These tips will help you if you do a logo design contest on 99Designs.
A new logo was part of the Domain Name Wire redesign released last month. I designed the original logo myself back in 2005, and only had it refreshed a few years later by a designer.
To refresh your memory, here’s what it looked like:
I looked into a number of logo design services and ultimately decided I’d try crowd sourced design service 99Designs.com. I was familiar with the company, as it spun out of the same group that runs Flippa. I visited their offices in Melbourne last year.
The basic premise of 99Designs is that designers compete by creating logo designs from which you can select your new logo. You select the winner and he or she gets paid.
Here are 9 things I learned about redesigning a logo and using 99Designs.
1. It’s not $99, but it’s cheap.
Apparently the 99 in 99Designs refers to the number of contest entries people received when 99Designs was born from contests on the SitePoint forums. Actual pricing for a logo contest starts at $299, which is much less than what a typical logo designer will charge you.
I opted for the $499 silver package. The sales pitch is that this package will result in more designers and designs. The designers get paid more, so the better ones will be attracted to your contest. 99Designs suggests you’ll get 30 designs with the $299 package and 60 with the $499 package. There’s also a $799 Gold package. 99Designs pitches that as giving you access to the best designers and a dedicated account manager.
2. You can be too limiting in your design brief.
The first step to launching a design contest is to complete a design brief. This is where you tell designers what you’re looking for, how the logo will be used, general styles you like, etc.
I made a mistake with my design brief by making it too limiting. I told designers that, ideally, the new logo would play off of the circle in my original logo. As a result, most submissions were basically a small tweak to my original design or focused too much on the circle and not enough on the rest of the logo.
I later removed this from my design brief, but it may have been too late.
3. If you create the contest, the designers will come. (Just be patient!)
It takes about 24-48 hours before you get your first entries. For anyone used to submitting a request on Amazon Turk, or used to the instant responses to questions on Quora or Twitter, this can seem like a long time to wait. You have to remember that people are designing logos, not just typing in a response.
4. You can get more contest entries if you put in a little elbow grease.
While you wait for those first entries to come in, you can drastically increase the number of designers working on submissions by reaching out to them.
Search prior contests to find logos you like, and then send a message to the designers inviting them to your contest.
I sent a somewhat customized note to each designer to get them interested.
5. 99Designs will bend over backwards to please its paying customers.
You’re likely to receive an email and/or call from 99Designs after submitting your contest. Their support is hellbent on making sure their paying customers are happy.
I imagine this can drive designers crazy. In my case, 99Designs extended the deadline for the contest and made it blind (see #6), all in an effort to make sure I got a logo I was happy with.
6. You really want a blind contest.
A typical logo design contest on 99Designs is open, meaning that every designer can see what other designers submitted.
There’s also an option for a blind contest in which designers only see their own submissions. You really want a blind contest, because it prevents designers from participating in a form of “group think” where they all design similar logos based on what you’ve rated so far (see #7).
For some reason your first contest on 99Designs must be open. But you can ask support to make it closed instead.
7. Don’t rate designs too high early on.
As designs start rolling in, you can rate them from 1-5 stars. A rating of even 1 star means the logo “has potential”.
If you start rating designs with three or more stars early on, a couple things will happen.
First, in an open contest, all of the other designers will start to just play off of the designs you rate highly. You won’t get many more original ideas.
Second, I suspect some designers won’t touch your contest because they think you’ve already found your winner.
8. Get ready for the Paradox of Choice.
113 designers created 489 different logos for me.
Frankly, that’s too many. It was hard to know where to start, let alone whittle down the 10 or so I wanted to consider. With all of those choices it’s harder to select a winner than if a designer just presented you with three good designs to choose from.
9. Some people will hate your logo.
I did manage to eliminate most of the designs and come up with 13 I was considering. That’s when I asked Domain Name Wire readers to weigh in.
People submitted 75 comments. When I tallied them up most people voted for the logo I’m using now. But it was also high on the list of logos people hated.
The truth is, you’re not going to please everybody.
One thing that people pointed out – and are doing even more so now – is that the logo can look more like DNN than DNW. I was somewhat blind to this since I knew it was DNW. I’ve come up with a couple ways to alter the logo to make the W more prominent and might work on that.
