Stack Overflow's Original 99designs Logo Contest
99designs.com
99designs.com
So it's clearly worked.
What may not be immediately obvious is why it worked: Jeff had a clear aesthetic in mind and applied it throughout the contest. You can see that from the feedback process on these designs.
Professional designers offer more than mechanical skills with Photoshop and Illustrator, they bring a few other things to the table:
- A sense of taste (which many business owners lack)
- An ability to synthesize multiple inputs and determine what's important
- Strategies for selling a design to a committee of decision makers who can't agree
- etc. etc.
In many cases, these soft skills are a huge value add to a business or project. In some cases, though - a developer who's got a good idea of an overall aesthetic, no need to convince a big group, etc. - all that's really needed is the mechanical work: show me a bunch of designs and I'll pick the best one. In this sort of situation, there's little value to add.
In most instances, a bad design is a bad design and won't be chosen. But, it's up to the client to have enough sense to choose the correct design.
I just cannot appreciate a developer using such a site, while a sizeable portion of developers also work on very similar premises compared with designers; hourly payment and no spec work. (i.e. we'll buy your application if we like it.) For some people, mostly executives and other business oriented disciplines, this is a fair deal as it is what the free market bears; they do not and will not care about long-term health of the industry, the other side of the stick, or the designer on the line. It just doesn’t click for them, and that’s understandable somewhat because they’ve never been in a similar situation before.
But a developer using this service knows exactly what this entails, they are aware of the concept of spec-work, and maybe even had to do it for some reason. My problem is not the amount of money per-se, but with doing work for nothing, hoping that it will pay in the future. A developer cannot claim ignorance. It’s just plain nonchalant lack of empathy.
I am a happy 99designs customer, and I sleep well at night.
99designs most certainly lowers designer wages. That is not an immoral act.
However, is it immoral to ask someone to work for below minimum wage? I believe so. Apparently the western society agrees, consequently we have laws to protect that. I'd say we do most definitely have two profoundly different concepts of what is moral and what is not.
I do not believe that it is immoral to offer less than minimum wage for a job. I do not believe that any consensual arrangement between clear-thinking adults is immoral.
The exploitation of the global market is available to the commissioner (stackoverflow) in a way that is not available to the designer.
Whilst SO are enjoying a position of wealth wrought in part from the [owners] geographical location they are, here, using the lack of mobility of designers to get a relatively low cost design created. Moreover they are exploiting those who, on the whole, don't have the benefit of their wealth in order to maintain a low cost and at the same time creating a vast inefficiency in the labour performed to produce the design.
So the immorality IMO comes in via exploitation of the low paid, deflation of market price below local [labour] costs (as they are benefiting disproportionately from those high local costs), and purposefully introducing inefficiencies in to production.
You may not find those condition immoral - after all population control by virtue of below-subsistence wage levels is a natural part of a free market; some people seem to find that satisfactory.
What I don't think a lot of 99designs customers consider is their impact on the health of the design market. Allow me to illustrate this in the software development world:
...
Imagine you have a potential client that has put out an RFQ. You write up a proposal and submit it. You are not selected, but you learn that the potential client went instead with an offshore company that bid literally one third of your bid. There was no way you would have come close.
You may say "I build quality software. I charge what that's worth." The offshore competitor may write less efficient code that's much harder to maintain – but this client doesn't know, or care. They care that the software meets requirements and was delivered on-time and in-budget.
That's what designers who disagree with 99designs are concerned about – clients that don't understand what they're missing out on when they choose a one-off crowdsourcing instead of a collaborative, iterative process – and a market that comes to accept this as the norm.
Now maybe for a one-off side project, you simply don't need a full design process for a logo. Maybe a client that needs a quick prototype for an app doesn't need the quality codebase you can provide. I'm not against either of these scenarios. I just don't want to see the market for either industry lose track of the value its best talent can provide.
Otherwise, this seems to be an argument about maintaining designer wages, and I am rightfully not concerned. Everyone wants their wages to go up and the prices they pay to go down.
