graphicpush

I wonder how much of the $1,221,848 the guy who designed their site got. Whatever it was, it was probably too much.

You always have to question the validity of a business that is focused on selling design when their own shop looks like ass.

I rather enjoyed this post. It’s a topic of discussion I never get bored of. While it is incredibly frustrating to compete with people who are willing to work for pennies because their economy affords them the opportunity to do so; I cannot believe there are still ‘start-ups’ that are supporting such ideals. I mean, it doesn’t take rocket science, as you’ve so pointedly brought out, to realize the flaws in this system and every one like it.

If people choose to support these practices, that’s fine. I’m sure the stakes would be different if it affected these people on a plane they understood. Great post!

I have to say that I agree with you 100%. There is no designer out there that should be shelling out time to design a logo for company without knowing more about what the company is about. This system is trying to destroy the importance of designers and communication and it should be taken down.

This part got me, on their copyright page…

You can report clear copyright violations via our contact form. If you spot a member who’s used your content without your permission, you’re welcome to private message that person and ask them to take down the content.

Then…

But if you post a comment in a contest alleging an infringement of your copyright, we’ll have to remove it. That’s defamation, and we’d risk all of 99designs if we left your post online.

So they can sweep it under the rug?

In fact the only ‘copyright’ verbage on the page is all about someone stealing content to enter in a contest, so they must expect it to happen.

I expected to find information about the designer’s copyright who entered the contest, but nope, that they’re not concerned about, only the potential thief and his right to make them money.

Here here! 99designs is as spec as spec work gets and they’ve gone to great lengths to white-wash themselves of that fact. It’s so bad that it sullies Sitepoint’s image as well. Sitepoint also had the audacity to post an article about how businesses can capitalize on using 99designs for their projects. It’s absolutely ridiculous that 99designs would make claims like, "by designers for designers" and that Sitepoint would then encourage businesses to engage in speculative work using Sitepoint’s own product. These guys have no shame!

I’m sold. Where do I sign up?

Kev—

I just enjoy reading your articles. I figure you must have quite a mind to come up with all the colorful adjectives to get your point across. And that’s not even when you’re cursing. :) Good stuff.

I just wrote a similar post and referenced your article.

I can’t help but wonder if someone created that site for a joke, because that’s what it is.

Great post! I can only agree with you. It’s a shitty venture.

The interesting part though is that it really targets “grade-school dropouts”, as you put it quite well. Nobody professional enough would seriously consider taking part in that crap.

People with a copy of Photoshop and Illustrator though, calling themselves designers, and not having enough work on their hands, will most likely appreciate that site. They don’t have anything to do anyway, so the bare chance of being the cosen one is enough for these guys to join in with spec work.

This site widens the gap between business professionals and unsuccessful impostors – high quality service vs. wholesale prices.

Every economist will tell you that it’s only natural: we’re approaching the mature stage of this market’s life cycle. Design is closer to becoming a commodity, and 99designs is only one of the many ventures pushing this trend.

So once again, the client has the choice. Now who will educate them?

A site founded on the concept of designer spec work and by a sitepoint co-founder, why am I not surprised. I expect nothing less from Sitepoint.

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

Couldn’t agree more with your post, or with Robert Augustin’s comment.

You said it all when you filled it under “god help us all”.

This is just a mess…how can the do this with anything but a sinking feeling in their gut. Screw them.

http://no-spec.com

Can you burn these guys at the stake along with BootB? I’ve blogged about the evils of these guys as well, they’re a European site who posts creative briefs for clients and offers payment for the best idea submitted.

99designs= the [ie] of startups.

Gotta give it to them: The word “crowdsourcing” really couldn’t get into more filthy usage.

Excellent article. Bump.

Great post Kevin!

99designs.com is no place for a designer (a problem solver). I feel it’s going to attract only those who are in need of making a quick buck, if they’re lucky to be paid.

I just don’t understand how it’ll work! If I participate, submit my designs and if the client likes it – what are the chances that he/she will take the concept for free, and not pay anything? I can’t get to grips, as to how the participants could trust 99designs and submit their work.

On their site:
<cite>You own the copyright to your designs (aside from allowing us to display the previews)</cite>

A preview is just enough to steal the concept for US$39. Good deal for clients!

Utter nonsense.

I can’t imagine that anyone who takes themselves or their business seriously would go for this crap. At least, I certainly hope they wouldn’t.