And, as one reader pointed out to me: it’s just the logo. It’s not the most important thing on your site.
David Thompson says
I followed your posts and competition on 99D and think this follow up on what you learned from the process is invaluable, thank you.
One question, well two … was it ‘worth’ it in your opinion in the end (time invested, dollars spent to outcome), and would you use the service again ?
– David
Andrew Allemann says
I think I’d do it again. I looked for a number of alternative services and don’t think any of the other comparably priced ones would have given me better results.
Steve says
It is good that you had a positive experience with 99designs. Maybe this hapened because you just wanted to redesign/improve your current logo.
But you should always be familiar with both sides. You probably know the saying “grass is always greener on the other side”.
As a designer who spent a few months with 99designs, let me make few things clear:
1. Most designers have their logos prepared, the just change compan’s name according to your project brief.
2. That way you are very likely to end up with cloned logo design … if you are not aware of this to separate the wheat from the chaff.
3. Most “designers” on 99designs are fighting for money with dishonest techniques like stealing logos, using stock images and flagging other designs. They are mostly people from poor countries and as such, $200 commission means a lot for them. Who else would spend hours crafting a logo and have big chances of getting rejected? Certainly not a professional logo designer!
4. 99designs support is eager to help you (a paying person) but to reply to a designer, one has to wait at least 3 working days.
5. Don’t expect amazing logo deisgn, because the client-designer relationship does not exist here. The purpose of 99designs is to get an acceptable logo for the shortest period of time. Still, their prices are too high for what they offer.
Jeff Edelman says
Thanks for this, Andrew. This was very hopeful. I keep planning to use 99D and I just have to finish figuring out exactly what I’m looking for. Hopefully, this will push me a bit.
Domo Sapiens says
I had pretty much the same experience, although I invited a ton of designers which designs I liked this while browsing (winning designs/designers) and a few responded/participated, also found a lot of copy cats I assume it was my fault as I was making to many comments as designs were being posted and giving to many directions … overall I am happy with the end result.
forgot I also increased/bumped the prize and got a ton more entries…
Jason Aiken says
Good tips Andrew.
One thing that I’d like to address a little bit is your tip:
“2. You can be too limiting in your design brief.”
I can understand this tip… as you don’t want stifle creativity and cut off potential ideas that you had not considered BUT there is definitely a danger of providing too little information as well.
The brief is the foundation of the project and it’s super important to give the designers enough direction to get started.
A good way to strike the right balance is to address some potential ideas upfront like “playing off the circle” in your case but make it VERY CLEAR that whatever ideas you present are just that… ideas… and you are open to creative suggestions as well.
Cheers,
Jason
99designs
David Gruttadaurio says
Great post. Always good to hear about someone’s experience with an online service. The last sentence in the post really puts it all in perspective, doesn’t it? Regardless, it’s your brand… and the details do matter.
James says
I still like Number 6 the best… 😉
Ken Hansen says
Nice post Andrew! Thank you.
Tim Samson says
Hi Andrew,
Just out of curiosity, did you take a look at Logoworks? They push hard on the notion that they fairly pay each of their designers (vs. 99D’s speculative model where only one designer gets paid) and their price point seems to be slightly lower than a typical 99D project ($399 for their Gold vs. the $499 that you paid)
Thinking of doing a logo myself and wanted to get your thoughts on why you chose one over the other.
Tz says
I think the new logo is a very clever design. What I can’t understand though, is why after so much effort you would not have the image load at a proper HD resolution for retina devices? So much work and it just looks washed out and blurry on a retina display. This is the case with so many sites that are internet/tech based that it blows my mind people aren’t more bothered by this. Often the case with the logos and ads on some of the biggest sites around. Huge pet peeve of mine especially for those who should really know better.
Peter says
Regarding point #6, it’s a must. Speaking as a designer, I never enter contests that aren’t blind (which in practice means that I only participate in website design tenders) and I know that many other good designers are turned off by non-blind contests too. The first open contest I entered on 99designs saw three other participants attempt a series of rubbish rip-offs of my first submission. Not going to let that happen again.