I don't know what your logo looks like. It might be a great piece of design that connects with your customers and represents your business well. All I'm saying is that a proper design process helps ensure that happens; it's no different from software in that regard.
You don't need to image it, it already exists: www.freelancer.com, www.guru.com, www.project4hire.com, etc.
> I'm not against either of these scenarios.
Then that's really it, isn't it. 99designs and sites like it have perfectly reasonable use cases.
Everything hinges on that "may", doesn't it? Either the code is worse, or it isn't. If so, the client will suffer for it, and smart companies will learn not to go with the lowest bidder. If not, congrats to the offshore company for outcompeting me.
I think I'm producing high-quality software, but ultimately, I have to prove that in the market. The market is healthy when everyone has maximum freedom about what to produce or provide.
I wouldn't engage in a bidding war to make software because I'm convinced that I don't have to do so in this market. If things change, maybe I'll become desperate enough to do that, or maybe I'll find another line of work. The invisible hand will keep allocating workers as needed.
Can you explain what the difference is between 99designs crowdsourcing design work and SO crowdsourcing development troubleshooting?
Not sure how you could miss the distinction.
Just to clarify - I'm not passing judgement on 99D one way or the other. The people that participate there are free to do so if they think it is the best use of their time.
http://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2012/04/feedback-unemp...
There's good reasons to believe that the portfolio that designers develop through 99designs is likely to be worth far more to them than the win itself.
Are you kidding me? If you don't like spec-work crowd-sourced sites, then don't participate, but to try and suggest they are less of a company for using one is over-dramatic bullshit.
Please be civil. I am not saying that they are less valuable. I am saying I appreciate them less.
Also, the whole concept of working for a startup is, in a sense, doing work for nothing, hoping that it will pay in the future. Admittedly, equity is a more likely avenue to get paid when you do hit success than pure reputation from spec work, but on the flip side, such successes are much more of a team effort than that of an individual. Having been a leader at more than one failed startup, I don't ever recall anyone in the market having "empathy" for us as we ran out of cash and were laying people off.
I guess I'm saying that arguing this is somehow unethical seems absurdly entitled, whether for designers or developers.
edit: grammar
Now, if you take a look at the link to the original 99 designs contest, you'll see that the artist who won the contest is now known as "Please_Remove" -- gee, I wonder why? Perhaps because he was able to use 99designs as a conduit for his graphic design career and is now taking on much bigger and better projects? I'm sure after designing such an iconic logo like that, you'll become famous.
So, you see. We participate in these crowdsourced sites because there's something in it for all of us. I post on SO, for me. I understand others benefit from my posts, but I'm there for two reasons: demonstrate my knowledge, and sponge up everyone else's knowledge.
People working on 99designs might not even be designers yet. But they're getting valuable experience in what clients want, every time they attempt a design, whether they win it or not.
The people on 99designs are not people who have their full schedule booked up with work. And ergo, they have taken a radical and brave step to change that. By subjecting their work to the scrutiny of market forces, they will see if they truly have what it takes to swim.
You can argue no-spec all you want but the two facts remain that make 99designs 100% legit:
* Everyone working there is doing so voluntarily
* Everyone shopping there is doing so voluntarily
Similarly, posting on 99 designs is a perfectly selfish act. It's a great no-pressure exercise to hone your skills without having to worry about client requirements. I really don't understand why professional designers feel so threatened by spec. 99% of the time, 99 designs is a perfect example of why you should hire a professional designer.
C'mon, if you do so, you demonstrate your knowledge, you'll get famous, you'll get experience, and hey your schedule isn't booked with work right? C'mon, people answer questions on our site so it's totally the same thing! Collaboration!
My company has millions of dollars but yeah we don't have a budget for it. Don't ask me why, just do the work.
Wait, you want to get paid for that work? Jeez, you are one entitled person.
That isn't to say you couldn't spend an equivalent amount of man-hours designing a logo. But it is to say that the designs on 99designs obviously don't have the same amount of work put into them, otherwise the site would be infeasible.
