I’m posting this as a record of an unfortunate conversation that transpired on Facebook earlier today. One side of this exchange has since been deleted from Facebook, but I had copied/pasted it to a document earlier in order to gather my thoughts in potential response.

This exchange started when Kelly (my sister) saw something posted to Facebook she thought I might be interested in and shared it with me:

Geek’s-Night Of-Comedy

ATTENTION ARTISTS! We need your help! We are looking for an official logo, and we would love to have your creativity be a part of our growing franchise. Submit your drawing/sketch to our inbox, and the winner will receive 4 free tickets to our July 31st show, as well as a Geek’s Night of Comedy T-shirt & other merchandise. Deadline for contest is July 1st 2013. WE WANT TO BE WOWED!

Now, Kelly knows me pretty well, and I really did appreciate the thought, but there was one aspect of this that didn’t sit well with me, so I responded to her gratefully, but explaining my reservations:

Kevin (me)

Thanks very much for thinking of me — I’m certainly a geek, and I like comedy, and I’m more than capable of coming up with a logo.

However, here’s where I’m going to start sounding a little negative:

Minor quibble: I’m wondering why that’s not a business or fan page, rather than a personal FB page. I can still stand behind it, but that’s something to consider.

However, crowdsourcing for design devalues design and is disrespectful to artists: an artist’s work has value, and should be compensated as such. These “cattle call” sort of “contests” are like asking 100 massage therapists or hairstylists to perform 100 massages or haircuts for free and deciding to pay only one of them, based on which one you like best. With free tickets.

Kelly (my sister)

Sorry brother. Never mind.

Geek’s-Night Of-Comedy

Fan page Facebook.com/GeekNightComedyTwitter&Instagram @GeekNightComedy

Kevin as performing artists ourselves, we would never disrespect those of the visual art world, nor attempt to cheapen their intellectual property. We are a small growing production(even if it is at a venue owned by the iconic Improv chain of clubs) soon to tour national, with a small budget. This limits most of our business to business relationships to bartering.

As an “elite artist” questioning our validity and integrity with his genius, we question why a simple Google search of “Artist Kevin Copeland,” and “Geeks Night of Comedy” produce such vastly different results. Our’s yield clips from Wavy’s Hampton Roads show, this region’s ABC & Richmond’s CBS affiliates, along with numerous featured articles in the Va Pilot & Inside Business. Maybe you’re so famous and well paid for your work that you go by another name?

Jake M-C

@Geek’s-Night Of-Comedy I feel as though a professional organization such as Geek’s-Night Of-Comedy shouldn’t be using their ‘professional’ page to attack and devalue a member of the community. Doesn’t look very good. You’ll notice, Kevin Copeland didn’t post his view to the professional page, but rather in comment to Kelly’s suggestion, speaking with her and not to the group as a whole.

While it may be viewable due to lax privacy settings, interjecting into a conversation between two members of a family to devalue one of them, whom you’ve likely never met, seems unprofessional and quite rude.

As for bartering, there’s nothing wrong with bartering. Perhaps trading publicity or free ad space for a logo. If you have something in mind, approach the artist and offer the barter, as opposed to “Who Can Do The Best?”

As for your Google search, fame and recognition have nothing to do with integrity. I consider myself a creative of various means. I’m currently struggling to find the right place for what I do. If you search my name, you’ll find my Facebook page, and MAYBE a blurb or two from years back in high school.
Integrity in the community is the most valuable part of an artists existence. It means standing up for what you think is right, be it a statement about modern consumerism or a simple observation about an aspect of society or an event you find questionable or demeaning.

Thank you.

Geek’s-Night Of-Comedy
Tim (last name removed)

Kevin (me)

Wow. I was simply responding to my sister’s suggestion. Way to crash a conversation.

You’ll notice I never claimed to be an artist of any repute. I do dabble in cartooning, and I have a stake in the local cartooning community, but I never make claims I can’t back.

I never questioned anyone’s validity or integrity. As for the Facebook remark, it just seemed as if a fan page would have been more appropriate for your group, as the link I clicked on took me to a personal page (in fact, I was looking to “like” the group, which is why I mentioned it). I also did not pass judgment on your use of crowdsourcing, I just stated my opinion on how it negatively impacts visual creatives.

My statement was against crowdsourcing design as a practice, not directed toward any entity in particular. Creatives (particularly artists and designers) are constantly exploited by these contests with little to no regard for the effects they have on the industry. It would be insulting to expect any other profession to render services for free in exchange for possible nominal compensation, so why do many people think it’s acceptable to ask visual creatives to do so?

