I don't like the way 99 designs structures their contests. The current system makes it incredibly hard for users to find good designers, since they have to wade through so much crap in the first rounds. It seems like the designers have a bunch of pre-made templates into which they insert your company name and then spam the contest with a bunch of off-topic designs that completely miss the point. Instead, each designer who really wants to participate should be given one chance to show off their stuff, instead of many. This would force them to actually do some work on the task at hand instead of just submitting a bunch of mediocre designs and hoping that one of them gets them into the next round.
Even though you picked the final designer as the winner, how did he know you were actually going to pay him?
99 Designs held the money in escrow. I suppose there is no guarantee that he would cooperate with what you want after you had awarded him the competition, but you can withhold the money indefinitely and it worked out fine for us.
Yes, I agree!
it's hard to work with designers. Especially, online!