Sharing is vital for the creative community? Why be a dick about it?
As creative people, our work seems like a manifestation of ourselves. I know that everyone is proud of their work but I will go out on a limb and say a carpenter, an artist and an engineer is more emotionally connected to their work than say an accountant or insurance broker. Craft allows us some sort of connection with our labour, and it’s probably the main reason why any of us do what we do for such long hours and little pay.
However, this often comes attached with a heavy protectionism. I personally had never experienced this until I went to London Metropolitan University to study Digital Design. For my entire teenage life, my design education was learnt via open-source projects. I copied and was taught by other people like me, who had been through the exact same problem as me. When attending university, I found many people (mostly photographers and art students for some reason) seemed very protective and almost paranoid about their work. It was like a room full of Lady Arryn’s clutching onto their breast-suckling infants Robyns. I couldn’t believe it; watermarks that covered their entire work, shitty low-res JPGs, hollow copyrights, competitive secrets about how and what tools were used, where their inspiration was from etc. It’s not like nobody knew anyway. We can clearly see your influences, because they’re the same as ours.
What I see when you put a shitty watermark over your shitty work. You think I’m gonna call you to do my business cards?
As a web-designer/front end guy, I live in a sort of creative-luxury meaning all of my peers are more than happy to fix my problems and allow me to use their patterns totally for free. It’s a sort of ingrained altruism that when we complete a project we tend to share what we’ve done or if we see someone has a similar issue, we take pride in being ‘that guy’ who saves the day. Nobody fears that ‘someone will take that all important job’. Do you really believe that? Getting clients, as anyone will tell you, is more about who you know than what you know anyway.
Brad Frost, one of my favourite web designers, gave a TED talk that echos this post. He tells a story of working for a Cancer Research style charity that boosted their donations by redesigning their form. But, they were unwilling to share what techniques had helped them. These people are trying to cause cancer. Now I know this is an extreme example, but it’s methodology applies in both a business sense and everyday life.
‘But dude, we have to make money!!’ Yeah I hear ya. We’ve all got raise that P game. But it makes good business sense to share stuff too. There is good evidence to suggest, both in a creative and marketing sense, that giving away a little freebie and sharing good quality work online will boost your conversions. Who can really hire you if all they can see is crap? Although not exactly a seasoned professional, I think about 90% of work I’ve done I shared for free. It doesn’t mean you can’t get paid for this work. Not at all. But I put it high-quality on my portfolio, explain how and why I did what I did, who I ripped off and why like a badge of honor; because I know that someone will read it and make something awesome themselves.
It really comes down to how you feel about your community as a creative person. You’re using the WWW and will be more and more. A network of computers which was created and kept open for everyone. You’re using countless open-source researched code to design and edit your shitty work. You use fonts that took months to design. You’re copying posters that pre-date your birth. It’s only fair if you share what you’ve done.
Do you genuinely believe that someone is out to steal your work? Or is it more likely that people will want to view it, enjoy it and be inspired by it. You never know, sharing that latest piece might just be what makes you big.
‘ The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more. - Dr Jonas Salk