AIGA acknowledges that speculative work—work done prior to engagement with a client in anticipation of being paid—occurs among clients and designers.Yet not all unpaid design work is considered “spec work.” (very interesting article if you wish to educate yourself on spec work).

So here I am meeting this client for the first time, referred to me by another client and while I am trying to focus on the project requirements and trying to compose a design brief, all I’m hearing is how very well connected this person is and even better, how I could be making a lot more money by just tweaking a little but my business model, and to be honest, a couple of those ideas were not half bad, so I started paying a little more attention to what this person had to say. By the end of the meeting I had been dazzled by caviar and champagne dreams, not only this, I had a whole new business plan in my head, and all this time, of course, paying little attention to what was really important: the project.

At the end of the day, I still don’t know how I fell for this, but guess what? I ended up charging this person only 20% of what I normally charge, I have been working more hours on revisions than anything I can really remember and all on a fixed budget, the worst part, I still have yet to see these so called “connections” I was promised. But because I am a man of my word, I will finish this and get it over with.

If there is any takeaway from this story for young designers and even experienced ones out there, it’s the following: No matter how many riches and fortunes you are promised, never, ever give away your work, value yourself and price yourself accordingly, spec work under the promise of more work in the future is a scam as big as the Nigerian Prince thing you get by email, don’t fall for it no matter how good it sounds, in almost all instances, it never happens. After all, it’s not like you get to go to a restaurant and eat a lobster for $5 by promising the chef to bring all your friends to eat!

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