Also, I agree with Tz. The logo isn’t just blurry on a retina display, it’s blurry on a bog standard laptop monitor. I can tell you straight away that a sharp PNG-24 version of the logo would likely have a *smaller* file size than the fuzzy 18KB JPG you have now, so I’m really not sure why you’d go with the latter.
Peter says
On point #2: you need balance. You can probably afford to be less prescriptive in logo designs than in website designs, although I don’t have enough experience of the former (for the reasons outlined in my previous comment) to make a conclusive statement about that.
The most infuriating website design contests to join are those where the contest holder essentially invites designers to surprise them with some miraculously exciting and creative concept as though these just fall out of trees. If you don’t provide guidance, you’ll get extremely general, cookie-cutter designs that you might as well have bought fully coded and widgetised for $30 from a Wordpress themes directory. Alternatively, you’ll get designers who do try to throw in some quirky and left-field ideas and then give up when – surprise, surprise – they’re not what you were looking for.
clippingpath says
I have recently used a logo provided by 99design and its not bad at all.
Tony says
It is truly a shame that a site with quality content would skimp on it’s design by tossing a few scraps to what seem to be uninspired designers. And who can blame them? When you are up against so many others for what is likely a one-off job with no certainty of pay, you’re probably going to spend very little time on a design, toss something into the ring, and pray for the best. This post seems to embolden what I already suspected about having too many options: Many will go unseen and the few left standing will have become the top because they stood out against an endless tide of uninspired toss-ins. Of course what you’re left with ends up looking “pretty good” or passable when you just skimmed through hundreds of submissions that look like they were made in MS-Paint. Your previous logo and your current logo are equally forgettable and it won’t be long before you end up wanting to update your logo again as its age will quickly show. Admittedly, it already causes confusion to many. Also, it is true, you really can’t please everyone, but a good design would certainly have far less dissenters than what you ended up with.
A logo represents you and it is a part of your product, service, or company brand. If you are a B2C or C2C then you should value your branding as the asset it is. But from what I have seen from contest and bid sites such as 99 designs, the value of branding seems to be completely inconsequential in the minds of the companies. It makes the logo seem like an afterthought and I, like the majority of others, do judge a book by its cover. We don’t like to admit it but we do. When I see a logo that looks cheap, I immediately assume that the site, service, product is as well. All too often it ends up being true. Because if someone is willing to overlook this detail of their business then they are likely willing to overlook many other things. It shows that they are interested solely in bottom line thinking and not on creating actual value for their customers.
Steve K says
Absolutely agree with Tony’s post above.
Takeshi says
Good tip on not rating designs too highly early on, but when is a good time to rate designs? Halfway through? Last day of the contest? Only once it gets to the finalists?
Bela says
Hi Takeshi,
I am designing on 99designs too and I agree with most of the points mentioned. You have to be careful though with the rating. I agree that it’s rarely useful to rate 10 submissions from the first 20 with 5 stars because that way the designers already know that it will be hard to work with the contest holder and that the ratings don’t really show what he wants (It’s impossible that there are so many logos that are perfect=5 stars). I really like it when they tell me what they don’t like about my submissions because that is how I get a feel of what they expect. It is not true that designers don’t spend enough time on a single contest. I would say the opposite, if we see that it is worth and especially fun (most of us do this as a hobby) to work on a project we will definitely work a lot to make a logo look good.
Cheers,
UG
3one4 says
Interesting article,
Not all points we would necessarily support and often find the results underwhelming even considering the cost. However we have written our own article that you and your readers might also find interesting, some tips on the design front and how to successfully manage a design contest.
One of the main issues with crowdsourcing design is that as much as people believe design is subjective, effective design is highly objective. Design is a business solution not simply an aesthetic one, as designers we are problem solvers. Crowdsourcing removes the value added by having a professional designer approach your business problem.
We don’t use an accountant because they know how to use a calculator, we use them because they understand the problem and will provide the correct solution…
Billy says
Isn’t this totally unethical? Would you have a restaurant make you every dish on its menu, try them all and then only pay for your favourite one? Sounds like exploitation to me.
charlotte says
why don’t you just face book or twitter (I need a graphic designer)… problem solved! I charge about $350.00 for a logo design and a lot of people say I charge way to much. Although after reading your post, maybe I’m not charging enough lol
clippingpathlabs says
Thanks for this, Andrew. This was very hopeful. carry on
Color Clipping says
99designs fill my 89% + requirement. Everything in Logo and Identity Design.