You can argue otherwise, but the fact that there isn't a business for this just like 99designs flourishing is enough proof for me that it won't work.
Also, if someone wants to make such a business, I welcome it. Doesn't mean I'll participate.
EDIT: Forgot to add, 99 Designs does not supply the most important ingredient: judgement. If a client with no design sense uses 99 Designs they will pick a crappy logo, while a professional designer may have been able to steer them in the right direction. Their loss.
Please don't state this as fact, it's really dependent on the project, the client and your process.
>Now, if you take a look at the link to the original 99 designs contest, you'll see that the artist who won the contest is now known as "Please_Remove" -- gee, I wonder why?
Going with your assumption that he or she became famous, why does she want to be not seen anymore at a spec-work site, one would think? It's either because he / she is embarrassed to worked at one time at a spec work site, or that he or she, after gaining experience, understood that spec-work is actually not that good of an idea. Considering the weakness of no-spec organized movement amongst designers, I would say the latter.
I also happen to be an active contributor to the Stack Overflow, and I find it very useful. I also contribute. It’s a fair deal. But it’s not spec-work. I have no expectation of compensation. While seemingly similar, it’s stands at a very different place.
That said, I agree that 99designs is a good training ground for budding designers, nonetheless it not existing would be an even better one.
Indeed, if people were forced to work anywhere, it would not be legal.
I would assume he/she is embarrassed to be seen on a spec work site because of people like OP above who actively work to shun those people.
I'd imagine (since I wasn't around at the time) it was more of a choice between "pay nothing" and this, Stack Overflow had no income until after launching (ads I think were the first thing) and no funding for years after that.
I think you have all your work ahead of you to show that using 99designs and similar sites has any real effect on the "long term health of the industry." Similarly, I don't see how it represents a lack of care for the designer on the line, seeing as to how numerous designers happily use the site themselves.
You say that your problem is not the amount of money, but with the concept of spec work -- "doing work for nothing." And to that I reply that I totally agree. Doing work for nothing is a problem. But you're blaming the wrong person. You should blame the people who choose to do that work, not the people who offer to buy it. Designers are perfectly capable of saying, "No, I don't like doing work that will possibly be for nothing, therefore I won't participate in 99designs." Nobody is holding a gun to any designers' heads and forcing them to apply this questionable business model to their work.
You could argue that it's still unethical on the part of the client, because they're taking advantage of ignorant designers who are unaware that they are entering into an (arguably) bad deal. But that line of reasoning doesn't hold water, because 99designs makes it very clear what the arrangement is. Nobody here is unaware of the risks of doing competitive spec work.
You could also argue that the problem isn't with the designers who participate in spec work, but with how their decision affects the market for desginers who don't want to do that. But if a large number of designers can be persuaded into doing spec work, then some combination of the following facts are true: (a) there are too many designers, (b) there are too few people requesting high quality design. In either case, it means simply designers may not be worth as much as you think they are, in the numbers you think they should be. I hardly think you can call someone's morals into question for not choosing to donate extra money to designers.
What I do is also far enough from the design discussed here to allow me to take this problem as largely an academic one, for disclosure’s sake. I do not work in the market serviced here.
However, I do have a problem with the moral aspect of using spec work—it’s not about free will, that would be a problem of legality, not morality, because our western society decided that free will is an important enough thing to protect that we have laws matching our moralities on that subject. What, then, makes us have laws on minimum wage? There are jobs that can be serviced for lower-minimum wage, there are employers that would gladly offer lower-than-minimum wage, and there surely are people that would take them in a heartbeat. We do have that laws in part because it’s just plain immoral to ask people to work for free or nearly-free even when they know what they’re getting, much to the capitalist’s chagrin, and in part because it would create a race to the bottom on all parts of the society. Designers being offered spec work is just a way smaller-scale version of this. That said, the issue of minimum wage is an open ended question which I am utterly unqualified to comment further on.
