Jeff Koke Design Blog

What is a “zombie project”?

It’s a project that lingers in limbo, neither alive or dead. For whatever reason, the work has been completed (or mostly so), but the final product has not been launched, printed, presented or used by the client.

We’ve always had a couple zombie projects in the works at any given time, and bringing them back to life (or killing them forever) is always a challenge. Whether it’s a Web site that’s been built and coded, but never launched by the client, or a brochure that’s been designed, but never released, these projects lurch around half-alive, costing mental energy and project management resources, waiting on the day they will come back to life, or die forever.

The first question is the most basic: Why Do We Care About Zombie Projects? Assuming we’ve been paid for our work by the client, why should we care whether the project is ever launched? We care for two reasons: First, we care about our client’s success, and getting a new, well-designed site launched or direct mail out will help their business (else why have us design it?). More business for our client generally equals more business for us.

Second, it’s a point of pride. Every designer likes to see his or her work out in the world, doing what they were designed to do, and it’s a bit frustrating for clients to sit on a final product for months, and sometimes even years, without releasing it.

There are three tactics we use to deal with zombie projects:

1. The elixir of life: The best method we’ve found is to schedule a “re-kick-off meeting” with all stakeholders in the project. Either in-person or via conference call, we gather everyone together and discuss what can be done to get the project to the final stage. Often this is enough to spur the client to finish and release it.
2. Dismemberment: If we are unable to bring a project to life via a re-kick-off meeting, we will try to make use of the design components from the project in other work for the client, offering to achieve the initial objectives of the project with another deliverable. If the project can’t live as it was originally conceived, maybe it can be re-born as a new project. Warning, this sometimes leads to additional zombies!
3. The shotgun: If a project can’t be resurrected or re-used, sometimes the only answer is a quick death. We zip up the files and send them to the client with our condolences and try not to expend any more energy or project management time on it after that. Some projects just can’t be saved.

Do you have any zombie projects roaming around your computer? Let me know in the comments.

Microsoft recently release a couple of videos touting their new “ZunePass” music subscription service. Here’s one:

Another one explains that you get to keep 10 songs per month with the ZunePass service. It sounds like a good argument on the surface, but does the math really work? I think it depends on how you consume music.

First the idea that it costs $30,000 to fill up an iPod is pretty ridiculous. They pick the largest capacity iPod (120GB Classic) and presume that someone would buy that many songs from the iTunes store. I’m an avid music fan, and I have about 5,000 songs in my library. Most of those I ripped from CDs that I already owned and had purchased over a long period of time. The people I know who have massive music collections in digital form — I do have some friends with 100+ Gigs of music — have not purchased them through iTunes.

Nonetheless, I have purchased about 1,110 tracks from iTunes, so in my case let’s see how the math works out:

I’ve spent about $1,100 on music from iTunes (this doesn’t count the discount from buying full albums, but whatever) and I’ve gotten to keep 1,100 songs.

If I used the ZunePass service, at 10 songs a month, it would take 110 months to accumulate the same collection, or $1,650 — not to mention that it would take 9 years to do it. Longer than the iTunes store has been open (it launched in 2003).

True, I would have access to millions of tracks and could listen to them whenever I wanted, but if I stopped paying the $15/month subscription fee, those songs would disappear forever. Some people are okay with that, and I don’t have a problem with the idea that some people prefer to rent their music. I just don’t think Microsoft’s argument for it is any good. As usual, Penny Arcade cuts to the absurdity of it.

By the way, the $1,100 I spent on music from iTunes works out to almost exactly $15/month since the store opened. So for my musical consumption habits, owning the songs is a better deal. What about you?

Recently I put together a collection of my first 80 logos. I have done a few more since then, but this is a pretty good amalgam of my work. Click the image to view a larger PDF, or click here to see the collection organized by date.

One of the first decisions I made as an independent designer was to create a policy not to do “spec work.”  We’ve been pretty successful at honoring the policy, although there are a few cases where we felt we had to do it to remain competitive.

Spec work is work that is requested by a potential client with no guarantee that you will get the job and be paid for the work. Some designers see it as a way to get new business and write off the effort involved as a sales expense; others do it because they are desperate for work and see it as a way to get their foot in the door of a lucrative client. Some clients have come to expect spec work as part of the process of choosing an agency, so in certain cases, it seems like it’s just the cost of doing business.

I’d like to spend a minute articulating why we have a policy against it, and then explain why it’s a bad idea for companies to request spec work from potential designers and marketing partners.

