guilds have almost always been less that positive -

IMHO they tend to be a way for the less outstanding craftsman to gain kudos

s/he wouldn't normally be entitled to by simply paying out some dollars to

become a member.  Certain professional guilds of course require proof of

qualifications etc to join - be they useful or not they create some kind of

benchmark upon which to measure people's "ability".  Our industry has no

such benchmarks thus can't play that game.    That only gives two other

ways of vetting membership - either i] no criteria except a bank balance

that you're willing to deplete or ii] a committee.  Neither would be

particularly fab.


I've never seen any other industry have a public-moaning-zone about how

hard their life is to do good work.  Yes it is a problem that people think

this kind of stuff is easy since by nature our work must appear simple in

its end version; so this problem of perception is one we all face.


I approach it in a slightly different way though - for instance I bring

clients into the workshop while their projects are being built.  I've found

that once someone sees what goes into scanning, filtering, touching up,

web'ing etc a single image ready for a decent site they start to get the

idea of where their money is going to.  I recently had a client who had

agreed to a huge job pushed into $12,000 who at the last minute said "Oh

and I want you guys to scan the 500 product shots too - that should only be

another few hours right?".


UK readers might remember that BSM advert a few years ago "you wouldn't fly

a Boeing after a couple of lessons from your Uncle Jim" kind of thing.  I

use a similar strategy with clients.  In some cases I've even given them

the design brief and said "Go for it, you've got FrontPage - you do it."

The job's mine within a week.


Finally - such a site to show the talent needed to make good Flash sites

would need to be absolutely spot on in its presentation and operation - the

best designers capable of doing such work might not be so willing to do it

for, well, for free... :)


Just my yen's worth @ 1.22am in the big city.


Christopher

Tokyo, June98

http://www.i-wonder.com


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