Well, I didn't mean to question the point of minimum wage. For typical salaried jobs, I completely understand and somewhat agree with the notion that it's unethical to pay below a certain amount.
However, I think that freelancing, entrepreneurship, etc, are a different realm. These are not people who've been interviewed, hired, and retained by a company. Instead, they are people who possess (and/or are developing) a set of skills that they hope to exploit on their own via a business model of their choosing. In my opinion, these differences are significant enough to warrant an entirely different set of moral considerations.
Take myself, for example. Today I'm some combination of a web developer, designer, and sysadmin, but I got my start doing pure web design. I was terrible at first. I doubt I could have landed a serious job at a decent company. But I enjoyed doing contract work where I could, and I enjoyed entering design contests as well. If nothing else, they were a chance to work on my skills and creative processes to see how they compared with others. And, best-case scenario, I could make some money while feeling good about winning. It felt like the furthest thing away from being taken advantage of.
Designers claim to know this too, but then they get really defensive.
So which is it? Do pro designers really provide value that can't be had through a spec-work site? If yes, then they have nothing to worry about.
The anti-spec-work argument is based on a false dichotomy: the alternative for most of those designers on 99designs is not a pro designer job. It's not getting paid to do any kind of design at all. Work gets done on spec because it's a very low friction way to operate, and if you increase the friction enough these little transactions never happen at all.
I am unqualified to answer this because I am not the kind of designer 99designs would threaten. What I do is very different and unreplicable in a spec-work environment, so one could almost say I have an unfair advantage.
I agree that if spec work didn't exist, most of those jobs would be produced for free. But the remaining portion would be produced by professional or professional-to-become designers, and that would produce a surplus for the economy, and I'd hazard a guess that the surplus would be larger than what it currently is—but obviously it's just my reasoning, not hard data.
in my experience the majority of the submissions on 99designs first round are very quick drafts with clip art that probably took the designer 5 minutes. There are some very original ideas mixed in as well too but I'd say at least 75% you can tell are just rough ideas and you can look at artist profiles to see they submit basically a similar logo frequently.
I think the service is interesting because nowhere else can you just get a total brainstorm of so many ideas. Then when you pick one, they get the $350 prize, but they may also pick you up as a client to refine the logo or do more work with the site.
Go to a portfolio network like Behance.net and browse the portfolios under branding. You'll find plenty of interesting, talented, and available designers, many of whom are just starting out or live in far-flung places with low overheads.
It won't be quite as fast or cheap as going with the crowdsourced alternative, but it will definitely be faster and cheaper than going with a firm that touts big-name clients. Most importantly, you'll get to experience a real design process, and maybe even forge a relationship with someone who gets to know your business and what you're looking for when you need more design work.
Sites like Folyo are a good idea, and I'm happy to see so many designers on HN, but as someone who's worked with crowdsourcing sites and pro designers one-on-one, it's much better as a client to have multiple designers working on your idea simultaneously based on a single crowdsourcing design brief than finding good designers on Dribbble/Folyo, building relationships with individuals who may or may not be a good fit, and then managing relationships with the candidates who happen to be available and oh they want to get paid $150/hr up front for work that isn't guaranteed to work for you, be on time, on budget, etc.
I would much rather pay $10,000 guaranteed if it meant having Folyo level designers compete to deliver something based on a design brief. Overall, I think crowdsourcing is a much better arrangement than pay 'N pray. It leads to a wider range of options, more creativity, and ultimately gives clients better results.
This sort of process implies a lack of respect for the design process, a belief that it's just a veneer, and a lack of trust in your designer. Most design isn't just about firing off a brief and receiving some stuff back, and then judging which is best based on the client's instincts, it affects flow, functionality, and most importantly of all is based on a dialogue with the client and moulded by ideas extracted from the client; it's not piece work.
