This forum was created to serve as a point of contact between people looking for creative work, and creative people looking to do work. So with that in mind, this forum is a success, as plenty of people come here looking to get some of deviantART's talented artists and designers to create some spectacular stuff.

However, there is something which plagues this section, and has for years: those offering jobs assign little to no value to creative work.

All creative work is valuable, and the work created by our artists is no exception. If you're going to be asking for help with creating a new logo or even a new website, you need to be willing to pay. The pay doesn't have to be a huge amount, but it needs to be fair.

As a point of reference, let's think about Xerox Inc. They paid upwards of $8,000,000 for their new identity, which basically was a logo, a color scheme, some packaging designs, and a graphic standards manual. Millions of dollars for such simple things. Why so much? Because a ton of research and thought was put into the creation of the work, and with a new identity Xerox stood to make more money, money that they would not have made had they not appeared fresh and exciting.

I'm not suggesting anybody here expect to pay millions of dollars for work, but rather I'm suggesting you all consider that any work done for you has value even if you don't expect to be making a ton of money off of it.

So when you're asking for help, offer something fair in return. If you own a restaurant, offer free food. If you sell iPods, give one to the designer. It doesn't have to be money, but it has to be fair.

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The Public is more Familiar with Bad Design than Good Design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer Bad Design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes Threatening, the Old Reassuring.

-Paul Rand