Why we avoid spec work:

1. It takes time and effort away from other, paying clients: since spec work is always a gamble, what you end up risking is either quality or timeliness of your other work. For me, it’s always better to improve those attributes with an existing client, than to sacrifice them for a potential client. If we deliver better, faster work to our paying clients, we are likely to get more projects from them.




2. It starts a relationship off on the wrong foot: It’s a psychological truth that people value things more when they pay for them, and designers always produce better work when they know they are being paid. We’ve always striven to be an essential, trusted partner with our clients, and that’s difficult to do when we don’t feel like they trust us enough to give us a project based on our experience and reputation. Even if we do end up with the project, and ultimately get paid for the spec work, there is a sour feeling of being abused that is difficult to erase.




3. There are too many gray areas: generally spec work is done without a contract in place. This creates some ambiguity about who owns the work, what you will be paid if your work is chosen, and what recourse you have if the client uses your work without paying you. All these issues can be ironed out, but it can be a hassle, and for us, not worth it for the potential of payment.




4. It starts a vicious cycle: The more spec work you do, the more it is expected of you — and worse, the more you expect it to be part of the process. Time, energy and creative concepts are finite resources, and we feel it’s best to devote them to projects for clients who respect and value those resources.

As you can see, it doesn’t make sense for us to do spec work, but I also feel it doesn’t make sense for companies to request spec work from potential designers.

1. It’s the illusion of choice: Most companies I know who request spec work do it to have a variety of agencies and concepts to choose from. They ask 3 or 4 firms to present their ideas for a campaign and sit back while those companies work for free to create their concepts. This method will not produce the best work from their candidates (see #2 above), and it will dilute the creative process as the client must divide their time and give creative direction to 4 different groups. The ultimate result is 3 or 4 mediocre concepts to choose from.




2. It’s exclusionary: The truth is that there are many firms (like us) who make a point to not do spec work. If you require it for your project, you will unnecessarily exclude some potential candidates. In fact, you will be most likely excluding the best candidates, as those who don’t do spec work feel their portfolio and reputation is strong enough already, and likely are not desperate for work (and thus have plenty of work from their highly satisfied client base).




3. It’s insulting: Although clients may not intend it this way, at the core of a request for spec work is a kind of disrespect. It devalues and commoditizes creative services. We feel that our time, creative thought and past experience has value, and if we give that away without an agreement for compensation, we are essentially devaluing our own work. This will not lead to the best end result.

To break out of the cycle of requesting spec work, I recommend clients do a couple of things to gain comfort that they are choosing the right creative services firm — request additional portfolio samples that are similar to the type of work requested, talk to current and past clients and prepare a thorough creative brief. These simple steps will produce much better results than sifting through a pile of spec work that was created quickly and without compensation.

When I present a design idea to a client, for example a selection of 5 logo concepts, I generally post the concepts to our extranet and send the client a link to view them. Every once in a while, a client will react badly to this tactic, asking why I don’t mount the concepts on black boards and present them to the executive team in person. This usually comes from clients who are used to working with larger agencies, though you sometimes get this treatment from underskilled freelancers.

I refer to this dog-and-pony show as “Selling the Design.” Each concept is given it’s most flattering treatment and then paraded in front of the client, while the designer explains the subtleties of the design. Designs that might have at first seemed obtuse or unattractive are given new life when the designer can explain the reasoning behind the design choices. It works wonders. Clients who are “sold” a design are much less likely to reject it.

There are two reasons that I don’t take this tactic with my work. The first and most obvious is that designs need to stand on their own. I’m not going to be available to explain the nuances of the logo design to my client’s prospects. If part of the logo forms the shape of the first letter of the client’s company name, it better be obvious on the first or second look. Otherwise, what’s the point? I’m not saying a design can’t have subtlety or depth, but that depth better not be essential to conveying the brand qualities, or people are going to miss it.

The second reason is that I don’t have the time to do this for every concept or logo that I have to deliver. I wouldn’t be able to get anything done. That said, I do believe there are a couple of cases where presenting in person (or via conference call) and explaining the design is a good plan. The first is for PowerPoint graphics, which will have someone there explaining the design to my client’s prospects (their sales staff). The second is company names, which usually requires an interactive session, whittling down a large selection of names to just a few candidates. Often, the client does need to know the thought processes that went into selecting each name idea.

Ultimately, selling the design is done for one of two reasons: to make a bad design look better or to impress a client with personal attention. The first is a bad reason, and the second can be accomplished another way. Take them to lunch, and talk about their business.