I agree with all the points made, the annoying thing is the more people discuss it the more exposure these sites get so it’s kind of a double edged sword.

You can’t help but notice the inherit contradictions in the statement you quoted above. Their target market is ‘savvy’ clients that don’t see the value in the additional cost of professional design vs. the services offered by them. Wouldn’t that, by definition, make them not savvy clients?

While I agree this is unhealthy for the industry, ultimately if the market will bear it, it is an inevitability. I can’t shake the feeling that discussion like this just fuels the fire (‘See, those overpriced designers HATE US, so we must be doing something right!’).

In the end, I personally am not worried. I think there is room for everyone. Traditionally, I’ve found that budget clients who don’t know the difference between good and bad design tend to be the most difficult to work with. If they want to help weed those out for me, that’s perfectly fine. At the same time, ameteur designers that are putzing around doing spec work like this are probably too busy to compete with me.

And the sad thing is that many blog publishers are doing similar things, including expecting bloggers to work for just CPM revenue. Not exactly the same thing, but almost in the same spirit.

Great article – I agree of course. But I think more than anything I enjoyed your writing style and colorful use of adjectives! :)

Seriously though, I’m with Brian on this one – I’ve come to learn that the pie really is big enough for everyone. So, yes, if crap like 99designs is helping weed out clients that want something for nothing, fine by me too.

Great post! For the record, crowdsourcing is not necessarily a bullshit 2.0 term, it is an idea that has a lot of potential in design. A more positive utilization of it would be to break a job up amongst qualified individuals (i.e. matching best typographer with best project manager with best branding guru with best print shop) and put together a great team for reasonable money. It shouldn’t be some kind of clearance sale!

For your next post can you convince architects that sinking hundreds of unpaid hours into competitions they probably won’t even get an honorable mention in is a complete waste of time?

# Linked from David Airey’s website #

Thanks for posting such issue. Brilliant! This is what I’ve been waiting for. Even though I’m quite new in design industry, I respect and practice as much as I can with professional designers etiquette.

99designs really rip off the industry. The same thing as website which offer bid-on-project based (even as low as $50) for a website. How you can even survive with that?

They want quality result with low price. And that is the main reason why such companies go to these places.

Cheers for the entry~

Tell you what? :) You are a jealous little shit!. I subscribed to your blog since I found those Icons you made but since then, what you are doing is work less and cry more..

I personally have entered the contest at the beginning of my career and needless to say, it gave me a real good start while I can experiment my design skills and earn!. Of course, the entries I made in there were very useful to be displayed in my portfolio, based on which i got further clients.

Sometime you cry over india, sometime on sites like this. tell you what? work hard dude and dont just sit and cry..

I agree that this isn’t a good initiative. But as you can see it does has it’s audience. So it does serve a purpose.

@ Greg — I agree crowdsourcing is not a bad term. I have read The Wisdom of Crowds and it does in fact make sense in the context you provided. Unfortunately, that is not what 99designs is doing. Their definition is “just grab a whole load of designs from a whole bunch of people.” That is not crowdsourcing — that is just strip mining talent.

Awesome rant. Truly.

If there are designers out there who would engage in this blatant abuse of their profession, let them. Let them squabble over the table scraps of uncaring clients. Let them worry about the next designer who comes along promising to do the same shitty work one hour faster for one dollar less. Their frustration will never end.

Meanwhile, clients who got their 15-year-old nephew (who read a big book about FrontPage) to build their website will be busy writing fat checks to the designers who can provide a quality service. If a client doesn’t realize what good design is worth they’re not a client you should work for.

Good design costs money.

Good Design Costs Money.

It’s very hard for an starting entrepreneur to find reliable design services at a reasonable cost.

I think that most individuals starting out have 2-5k budgeted for a website but no room for mistakes. It’s VERY easy to put trust in a designer, pay half up front and get burned by sub-par work or worse, have the designer flake off with only part of the project complete.

What is the solution to this problem? Where is the middle ground?

I posted this same comment at another blog and I’ll post it here too. I think a lot of you are missing the point.

99designs.com is as much about promoting designers and helping them win longer term clients than it is about once-off design contests with a prize at stake.

Many of the good designers at 99designs.com are pulling in decent clients off the back of winning design contests. It’s a lead generation tool for many of them – a way for them to show off their talent in a way that minimizes risk for the client.

