Spec Work Downgraded to a “No-No” by BusinessWeek

Be careful if you run into Michael Bierut today. He’s mad as hell.

Bierut is more than a little peeved with the process behind BusinessWeek’s new INside Innovation magazine. It seems editor Bruce Nussbaum–truly, one of design’s most respected advocates–has revealed quite publically that the magazine’s design was an unpaid competition between four firms. Even though Nussbaum acknowledges AIGA’s no-spec policy, he glosses over the whole thing by euphemizing what he did as “open-sourcing innovation.”

How many times do we have to tell you people? We don’t work for free.

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