Free Pitching

Free Pitching

“Imagine a world where you head into work and put in a seven-hour day – heck, lets make it a twelve-hour day- trying to create some artwork or a design so freaking kick-ass that it’ll melt the brains of anyone checking it out. Now imagine not getting paid for it. Welcome to the world of the unpaid pitch.” (Jason Arber, Computer Arts Issue 153, Page 25)

I have chosen to produce my issue and practices debate on the theme of free pitching and discuss how it affects contemporary multimedia.

As a multimedia student, I am quite aware that the design industry is very competitive and you have to be at the cutting edge to go far within your chosen field of design. In the near future, I will at some point come across free pitching so to help prepare for when this happens I will gather a range of resources describing companies and designers views on this controversial topic.

On a recent London trip, I had a portfolio critique with Leigh Hibell from the design agency ‘De-Construct’. After I had shown him my work, I asked him what the companies procedure were regarding pitching. He explained that the company had lots of clients who continued to come back to them such as Adidas but also described how they would also do free pitching to other clients. Leigh was very generous and shown me an example of a pitch they had created, which involved a PowerPoint presentation with details about the company and a short show reel to show the client what they have produced in the past. The PowerPoint then moved onto to the idea behind the pitch and included in-depth storyboards and short rendered animations of their idea.

After viewing this pitch, I was quite shocked to be honest, as I never knew how much time and detail actually went into pitching an idea to a client. Leigh finished off by saying that their pitches do not always win but when they do he puts this down to the idea of the pitch and the amount of detail they go to with the storyboards and the short tests.

Not every design studio agrees with free pitching, such as Purple Penguin Design, who are another design studio who I had a portfolio critique with. I asked Rik Kirk, the director of the company what their situation was when coming to free pitching. He explained that their company are only made up of two people and if they were to do free pitching then they would loose out on money. He said he did not believe in the idea of free pitching as it takes up too much time, which results in not getting paid. Rik went onto say that Purple Penguin Design tend to use the same clients on a regular basis such as Polish Vodka company who they create the illustrations for their bottles and promotional items. Rik added that its mainly the bigger companies that go for the free pitching as they have a larger team of employees who can generate ideas quicker and spend a little time on it between them all, whilst still creating paid work.

After researching more into free pitching I came across a forum where a freelance designer feels he has a unique idea but it is actually too scared to pitch it to someone because he feels the idea will be stolen, “My problem is, I'm almost too afraid to pitch my idea to just anyone. My business model is what I consider to be innovative, but the implementation of it could be done by any good web developer.” (http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=571860)

After hearing a storey like this, I think something needs to be done and maybe a change in the law or some sort of copyright system being introduced for free pitching. As like this designer, he could show up to a company and pitch his idea for free, they would turn him down and employ someone else to create the idea for a lot less money.

After researching into free pitching I have come to a personal conclusion that it is well out of order. Designers can spend weeks generating ideas and developing these, yet come out with absolutely nothing. I have gathered a range of opinions on the topic to support my points and in the future I will try and avoid the topic as much as I can. I will sum up my point with a quote from Jason Alber from Computer Arts Magazine.

“Let’s make no bones about it, free pitching is morally wrong. It’s right up there with drowning puppies and setting badgers on old people. The only people who benefit are the clients who get this amazing brain dump of ideas at no cost to them”. (Jason Arber, Computer Arts Issue 153, Page 25)