Most good designers would respectfully decline an invitation to a race to the bottom, except if the work is really well defined, like a logo, and could be viewed as a small fun sideline or a way of boosting profile. I'd never work professionally this way, would you? Why should they participate in this sort of bargaining for any amount of money if other clients take what they do seriously? Design is a collaborative process, and getting to the real requirements is actually not dissimilar to say website or app development - it requires time, patience and commitment from both sides. If you can call this process "pay and pray" you are (both) doing it wrong.
I actually think the SO competition was a good idea, and they ended up with a nice logo which suits them, but for work larger in scope than say logos (like app design, or almost any other design job) it doesn't make sense, and even logos are better done as part of a larger process about the whole brand.
Basically, you pick few designers, who you think will fit the job most (looking through their portfolio) and will pay them for the time pitching to you. That's it.
There is always a cost to following up on some job. Not just money, costs... but time, pain, opportunity costs etc.
Reduce the cost for the worker, and reduce the cost for the consumer to lower than what they could do together, and you have a good sustainable business. If you can just reduce the cost for one of the parties, then you'll probably still do well. Reduce just one type of cost, and there is even probably some good business for you :)
When a designer shows an interest in a logo, then all other designs follow suit and basically 'spin-off' that logo.
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2011/04/22/designing-ux-exchang...
If you're looking for a design, please put in the effort and get to know a designer. Most are incredibly hard working and won't be happy until your happy.
But can you see it from the other side? There are clearly designers (starting out, living in low cost economies, etc) who are happy enough to use it, and it's not always possible to pay a designer until we're both happy.
'Desperate' is a more appropriate term.
>"...not always possible to pay a designer until we're both happy."
In my opinion a fair amount of work should receive a fair amount of pay. There would be untold wasted hours invested in 99design jobs that were never won because of a trivial differences between two or three leading designs.
Graphic designers aren't pitching to invest time and labour for the opportunity to work. They're actually investing the time first and just crossing theire fingers.
I'm not angry at companies using 99 designs, I'm annoyed at the system and those who enable it, including the designers themselves.
If you have $300 to spend on a logo, there are hundreds of good designers out there who will take the time to get to know your needs and develop a solution that you're happy with.
Lots of great designers for hire.
The system is the free market. I'm no Randian, but its pretty clear there is both supply and demand for 99designs.
> If you have $300 to spend on a logo, there are hundreds of good designers out there
Note that this is a different service than 99designs provides, and to be honest, I much prefer the 99designs version. Better to get 12 good ideas without putting much effort in, rather than tracking down a designer who'll do it, having a few skype calls or coffees, and then taking what they give me.
For the good of the design community I would encourage people to put the effort and source a good designer.
I take the same stance when consuming anything. I try to source products/services based on value and ethics, not just price and convenience.
BTW Dribbble(dribbble.com) is a great hub of good designers for hire.
This is insane. Nobody in their right mind would do this over what 99designs offers. It's an order of magnitude better in terms of both price and convenience, and I'd wager that on average you're more likely to get what you want out of it.
> BTW Dribbble(dribbble.com) is a great hub of good designers for hire.
I beg to differ, having tried multiple times over a year to find designers there. Anyone whose work I liked wasn't interested in being hired, or had a price tag way way outside my range.
I think your hyperbole knob needs adjusting. There are thousands of right minded and happy clients doing exactly what I suggested.
"Fairness" is immaterial in a free market. Who gets to decide what's fair? You? Why is your concept of fair pricing more legitimate than that agreed upon by others? Your industry is being disrupted, get over it.
The problem here is that customers aren't certain that a specific designer will be able to pull off what they have in mind. Looking at the designer's portfolio helps to a degree, but committing to a service of a single designer is still a bit of a gamble. This uncertainty is what 99 designs capitalizes on. They appear to help hedging the risk.
To each his own. 99designs is not going anywhere, but they serve people who would've not contracted freelancers anyway.
It's a common theme for most industries to want to control who is in it, how they buy and how much they pay. The whole retrospectively-name mercantilist period of economics lasted for centuries, and collectively reduced the living standards of millions, just because those in charge thought setting prices and reducing access to industries was a good thing. It wasn't until markets were opened up and anyone could enter or leave at will that things improved for many, many people.
