Crowdsourcing for Design

Much has been written about crowdsourcing innovation through Web 2.0 technologies, but what are the implications of such tools for design?

I recently learned about a website called Crowdspring, a crowdsourcing approach for design services. The incredibly simple process goes something like this:

1. You post a project (e.g. new logo or website design), set a deadline, and name your price.
2. Designers from around the world respond with various design ideas.
3. You choose the best one. If less than 25 people respond, you don’t pay!
   

For those of you who are electronic music fans, the Pet Shop Boys—a band that has been nominated for 6 Grammy awards and has sold over 50 million records worldwide—are using Crowdspring to design the concert poster for their North American tour this summer. The total compensation for this very important, once-in-a-lifetime, likely-to-be-a-collector’s-item project that will help the Pet Shop Boys make millions of dollars: a mere $300!

Here’s the big idea: Fortune 500 companies, including all consumer packaged goods firms, work with high profile creative agencies every year to get the right brand identity, develop the right package design, or create the right advertising campaign. Instead of paying millions for a top-flight agency, could these companies get similar—or even better results—from a crowdsourced solution that costs about $1000?

Don’t know…but I’d pay $1000 to find out.