Get ready for a whiny RANT!

GURU is an online resource for artists and work providers to make connections and bid on jobs. In the past I have used them with some success. They were never enough to provide a steady income, but they did provide a stream of new contacts and clients for a minimal fee. I viewed it as an advertising expense. For $300 a year I picked up some extra work and exposure. In the beginning the work that I did more than made up for the expense. However, as more and more (talented) artists from around the world caught the vision of what GURU was doing the more bids I lost to overseas competition. It is hard to compete when a man in Malaysia will do 40 hours of work for $25. I don’t blame him for feeding his family, but I do not look fondly upon the business that propagates the exploitation. As a matter of fact, I often will look at the employer history and see how many jobs they have contracted overseas. If they all read “India” for example, I avoid them like the plague. For this reason I have developed a talent for reading in-between the lines of ads placed on GURU. The following is an actual ad placed on GURU. My reading between the lines are in red.

******

Title: Graphic Designers for T-shirt company Project ID: XXXXXX Category: Illustration / Cartooning / Painting / Sculpting

Description: Start up clothing company, is in search of a few graphic designer/illustrator to work through telecommuting. (Can you read English? )

Experience Requirements: Strong experience with Photoshop, and Illustrator. (We don’t want to know where you got them as long as your pirate version works and you know how to use it.) Online portfolio includes examples logos, branding, t-shirt designs, screenprinting preparations (We have no idea what we are talking about, but the artist should be fully trained and exploitable.)

Company Background: We are a T-shirt company with offices located in San Francisco, CA that is focused on identifying and collaborating with emerging/undiscovered artists globally. (We are looking for artists who will work for peanuts, literally, from 3rd world sweat shops.) Our main goal is to (… undercut regional artists by using digital, tariff-free imports of intellectual property and …) provide premium/rare/unique t-shirts that combine our ideas with those of artists that we collaborate (Take your $100 ideas and pay you a quarter.) with. In addition to producing our own t-shirts (from your work) as well as searching for talented artists (slaves), our site offers an on-going t-shirt competition that is open to all artists. (We encourage a large volume of spec work for which you will never see a dime.)

Project Details: Below is a brief description of current design needs. T-shirt Design ( 3 Series of T-shirt Designs): We have several t-shirt ideas that we’d like to bring to life. We have the picture, (Don’t ask about copyrights) color combination that we’d like to use, screen printing materials & techniques, t-shirt design location, etc all in place. (The only thing we are missing is a tangible creative product.) We’re looking for a designer that can help us through the process of having the design ready for production/screen printing. (Again … we have no clue how to do it on our own and need you to do it for us for next to FREE.)

Packaging, Hang Tags, Labels Design: Going forward, we will be looking to have designs for our packaging, hang tags, marketing materials etc. (We are willing to exploit you further for as long as your Government is stable enough to guarantee internet access.) Please let send a resume, art portfolio, relevant material, and initial thoughts and/or questions regarding the projects detailed above. (If you can read English great. If you can speak and write English; even better.)