The point is - you either agree with free markets for anything or you don't. It's hard to accept that it's OK for you to buy cheaper goods caused by some industry disruption somewhere else, but it shouldn't apply to your own industry. It's hard to accept, but you still have to.
Commoditization of products and services happens, and if it happens to you, you've just to got to suck it up and get on with it. Hectoring or whinging to your clients is a no-win strategy. Doubtless many restaurants have been killed by McDonalds and low-cost, low-quality meals, but the public vote with their feet and dollars.
In the case of 99 designs, most of the designs are below the floor level of the cost of engaging a designer. If I were a designer, I would hope that 99 designs provides a gateway to people using more design services, rather than doing without or (worse) doing it themselves, which is the far-more frequent outcome.
In the case of new companies (like stackoverflow once was) it makes a lot of sense to just get a little bit done in order to get launched. If it's successful, there will be plenty of money later on to form proper relationships with real designers.
Regulating markets and working conditions post WWII in western nations did exactly the opposite.
For unbridled capitalism and truly free markets check out some of the living standards in South East Asia.
Just as open source developers want to maximize the number of eyeballs on their codebase, I want to maximize the number of eyeballs on my creative project. So do you, you professional designer, or would you actually prefer to start a creative project without the benefit of having 1,000 different artistic directions to draw inspiration from?
I strongly believe a good idea can come from anyone, anywhere. In light of this, it makes no sense to trust that you, Mr. Designer Extraordinare, of 10s of 1,000s of other Designer Extraordinares on Earth, have the ability to supremely encapsulate my project in PSD format from the great subconscious better than everyone else. In all likelihood, you don't - because that is the nature of human creativity. This is why I want 1,000 different designs to look at early on.
Honestly some of you designers make it seem like crowdsourcing contests are compelling designers everywhere to become robot slaves. First of all, who's to say you can't run a crowdsourcing contest and then hire out the rest of job; or hire first and then run a crowdsourcing contest? These are merely tools at your disposal in a free market.
And in regards to the supposed waste of resources, my assumption is most designers who participate in an early stage crowdsourcing contest sit down for a few hours tops and submit a thoughtful initial concept to get noticed. You see this pattern repeating itself over and over when you run enough contests with ample promised payment. 80% of the entries are a joke, submitted by people who couldn't be bothered to read your design brief, or who couldn't understand English well enough to do so; 15% have potential and maybe 5% really hit it out of the park.
I offer premium rates when I run a crowdsourcing contest, and I wait for competent designers who understand my creative brief well enough to at least pretend to meet it to submit something half decent, and then I work with those designers for the next few days to hone the design. What is so wrong about that?
Waterfall model: http://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/logo-stackoverflow...
Bubble sort: http://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/logo-stackoverflow...
Recycle bin: http://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/logo-stackoverflow...
Broken database: http://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/logo-stackoverflow...
Private Void isn't so bad!
I don’t remember what I did vote for. I don’t love any of those candidates.
I guess it doesn't change your core point (designers get stiffed in competitions) but it's not as if this case is average -- at least I hope it isn't.
[1] http://99designs.co.uk/logo-design/contests/logo-stackoverfl... [2] http://99designs.co.uk/logo-design/contests/logo-stackoverfl... [3] http://99designs.co.uk/logo-design/contests/logo-stackoverfl...
Can't blame 99 for it, they're not forcing any designers to keep working at trying to win these contests, but the way they advertise all the money being made in large sums makes it feel like there's more of a chance of making solid money than there actually is.
Of course I never was the best anyway, many others had more success than me. But it's still a very bad average pay-off for the designers.
> Therefore I would reframe 99designs as a way for designers to get clients without having to find cold-leads while at the same time being able to practicing their skillset/portfolio on real-world designs.
That sounds great for a college student, but not for anyone actually trying to make a living.
Just FYI, that kind of justification is offensive to designers. Practice and portfolio pieces don't put food on the table.
