Please join me in challenging Pratt Institute, my alma mater, to formally adopt an official policy prohibiting crowdsourcing art and design and banning speculative work, and pledge not to contribute to any Pratt fundraising campaigns until that happens.

This spring, I wrote to Pratt to express my disappointment that it engaged in crowdsourcing and solicited speculative work (also known as spec work) to get a new mascot design for their athletic department identity. Although I received a response to my first letter, my follow up went unanswered. This week, the winning design was announced on the Pratt website. According to the competition's creative brief, the winning artist, alumnus Wayland Chew (BFA Graphic Design, '06), will receive below market rate compensation in the form of $1500 and two gala tickets, and ownership of the design will be transferred to Pratt. I assume that the other entrants who submitted their work received no compensation or assurances of exclusive ownership of their ideas, as is common practice with crowdsourced and spec work.

I maintain my original position: This is a poor and dangerous lesson for Pratt to be teaching students. With this competition, Pratt, which was ranked fifth in the world out of 50 design schools in 2015, has engaged in a practice that is damaging to the industry in which its students are expected to compete, and is diminishing to the livelihoods of its alumni.

The Institute needs to join me and other industry professionals in sending a clear message that art and design crowdsourcing and spec work are unacceptable. AIGA and the Graphic Artists Guild, two of the largest professional design organizations, have already denounced these harmful practices.

The signers of this petition challenge Pratt Institute to create an official institute-wide policy against art and design crowdsourcing and speculative work. Until that happens, they cannot count on our financial support.