Generally speaking clients aren’t afraid to spend good money on good design, they’re just affraid to spend good money on a designer who may (or may not) deliver for them. It’s a risk. Your design portfolio is nice, but it’s often not enough for them to commit.

Design contests are lowering the barrier to entry for many clients who wouldn’t have otherwise committed to spending money with a specific designer. Using design contests they get a taste for which designers they like best — many then go on to spend thousands directly with their favorite designer.

Then there’s the newbie designers and hobbyists – for them 99designs.com is really just a way to build a decent sized portfolio of design work and improve their skills by working on real projects with real clients. It beats working at McDonalds while you put yourself through design school.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about. There’s always going to be room for professional designers who charge what they’re worth to work through creative solutions for clients. Like it or not, 99designs.com is just another channel.

“Then there’s the newbie designers and hobbyists – for them 99designs.com is really just a way to build a decent sized portfolio of design work and improve their skills by working on real projects with real clients. It beats working at McDonalds while you put yourself through design school.”

Hmm. Must have missed that part – could you point out on your website were you explain this to your clients.

And for what it’s worth, working a McDonalds would pay better. That’s kinda the point.

You guys really got nerves speaking so lightly about sitepoint and 99designs.

Here are some serious people whom have speak about “room for everyone” and the the opportunity for new designers to get a grip on the industry. That’s the point at least for me, who no longer enter contest as I long ago build a solid portfolio thanks to the former sitepoint design contests.

Sure the site creators are getting a nice slice of the contest creation costs, but cmon, don’t be ridiculous, how many zillion dollars did the youtube guys got for just hosting crowd source videos (and of course making them usable and fun) the same goes to so many other websites. The diference is that the didn’t charge the subscribers but sure use (and keep doing it right now) without mercy Gigas and Gigas of original “copyrighted” videos.

I don’t see anyone complaining!!! and why is that? cause the common user benefits from the system and got their videos out there. You can watch almost any music video on the history of music television on you-tube, and I don’t hear the video music networks whining about it. They just adapt. In the same way, so many designers, rookies, pros, are happy to take the risk at 99designs. Some of them are not so good, many of them are very talented.

Some of them just don’t have a factible way of getting in touch with serious customers, and believe me 99designs is the only way (you’ll have to live on a 3rd worl country to understand that). If you don’t believe it, I couldn’t care less, that’s the Truth. I’ll could go on and on giving you reasons good reasons for a designer like me to enter to a contest at 99designs, but as you didn’t reply to any more of the comments I guess there are 2 possible reasons for that: 1) you did realize you are unplugged from reality and haven’t got yet (hello 2008) the difference the Internet have made for every business model in the world, or 2) The objective of writing such a dumb and uninformed post is to get traffic to your site by creating polemic discussions.

But you guys are so special that use such words as: shitty, bullshit, crap, and underestimate not only the 99design site but insult all the people who participate on the contest and the work they’ve done. Like you never pass trough the rookie stage. You guys were born as a talented designers.

Let me tell you that now that I’ve checked the portfolio of www.graphicpush.com, I understand why this guy is so pissed of. If you guys don’t believe me i invite you to check some of the 99designs contest and the quality of the work of the designers you are calling shitty and crap.

The key word here is “choice”, as a designer you can choose to enter or pass any contest. As a contest holder you have many choices, and don’t have to limit with the ideas from just one designer. For the contest holder is a dream come true, to have a full staff of people giving ideas and improving them using feedback. For the designers is an opportunity to improve, and fight head to head with some great artists. If the price is low, you’ll get rookies, if the price is hight you’ll get the best of the best, and I repeat, I’m not exaggerating, go and check for yourself the high profile contest they are holding.

The site design is very raw right now, but they are going gradual on that matter, as the former site was a very nice and intelligent application which was evolving from a simple forum system.

Finally my theory is that you are just jealous like Bliss pointed. So please grow up and don’t let the fact that you are editor at ALA get to your head.

p.d. Sorry for my bad English, the fact that I don’t write perfect English is no reason to remain silent.

Mark —

Thanks for taking the time to add your perspective to the conversation; it is appreciated. I wanted to comment on a few things you’ve said, some of which I agree with, some of which I do not.

