Erik Seo Photography Blog

The tired debate of people doing work for free, for exposure is at it again.  This time the target of this subject is about as large as the companies gets, you may have heard of them.  It’s Google. In a recent New York Times article, they call out Google for asking illustrators to do custom work for free, telling them just the exposure alone is worth it.  They should be getting paid what they are worth, then getting the exposure after a job well done.  Do you think the architects for the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas (sorry first famous building that came to mind, I just watched Ocean’s 11) designed the building for free because they would get a lot of publicity?  Fortunately most of the artists that were asked to do it declined, however some of course did. To those that did do the work for free:

So now one of the largest companies with deep deep pockets got you to work for free…who the hell do you expect to get paid from now that everyone (that uses google.com…..you know just a handful of people right?) knows that you will do custom work for free?  Nice work guys.  You are killing it.

From the New York Times article:

“There’s a lot of concern that newspapers and all of print is becoming a bit of an endangered species,” said Brian Stauffer, an illustrator based in Miami whose work has appeared in publications including Rolling Stone, Esquire and Entertainment Weekly, and who also rejected Google’s offer. “When a company like Google comes out very publicly and expects that the market would just give them free artwork, it sets a very dangerous precedent.”

Google, though rebuffed by more than a dozen illustrators, said in its statement that it had plenty of takers.

“We don’t feel comfortable releasing the names of artists who are participating in the project before it launches,” stated the company, which also declined to give a date when artwork from the program would appear on Google Chrome. “However, we are currently working with dozens of artists who are excited about the opportunity to be involved in this project.”

Check out the entire article here, it’s a really good read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/business/media/15illo.html?_r=4&hp