Architects for sale on iTunes
In the relatively short life of the internet, web business and customer service have been refined drastically. Every type of business or product is available in some type of online marketplace, but one genre of businesses is not available – creative services. While yes, every artist, graphic designer and architect has a website – there is no true online marketplace for competitive comparison and rendering of these services. What if someone created an eBay, craigslist or iTunes store specifically designed for creative services? Current regulations in the profession may restrict some of the ideas mentioned below, but I wanted to share these thoughts now, as I’m sure someone out there is inevitably pursuing them.
99designs for Architects
In the graphic design realm, 99designs.com has already changed the game; and all creative professionals should be aware of this. 99designs offers a venue for clients to request graphic design work and pay the winner they chose. The client starts the contest, describes what they’re looking for and submits the winning fee to 99designs. 99designs holds the money in escrow to ensure a winner is paid. 99designs keeps a percentage. Before 99designs, it was common for a business to pay $5,000 - $20,000 for a quality corporate logo. On 99designs, a client can review high quality submissions from dozens or hundreds of various designers for $500 - $1,500. 99designs has exploded; they currently have over 70,000 designers submitting what average out to a new design every 10 seconds. 99designs focuses on Graphic Design... What would happen if something similar to 99designs was available for architecture and all things creative? - writing, architectural design, interior design, web design, etc. It sounds crazy to envision providing architectural services to a client and site you’re unfamiliar with, but crazier things have happened on the internet.
As you can imagine, 99designs has become extremely controversial in the graphic design community. It has sparked several substantial campaigns against this type of work.
How would an online competitive marketplace affect architectural services? On one hand, the industry is already extremely competitive in our current lean economy and driving down the value of services through increased competition would be bad for the profession. On the other hand though, there is the point that so few people in the world will ever actually hire an architect. It’s debatable what percentage of homes are ‘designed’ by architects in the U.S., but some say as little as 2%. If an extremely sophisticated web tool came along that allowed greater access to the profession, and ultimately generated more design services in total, would that be a bad thing?
The Online Temp Agency
A second idea I’ve thought about regarding online business development for architects is what if there was an instantaneous online temp employment company? What if freelancing or unemployed architects could sign up and login to a site, then firms or clients with quick and easily communicated tasks could instantly get someone solving a problem, troubleshooting their BIM model or assisting with CAD tasks? The prevalence and ease of online meetings would be huge in enabling the communication of such tasks via the web.
These ideas are pretty impersonal sounding, but if regulations allow anything like this, someone out there will inevitably create such businesses. It would take some sophisticated web development to create fluid ways of sharing visual products such as drawings and BIM models. Share your thoughts in the comments below.
3 Comments
Reader Comments (3)
Not exactly the same, but eLance is all about professional services.
Everything now is high-tech. So now, we can view all those logo designs online and just choose what we want for a cheaper price. Less hassle and less cheaper. I think I like this 99designs. Thanks for sharing this.
Hi we are building such site for architects. While doing so and doing some research I came across your blog. I am amazed someone thought about it before did. do you mind sharing regulations you were talking about ? I work in New York as well. We can meet sometime to discuss my project with you.
Thanks.