First, I have no doubt that 99designs is a fine place for lead generation, and I really have no problem with the idea of getting designers in touch with clients. However, I think the model of 99designs is wrong. I have served in roles as both designer and client, having brought in many writers, designers and programmers for many projects, and I have and never would demand to see work before I paid them to make sure I found it acceptable. And I would never do spec work for anyone else.

I believe that many clients go on to spend thousands with their “favorite” designers. But for every one that lands a truly satisfied client and maintains a long-term relationship, there are a hundred who fail at doing so. And the time and energy they could have spent building a client-base the traditional way is spent working for pennies on the dollar without any guarantees.

In my mind, I continually compare 99designs to gambling. If I walk into a casino and drop $100 on ten roulette tables, I have no idea what the outcome is going to be. If I take that $1,000 and start building long-term investments, I can at least carefully plan my energy and time. Perhaps that is a personality difference between myself and the designers that populate the 99designs community; I would rather build strong client relationships from the outset than just shotgun blast my talent into a whole pile of work and hope something sticks.

There is one thing you and others that have posted are correct about — I really have nothing to worry about. There is plenty of work to go around.

My point — and the source of my frustration — is that 99designs treats design like a cheap commodity, something that clients just need to get out of the way as quickly and cheaply as possible. Design is art, and art is intimate. To reduce it to strip-mining talent does tremendous damage to what I think is an industry trying to find itself.

There are those like me that put design — which is the alchemy of the client-designer relationship — on a pedestal. And there are others, like you, that want to bottle it and sell it to the masses on the cheap. It goes against everything I stand for as a professional.

‘‘Need something designed? Crowdsource it to our community of thousands of designers. Choose a winning design from hundreds of concepts created for you in under a week.’‘

This statement pisses me off. This is aimed at the ‘savvy’ clients (read – sharks) and translates as, ‘‘Are you cheap? Think design is overpriced? We have a sweatshop you can abuse to get that new logo for next to nothing!’‘

Using the veil of ‘competition’ is ridiculous. Are there really that many competitions? No, there are really that many companies who want a logo on the cheap. How about I start a site running ‘competitions’ for the best bespoke shelving unit? I need a new one. I can get hundreds of furniture design students and hobbyists to submit photos and choose the best. I’ll bung them a couple of quid of course.

WOW what a read! 99designs what bullshit! I had to add them into my blog as well lol It gets me pissed off because how the hell could I possibly start hiring staff to design 40 hours a week to “spec work” and maybe 1/2 of those hours would be billable at 3 bucks an hour or something haha! Can we open graphic design sweatshops with 12 year old kids working their little fingers off at a G5 computer for 20 cents a day? hehe What is this world coming to… I wish Adobe would only sell their products to fully licensed companies or something!

Shame. Just shame on thee.
NO SPEC, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO SPEC WORK.

As usual, excellent post Kevin. Looks like you ruffled a few feathers.

But honestly, did they really believe they’d be welcomed with open arms by the design community? Of course not. They are in full knowledge of what they’ve created. Perhaps even taking tips from another industry favourite, LogoWorks (now owned by HP)?

‘Our model is disruptive …’ (Logoworks)

‘99designs is a disruptive startup …’

I wonder what 99designs thinks about Steve’s post – Are logo design contest sites even legal?

Well, here I am at 3:47 am not sleeping and reading these posts. I — one of the long-ago, much maligned advocates of exploring some kind of professional accreditation for graphic designers — took a long stroll through 99 Designs. Does anyone think this site has any kind of redeeming social value? As a quasi “design school” to give newbies a taste of what it’s like to work with a client? I did like reading the client feedback. An agency art director once said to me, “The term ‘smart client’ is an oxymoron.” How true.

I agree that effective and a successful design is based on good communication. However, as a student learning independently to design, taking the jobs as a practice, and posting them for fun would not hurt, right? Or am I wrong?

Rudolf – It hurts the design community now and, as you are helping to keep these sites around, will hurt you when you are looking for properly paid work. As has been said previously, if you want real world projects as a student, offer your services to local charities, funded arts groups, etc instead. Far more rewarding and they should give you plenty of understanding of the process.
I don’t see why students need any more than that before heading off into the world of work. Do they really all want to be freelancers straight away?

