Is crowdsourcing evil?

It seems I've underestimated the size of the global graphic design community. Having chosen to socialise my content and get involved in online discussions, I'm finding the numbers of designers doing the same staggering. Few, however, seem to have benefited from working with brand consultancies. Many use outdated design consultancy language and seem to think that outside of brand consulting they have something significant to say. This has become evident in the discussions about the emergence of crowdsourcing websites such as Crowdspring and 99Designs.

The reality is that despite specialist knowledge of powerful design applications graphic design not in service of clear and specifically directed marketing strategy isn't worth much.

I've posted my thoughts about crowdsourcing and spec work on Wired's Epicenter. Click on the article headline above to go to the post extracted to the opinion section of this website. From there you can link to the original entry on the Wired blog.