There are thousands of broke unemployed graphic designers in this town who will be willing to work for free just for the sake of working.

The City will get so many entries that they'll have to hire a new unpaid intern just to deal with the deluge of submissions.

Maybe the City could save even more money by firing its entire staff and rehiring them as unpaid interns.

Like newspapers and the music industry. Soon coming to bloggers, video producers, filmmakers, etc ...

Portland is becoming a joke. It's clear that our current 'leadership' is clueless. THE BOZOs 5. They all need to go. They're all losers.

There is no such word as "sleight". Thank you very much. As far as I know.

"Sleight of hand"? Come on ujfoyt, google's not that difficult.

In a market economy, people tend to get paid around what they're worth. Artists and such creatives have to understand that they don't make much money, because what they do isn't that valuable.

Apparently, the Portland creative class has become one more whining special interest. How long before they demand we name a street after Warhol?

Of course, our "leaders" have brought this on themselves by talking up the creatives so much that they apparently have started to believe the hype.

Wow. This is simply whining. Just because you *want* the city to offer money for such services doesn't mean they are required to do so. If the city can get a great graphic without paying money, more power to it. If they can't, then the artists can gloat about the poor decision making. But to whine about their decision to go about this way is utterly pathetic. Graphic design services are worth what the market is willing to pay.

I have no problem with spec work (for an opposing view, see http://www.no-spec.com/articles/what-is-sp…), but I do think that not paying the winner for their design is disrespectful of the fact that designers are doing WORK. If you want the talents of a person (and the resulting product), you should pay them industry standard wages, whether you need to or not.

it's only for design. to program the site for free would be asking a bit much, that would be arduous. but just for a few pages of design, that's a few hours of work, maybe a nite... not really a big deal if you know what you're doing...

Precisely. The fact that the city won't pay out a small sum ($100?) to purchase the work of a designer is insulting to all workers.

There's confusion over the scope of work. It's just a graphic design of the top page and maybe the beginnings of a level or two of navigation from there. Totally appropriate for this kind of contest. Anyway, if the terms don't suit you, you don't submit, and you move on. What you don't do is take it all personally and get into a big hissy-fit like this, unless you're a narcissistic, entitled, precious little despot, and/or Sarah Palin, but I repeat myself.

I was a musician for ten years and I probably couldn't buy a month's worth of groceries with all the money I was paid for it. So essentially, bite me, o precious "creative class." A lot of people are hurting right now, not just design-school graduates. And the city has had its budgets slashed as well. A complete web site redesign would be nice, but so would hundreds of other projects they can't afford. They are in no position to accomplish any of them right now, so they're all just going to have to wait.

You moved here because you believed the hype about Portland, and now you can't find a job. So are you psychologically prepared to change your approach, to try something different, to be truly "creative" finally? Because all this bleating and trying to convince the whole world to recognize and adapt to your unwaveringly awesome unique specialness makes you the most tedious company.

There's been a constant undercurrent of work for spec in the design industry and it does have a negative effect on the industry generally under valuing the product.

Think of it this way, you're a roofer. City hall needs a new paint job. All the painters are invited to do a room or wall, the best painter of the bunch gets to have their name on web page "preferred painter for city hall".

Designers are sensitive to this because the hardest and most labor intensive part of a design job is the idea generation client communication and education portion that occurs before a job is finalized and many businesses. And few people like to work for free. During a hard economic time and the graphics and design industry is being hit hard nation wide that the government sends a message that the value of design is low and it encourages other economically pressed businesses to follow suit.

Would the Mercury write the same article if City Hall decided to do an ad campaign where all the papers would print the ad and then the paper that generated the most responses would get a mention on their web page increasing their google hits?

It may have value for a student- and there is much debate in the industry about even that but for a business it does devalue them.

Look at the comments that agree, there's a tone of undervaluing design as an industry in the ones that agree with the contest.

@Adolf Hitler: You are right, BUT sleight of hand is different than someone or something being a slight on something, if you can understand my gibberish. Different words. Different meanings.