STATBD says
99 designs is really a great platform for finding any logo & identity design. When I try to find a logo its will fulfill my all requirement. Hope in near future I will find more good design with reasonable rate.
AST094 says
I feel bad for the designers who don’t get paid. However, designers have an unfortunately flakey reputation. About 10 years ago I paid $600 to an up-and-coming garden designer for blueprints, and what he came up with was entirely based on using a door in our garage that we never, ever open. When we pointed this out to the designer, he was crushed and didn’t want to do any more work on the project. (He hadn’t asked how we used or exited the garage.) He then promised to do a revision—for which we were expected to pay him—but stopped returning our calls. So when it comes time for me to order a logo I will definitely be using a blind contest on 99designs. Lots of options, I get to choose, and zero chance of winding up with nothing for my money.
Prepressindia says
Awesome post Andrew, Thank you for sharing it.
shakil says
99 designs is a powerful platform it the graphic design ,logo design .Find all requirement easily in this platform .highly commanded 99 design.
best4businessesweb says
First rate article. Great points. #8 – The Paradox of Choice – is the one that I found most helpful. Yes it is tough to choose a final design among so many good choices. When I did a test and launched a logo design contest on 99designs I got over 100+ ideas for my logo!
Great – but… it was hard to decide. I used the built-in options on the 99design platform with star ratings, accept or decline and the poll. This allowed me to work on the principle of the process of elimination.
The poll feature is great, you can select a few of the best designs and then email them to your work team, customers, friends, etc. They can vote and comment on the designs. One of my vendors gave useful insights which guided my final choice.
Your readers may benefit from watching my multi-part series 99designs logo design review showing the crowdsource logo design process from ordering, logo design brief, design submissions, culling, feedback and final design logo file delivery.
vt8235 says
I am no designer so I am farthest from being “objective” but your logo is really ugly and that is not something bad as greater companies also have bad logos( see google, hp…where can I see the dismissed ones? I am no designer but I feed on it whenever I can
vt8235 says
I meant to say nothing bad in the identity what matters is the function, the service. These companies provide their worth and couldnt care less how whom satisfies their logo. I dont judge books but their cover. I judge their cover.
elise says
Google and HP have “bad” logos?
This only proves how society are being conditioned to prefer ugly designs, thus, reversing the standard of what a logo should look like.
Expert Clipping says
Thanks for this, Andrew. This was very helpful for me!
Olivia Lily says
99 designs is really a great platform for finding any graphics designs like logo & identity design. One can get all necessary thing in a single platform.Thank you for the author who take effort behind each post.
work7728 says
Thanks for this, Andrew. This was very helpful for me!
Mount Woods says
Its been a while that we have been following 99 designs and the way they are growing in the design community is remarkable. Specially when it comes to running a design contest, this is a great way to collaborate with other designers and see their talent.
Rezu says
Really this post is so much informative and helpful. Thanks Andrew for sharing this type of post.
Ranju says
Really you are absolutely right.
elise says
I think the clients only pick designs they “like” over design that will actually work. Most of the time, the entries that win are the ugliest.
elise says
I think your logo doesn’t meet the requirements of a “working” design.
• First, it will look like “DMN” or “DNM” if the colors are muted. One of the best practices in creating a logo design is to make it adaptable, which means that it should work in any color or background.
• The Symbol and Type should still work if you separate them. The typography is just too generic and lacks the character that makes it different and memorable.
But if you are “happy” with the result, then who am I to critique.
Md Shohrab says
Thank you ! So glad you found it interesting and that’s a great note about Limiting your ability to gain new customers.
Masking Experts says
Thanks for this, Andrew. This was very hopeful. I keep planning to use 99D. Hopefully, this will push me a bit. Thanks for sharing.
CPP Graphics Media says
This is so good advices. This teaches a lot of stuff. This type of contests should be done more!