In 1964 Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart announced in his court in response to the Louis Malle film, The Lovers.

“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”

Essentially saying. I can’t verbally describe what pornography is but “I know it when I see it”. Going by that logic, I have never seen anything in my life time that can be considered as porn because everything I’ve seen has been beautiful (I love that joke, sadly I didn’t write it. If you’re offended you can blame David Feldman)

I have always been fascinated by this ruling, or rather the comment by Justice Stewart because it really speaks to how people view, justify and describe what is right from wrong, and for some reason when I think about this comment it always brings me back to art because most people can’t truly describe what they like and want from a designer when they are hiring them to create a piece for a campaign or an ad and when I think of designers I always think of the the concept of Spec Work.

Just so we are clear, I am against Spec Work. (Not sure what spec work is? Click Here) and go out of my way to support companies who feel this same way (Upstack.com, Friends as well as the designers of this here blog are Spec Free). Asking people to do real work with no guarantee of payment is becoming a major concern in the freelance community and the fact that it is becoming openly accepted and embraced by large brands through “contest sites” is something that while may look outwardly ok and even a consistent way to garner a lot of attention for a brand is still wrong and I, (and this may just be my own wacky opinion and not those for who I work with) would and will only respect these brands when they start a “contest style” compensation program for their internal and full time employees because work is work and work deserves compensation.