Should I work for free?

Following on from previous posts – how designers should charge for their work and designers should value their work – I thought I’d write a little bit about something which inspired me recently.

It’s the side project of, and these are her words not mine – Jessica Hische, a crazy cat lady known for her lettering, silly projects, and occasional foul mouth. The ‘it’ of which I talk is a CSS-based mini-site which is basically a flow-chart which designers can follow to help them decide whether to work ‘free-of-charge’. It’s a little project which is, of course, a little tongue-in-cheek but nicely done and it looks great.

View the CSS mini-site here.

You can also buy the letterpress version here.

Jessica was recently interviewed by Digital Arts Magazine where she talks about ‘cheap designers being like free sofas’. You can read the full interview here but be warned, the advertising on their website is pretty full on and you may have to wait 30-seconds or so to get to the interview. It’s worth the wait, though.