Is design crowdsourcing evil?

With the advent of fiber optic cable, cheap design software and an increasingly design conscious public, the craft of logo design has become as much the property of trained and experienced design professionals as it has for your 15 year old nephew.

This situation has provided a willing workforce for design crowdsourcing firms, who can now throw open the gates and let the world participate in the great design democratization experiment. Some wonder whether this devalues the design profession, or is unethical and exploitative. These are all valid concerns, but I believe the more pressing question crowd sourcing raises is “how do clients value design?”

For the most part design value, like many other products or services, is subjective. Either client’s like it, or they don’t. I believe that basing design value on subjective criteria is the kiss of death for the design industry. Without a standard of measurement, then it seems reasonable that anyone should be able to participate in logo development.

Another way to assess design value is through a quantitative lens. Does the design provide a measurable value to the client? Does the logo provide a competitive advantage? This can only be determined through measurement and testing. This of course means that design is no longer judged solely on aesthetics, but through an objective filter, and requires that designers learn the methods of testing.

Are designers ready to trade aesthetic intuition for quantitative testing? Is design ready to be a science rather than an art? Until designers find ways to quantify the value of their work, they will continue to face competition from amateurs. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but in the land of the bottom line, it’s results that count.