Guys, I think you’re all getting a bit too excited about this. First off, I’m in the web design industry, as I’m sure most of you are, and people who want shitty designs at low costs, know what they’re getting and end up getting it. The point is that companies like these are eventually doomed, and everyone knows it. They’re not going to ‘ruin’ the industry or anything. They’re trying to make a buck off of people, plain and simple. Business owners know that. If they’re that stupid to be fooled by that, you don’t want there business in the first place. Peace.

People who want great logos and can afford them will pay for them.

Some people can’t afford to spend $1000+ on a logo.

Some people don’t need a logo done by a skilled design professional.

Some people in the world are willing to be paid very little to make a logo.

Welcome to the free market.

I just used 99Designs to get myself a logo, not because i want to rip-off deisgners, but because I thought the process would offer a better opportunity to see a different range of styles. This is more appealing for a business owner because once you choose a graphic designer, you better be damn sure they will provide what you want, otherwise you have a $5000 bill and no product, and from this POV, that sucks.

However, after going through the process, I began to feel bad. Some designers put in hours and never reached a logo conclusion that I liked. Not only that, but in the last hour of the contest is when the most submissions came in and I didn’t have enough time to work with the designers.

I was pissed. I sent 99Designs literally tens of emails wondering why the fuck they wouldn’t allow me to work with designers more closely. A 1/3 of the designers submitted crap, another 1/3 just submitted trendy fonts with nice shapes featuring gradients and gloss and the other 1/3 were really cool, tried to be creative and worked with me to create an identity. But the fact remained that there was not a way to engage more with the designers. I am not pleased with the outcome.

After reading this article though, I can see how the entire system is flawed from the designer’s side. But we all must be weary of the fact that if there is recession, we are all out of jobs, and won’t have any choice but to accept penny pay. And remember, our jobs are not going to be worth anything.

In the FAQ:

How do I become a designer?

It’s no big deal. Just sign up, set up your profile, and start reviewing briefs. You’re free to submit as many designs as you like to whichever contests you like — there’s no charge to designers.

Haha, nevermind formal training or industry experience just sign up and you can be a designer too!

This sort of thing makes me livid.

I think sitepoint make some questionable decisions in general, their marketing is overstated or just designed to piss people off into talking about them and this 99designs is no better.

Everything you need to know about it is in the name … they’d happily waste 98 peoples time to get some $ from one of them.

The whole thing seems to expoit the wave of kids on computers who all want to be designers now they’ve made a myspace page and followed a couple of photoshop tutorials.

The 80s gave us ‘LA Law’ which lead to everyone wanted to be a lawyer, 90s bankers and now in 2k its pop star/webdev … to be good takes time in developing yourself AND the product, but these days folks just want to do now, learn later

Hey, :) tell you what? seems like you aint getting much work nowadayz. Why don’t you try 99 designs yourselves ha? ( and enjoy comparing ur work with others and see that ur work except that icons are crap! and that will smack u on ur face, bringing u down to earth )

about the design.. commodity, the market decides it. if u can compete, u r there. or, just get out of d way!

Unfortunately, no industry is safe from this it seems. Even tech work is getting whored out these days.
http://crossloop.com/landing.htm

welcome to capitalism? why target 99design only? ever heard of outsourcing?

people get what they pay for, they’re aware of it. and people know the effort they put in designing for contests may be fruitless, no one’s pointing a gun at their head.

assuming people who enter 99’s design contests are “grade-school dropouts whose portfolio’s crown jewel is a logo for their dad’s wholesale llama manure clearing house” is such a laughable generalization, especially look at your own portfolio. who are you to speak?

Your math is wrong because it assumes everyone is equally likely to win a contest.

Take this simple example: Let’s say someone is good enough to win 10% of contests he enters on average, and the average winner is $300. That means every contest entry, on average, is worth $30.

If a designer limits himself to spending no more than one hour on each contest, then he earns $30/hour. That’s hardly a slave wage, especially if you’re in a non-USA country.

Reduce the time you spend per project and/or increase the win rate and you’re earning even more.

In other words, if you’re good, limit your time, and enter decent-paying contests, you can make a good amount of money here. What’s the problem?

davis – so you think it’s good, thoughtful design when you spend no more than an hour on each one? That’s a sausage factory, not design. Nothing good ever comes of that in the long run from my experience.

Bliss, JY – way to lower the discussion with personal pops. So mature.

Yeah Kevin mentioned ‘grade school drop outs’ but he doesn’t say that ALL the people signed to 99Designs are that, just that it is opened up to this level. Context works.

