I am personally vigorously, passionately and fundamentally AGAINST designers being asked to do work on spec and neither I nor my firm will ever participate in speculative work. I have said it before and I will say it again: Speculative work denigrates both the agencies and the designers that participate. If we give away our work for free, if we give away our talent and our expertise, we give away more than the work. We give away our souls.

Full interview over at NO!SPEC here.

Mr. Airey points to a great list of no-spec articles:

Don’t design on spec, by Jeffrey Zeldman
Spec Work Arithmetic, from the Speak Up Archive
Spec Work Is Evil / Why I Hate CrowdSpring, by Andrew Hyde
Spec Watch on design contests, on Logo Design Love
More logo design contest nonsense, on The Logo Factor
An interview with SpecWatch, on Web Designer Depot
Pay the Designer, on 8164
The Personal Cost of Designing on Spec, by Mark Boulton

AIGA President Debbie Millman on spec work.

Via Swiss-Miss & David Airey.

Blanka: Müller-Brockmann

A bilingual, expandable book designed for the UK art and design gallery Blanka. It honors Josef Müller-Brockmann as well as conveys the principles of Swiss Graphic Design as exemplified by the leader of the revolutionary Swiss Style.

http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/07/blanka-muller-brockmann.html