Getting close to 100 designs with 99designs even though many were variations still gave us far more alternatives that we were happy with. In fact, it became difficult to choose a winning design.
You have to stay active during the process. Offering suggestions on what you want to see and what you do not like. The designers usually do exactly as you say. After their initial concept they usually just make minor changes. Comments like "like this but can you be more creative with this part" does not usually work.
As a startup, I believe it was both cost effective and the best use of our time. Instead of spending time finding a designer with a portfolio we liked and then going back and forth with revisions with them. Almost every revision we requested on 99designs was done within a few hours. I also feel the anonymous process of 99designs prevents wasting time by trying to be too nice with comments.
I have not worked with a designer, how many choices are you really going to get before it starts to be uncomfortable as you are wasting both the designers time and yours. Five designs? Ten designs? With 99designs you might get 20-40 unique designs. It just seems like better chances for success in a short time.
The designers argue that it is bad for them, however from my perspective it lowers the barriers for entry if you are a young talent trying to build a name.
How easy is it to put a value on good design? I see big companies out there with what I believe to be terrible logos that I know would have costed hundreds of thousands. On the other hand, I see companies like facebook and twitter that started out with plain text logos and spent nothing yet still have a powerful brand.
However, some notes:
- You'll want to pay more than the average to attract a wide range of designers. It's still cheaper than a professional designer, but don't think you can lowball the 99designs market and still get good results.
- 95% of what you get back will be utter crap, and responding to this can will up a lot of time, much more than working with a professional design shop.
- Both times my winning designer was someone from southeast Asia with a shaky grasp of English. Perhaps my experience was atypical, but I suspect you'll have to deal with this as well.
- Some of the nicer-looking stuff was ripped off from elsewhere with the colors re-changed, which I only caught through some image searches. You may pick a winner you don't actually own, and I don't know how to guarantee against this.
- In both cases I had a good sense of what I wanted in advance and provided very specific instructions to the designers. If you're looking for someone to brainstorm ideas your results might vary.
- Yes, it's spec work and since I wouldn't work for spec, asking someone else to do it is sort of problematic. But no one's forcing the designers at gunpoint to use 99designs, and there's no denying the cost difference (although it does come with significantly more hassle.)
a) Gives you an place to see how other designers interpret a concept, some good some not so good, helps build your eye for your style.
b) Gives you a chance to show/hone your work, build your portfolio, and get clients.
You can certainly find lowend design agencies or student designers, so thinking you'd otherwise spend $10,000+ isn't completely accurate.
I challenge whoever downvoted this to come up with a good reason why. This debate is really over personal preference. I've simply given evidence against it. I don't even completely agree.
What raised the question was a friend of mine who is a designer who blasted me for using their service. He said its branding that I'm after, not logo design. To that, I disagreed so I wanted to get the communities thoughts.