There are places in the world where it may be nigh impossible to get work as designer, and where the "low" wages of sites like 99designs are considered good wages.
A salaried wage for a designer would be about U$5/hour. At my company they're paying a good designer U$ 25 an hour for freelance work, but of course they don't hire as many hours as a fulltime salaried employee would do.
Although in my opinion, no one is forcing either to work with those sites and in fact a lot of top designers stay away for just that reason. It devalues what they think their time is worth...
So, some people who work in a similar contracting style field feel it's taboo to hire someone in another field using a process you think is exploitative in your own field.
Well sorry, but if I'm the client then I will damn well choose whatever design I like. It's not like a logo is only going to be seen by 'trained designers' who can 'appreciate' it.
"The Emperor's New Clothes" springs to mind...
Now, the logos may not be as good as done by a true design company, BUT, unless you are a big B2C brand, nobody cares what your logo is like.
However, if you're having a critical piece of software written for your business, then clearly you need to care about that - outsourcing may or may not be the best option, just as using 99designs for a logo may or may not be the best option.
Only on a site like HackerNews. Everyone I've shown 99D to thinks the idea is great (as do I).
I don't understand why designers care one lick what other designers are doing for work. I don't begrudge people for using AirBnB instead of a hotel, or using Uber instead of a normal taxi.
I guess some people feel it is taking advantage of the less fortunate, but everyone knows how it works going in; for this reason I can't quite share the same disgust.
I don't agree with this. There is a market for $300 logos that many designers won't fulfill.
I've ran several logo contests and one icon contest on 99designs for $250-$300 per contest. I'd definitely use them again for a logo.
While I received 150-200 submissions in each contest, there were around a dozen that I would consider acceptable. Many "designs" were either clip art, or very poorly made. I also got the feeling that submissions are shopped around. That is, submitted to other contests if they aren't accepted for one. I don't blame them.
My first contest winner was a guy from Pakistan, the second was an 18-year-old from Germany, and the third winner was from Indonesia. Another was from North Carolina. So most likely, you are off-shoring your work where $300 is a larger payday.
If you plan on running your own contest, you need to plan some time to work it. It is imperative to give feedback on each submission, and constantly rate them. This is the difference between getting 12 submissions and getting 120 submissions. Many of the people submitting designs are learning and really appreciate thoughtful feedback.
In most of these cases, I would not have hired a designer otherwise. It takes too much time, and it is hard to find a designer I'd trust to produce something I'd be happy with for a logo. If I was working on an entire site design with a budget of $5-10K then I would find a trusted professional.
How much did the 'acceptable' designers get compensated?
That's the problem with the 99designs. There isn't a scale of compensation for quality. Either the designer wins or fails with the rest of the junk.
These aren't necessarily top-notch designs, and the designers know how 99designs work. I've entered coding contests myself knowing I might not win. I don't know every designer's motivation, but it can be just for fun or experience. Obviously, there are designers that are willing to participate.
http://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/logo-stackoverflow...
;-)
Redirects me to http://99designs.de/....
Top bar with '99designs.de now speaks German! Switch to English or continue with German.' and most content (the 'ui') is in German, mixed with original English parts (English contest title, English comments). The amount is listed as 512$ and seems awkward (for Euro that's fine, for $ it looks out of place).
My browser sends 'Accept-Language en-US,en;q=0.5'.
Clearly the site ignores my preferences and web standards. I won't return.
You give some information about what you want. You offer a prize for the best logo ($512 in this case.) Anyone can submit a logo. You pick your favorite, pay the prize money, and the logo is yours to use or not use as you see fit.
Even if you get no logos you like you're only out the prize money, which is a lot cheaper than a talented designer would cost. It's great for a business that needs a cheap logo, not so great for designers making a living from logo design.
I don't know who owns rights for non-winning logos.
I'm curious as to how many other graphic designers are outsourcing their work there...
http://www.crowdspring.com/project/1247533_logo-for-superuse...