[Sigia-l] Free lunch...and drinks too

[Lada Gorlenko]

SD> It's the norm in the new media industry in the UK for pitches not to be paid
SD> for. Many top agencies majority of work comes through client relations from
SD> winning one bit of work so the gamble is worthwhile. Proposal work for
SD> existing clients is treated differently and is often paid for or taken from
SD> the retainer budget (if applicable).

Worryingly, more and more large clients in the UK (think multi-million
IT services projects) request and expect 'screen design' delivered as
part of the bid. Whenever exist (not always), typical bid
budgets/timeframes leave zero opportunity for user research or
benchmark assessment of the existing systems. If you win such a bid, 
you may have little room for maneuver either, as some clients assume
that the screen design has already been done.

My company has recently lost such a bid trying to sell a customer the
virtue of the 'proper design process' rather than a complete UI of a
specialised mobile system based on guestimations. The response was "we
asked for a complete screen design". I am waiting for the client to
come back in a few months asking to fix the interface mocked up in a
bid rush by the lucky winner (this happened before). 

Coming back to the initial Ziya's question: yes, sometimes we pitch
designs for free. Economical reasons aside, this is not necessarily a
good idea.

Lada