If you’ve been in the creative business long enough, chances are you’ve been requested to do some spec work. As a photographer, you are rarely asked to do a complete shoot as spec work, but there is a good chance that you;v been asked to pitch a concept along with other photographers. And if you also provide design services, then this is may even be a standard practice.
The idea behind spec work is that many creatives work to create a concept to suggest to a client. The client than picks one concept and anyone who did not win is not getting payed.
Of course, this will not fly in any other industry. This movie by Zulu Alpha Kilo shows what seems to be real situations like. It pitches spec work to an architect, a chef, a personal trainer and a framer. None would have it
If you are not sure what spec work exactly is, this movie has a great explanation.
Spec work, however, isn’t always a foreign concept when it comes to work where the final product is somewhat intangible. I do complex electronic discovery work, where the goal is to have attorneys efficiently review hundreds of thousands of documents and assign coding to them based on their content. Getting involved in a bake-off where we end up doing spec work (often very expensive spec work) against competing firms is not uncommon. Ultimately, the client gets to interact with us for a few weeks, compare us against the competition and decide who they want to use going forward.
Unlike the explanation in the second video, that’s exactly how large corporate legal departments judge competing legal service providers. Individuals may do something similar when they’re getting married – having tasting sessions with several caterers, for example, to pick the one they’ll ultimately use.
Who could afford to work for free in this economy?
“Any other industry” is waaaaaaaay off the mark. There are many, many industries that work like this, not just professional art. A whole lot of technical work is done exactly this way. The entire geosciences industry behind that tank of gas you put in your car to get to the spec shoot works on this model.