Asking an artist personally to help you out in exchange for tickets would be bartering. Barter is perfectly legitimate. A “call for logos” is not a barter, it’s blindly asking for free spec work from multiple people, one of which will be nominally compensated.

Maybe you consider crowdsourcing like this to be akin to the audition process. Not being a professional performing artist, I can’t speak to that. But as someone who was raised in the commercial arts and with dozens of years of experience with graphics, I have too often seen such work devalued again and again through such “contests”.

I would have been willing to have an intelligent conversation about the topic, but since you resorted to personal attacks, I’ll just end this here.

Way to garner support and earn fans.

Geek’s-Night Of-Comedy

^ This is who make that statment, and as one of the founders I found Kevin’s attack (what you call an observation) to be one of a pretentious artist who wanted to flex his ego. Plain and simple and I defended it. Yes, I did probably lower the brand to his level. However, the example I used with the google search was to more so show the ignorence of his statement, as if we were some fly by night outfit. I honestly thought I was on my personal page when I seen his comment. Even though I am a chief represenitive of the brand, I will take responsibility for that statement, even if I have effected us as a whole.

As far as your opinion on bartering, my personal experiences with artists (or those who claim to be) are ones of just a lot of talk. You ask for a logo or a creative flyer design, and they claim they will blow you away, but then weeks turn into months and they avoid you because they haven’t been able to produce anything. So if somebody like Kevin isn’t personally sought after to provide a logo, he is offended, then must resort to comments a long the line of “i’m too good for this I shouldn’t have to compete.” I personally can’t respect somebody who claims to be an artist, while they are spinning their wheels going nowhere themselves, then need to discredit what somebody else is doing to keep their egos charged.

@Jake, I honestly appreciate you voicing your opinion and no i’ll will towards your input. Sorry for the disappointment

Kevin (me)

First of all, I’m not a practicing visual creative, so my statements are in defense of all my colleagues and friends who are.

Secondly, where is the “attack”? This is still a PRIVATE CONVERSATION on a PAGE YOU DON’T OWN. My sister was sharing something with me she thought I may be interested in, and I responded TO HER (and nobody else) my thoughts on it. They were directed at her and no one else.

YOU are the one being defensive here. I didn’t attack anyone personally, nor did I make any claims to be “better than” anything. If people want to participate in stuff like that, great. But the general rule is, “You get what you pay for.”

I can comprehend the first misunderstanding. I tried to explain my position rationally. But then you compounded the problem by digging in and continuing your attack.

You had a chance to create a promoter of your brand, but instead you chose to attack and berate. Second chances don’t come very often, and you seem to have use the opportunity to double down on your personal attack.

I hope for the troupe’s sake someone else handles PR.

At this point, I posted a link to this conversation thread in my own Facebook timeline, asking anyone interested to review it and please tell me if I was in the wrong. But sometime in between my last post and the next post, Geek’s-Night Of-Comedy/Tim deleted his posts. Here are the responses that followed in the same conversation thread:

Jennie

I was very shocked to read the nasty comments here (which are now gone… something that should have been done long ago.) Big business or small, it’s important to keep one’s cool when responding to anything even remotely like criticism. I can only respond in generalities from what I remember, at this point.

As a professional artist (I’ll save y’all the trouble of googling me- http://zellsbells.com/)  I almost completely avoid these sort of things. It doesn’t make sense why people don’t bid on artists based on their past work and proposed cost, much like a company would do for contractors.

Yeah, sure, artists are gonna flake out, probably more than average. That’s the nature of artists. That’s why it’s important to pre-screen them and perhaps even get references just like you would do for a carpenter or plumber or anyone else. When you skimp on money, you do get what you pay for. If someone’s letting “months” go by and not seeing any work from their hired artist, it’s time to cut them loose and go with someone else.

I can’t speak for any other artist, but as someone who values their free time greatly, I don’t feel comfortable with spending what little time I DO have to relax and be with my family in exchange for the CHANCE at winning a logo contest, whether the prize is money or free comedy tickets.

I am also a person who loves to work for barter, and a person who loves comedy. If the call out had been “Is anyone willing to design a logo in exchange for tickets?” I might have stepped up to the plate, but this whole thing left a very bad taste in my mouth.

Jennie (last name removed)
(link to Jennie’s website)
For those about to blog, we salute you

Jennie

And just to be clear, I’m not attacking them for starting this logo contest.it’s extremely common to see this sort of thing and they were probably just doing what they felt was the best option on a low budget. It seems to me that artists and computer repair techs are the most commonly abused for their skills.

I bet you can at least attest to that, Kevin ;)