As for people ‘not having a gun to their heads’, no you’re right they don’t. But that doesn’t make it right for the industry – designers and clients. It encourages hurried designs that have no real meaning, are too obvious or lack skill. There are some good designs on the site granted, but how much did it work out at for the designer? $5 an hour maybe?

Actually Davis, it is your math that’s messed. If you take the site in question, and click on the ‘Find Contest’ link, you’ll see that the prize money is closer to an average of $150.00 (or less). So that halves your hourly figure down to $15 per, if we accept your other variables, which I don’t. That’s still not slave wages, but certainly entering the vicinity, especially for a supposedly skilled trade.

Your figure of 1 hour is also extremely optimistic – I dare say that most designers (even extremely experienced ones) take longer than 1 hour to work up decent comps. Once you factor in the time messing around in the contest, the endless tweaks and revisions demanded by the ‘contest holders’ and you’re looking at 2 – 3 hours. At a bare minimum (I’d say that’s still being charitable but let’s accept it for the moment). That works out to either $7.50 or $3.75 an hour respectively (the latter accurately described as ‘slave wages’). That’s if the number of contests won works out to 10% – which is optimistic to put it mildly, and IF the contest holder finishes the contest or pays up if they do.

Here’s a contest holder’s PUBLIC comment from a recent contest after he made some PM requests that a designer found ethically challenged, and subsequently withdrew his entries. –

“If it’s gonna be like that, fine. I’ll tweak your idea, and not pay you since you have withdrawn it. Do me a favor and don’t submit anymore designs, I don’t want to waste your time”.

Thats right – the designer withdrew his entry but the contest holder was going to use it anyway. Without paying.

You’re right – that sounds sweet.

@ Davis — Steve OC and SD beat me to the punch explaining why your math is wrong as well, but I’ll just say you have way too many “ifs” in there. I have no way to quantifiably demonstrate who is “good”; I would guess if someone were to come up with an equation to calculate talent for designers it would be a bell curve like almost everything else. Your variables are based on weak assumptions — “increase the win rate and you’re earning even more”. C’mon, really?

Bliss, JY – way to lower the discussion with personal pops. So mature.

it came from my observation of kevin’s own portofolio.

Yeah Kevin mentioned ‘grade school drop outs’ but he doesn’t say that ALL the people signed to 99Designs are that, just that it is opened up to this level. Context works.

it’s still a blatant generalization to support his rant.

As for people ‘not having a gun to their heads’, no you’re right they don’t. But that doesn’t make it right for the industry – designers and clients. It encourages hurried designs that have no real meaning, are too obvious or lack skill.

how do you know? a seasoned designer normally knows how long it’d take him/her to do a design demanded by the contest. if they’re experienced enough they ought to know if the contest is worth the time/money. your statement is baseless.

There are some good designs on the site granted, but how much did it work out at for the designer? $5 an hour maybe?

that depends on how much time they spend on it. again, you don’t know, you can only assume. baseless assumptions are bad.

kevin’s ranting has 2 points:

1) designers get jipped by getting paid less, or none at all.

2) clients get sucky design.

both are quite flawed. first of all, if the designer decides it’s worth the time to do it, knowing the risk that his/her design may not win, what’s the harm? this isn’t any different from meeting a client irl.

secondly, the client doesn’t have to choose bad designs from amateurs you know? it’s quite possible that 90 out of 100 entries are bad, but the client will weed out the bad ones. this isn’t that far off from a conventional setting.

i can understand the initial reaction, as expressed by other commenters here. but think about it for a bit longer. this is supply/demand working at its best. not every client can afford shell out a few grands. look at the contest holders, majority are mom/pop type of small business. by holding a contest that suits a small budget, the client can have hundreds of designs to choose from.

This is hilarious. Although it is hard to stop thinking about all the deep thoughts that go into designing the graphics and simplifying a logo for a company. Perfection evolves through trial and error until a perfect match is sustained. What looks perfect to a designer is normally declined for some strange reason by a company of strangers. The folks who are good at what they do are insulted by those who feel like it’s so easy to slap up something. Tell ‘em about it! I’m so mad I can’t… stop laughing.

Oooh this article is tasty!! I’m new to this site, and I’ll tell you what… I’m here to stay now!

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

I went and browsed through some of the contests, just to see what was being submitted… CRAP! Wait… I take that back, someone might bite my head off for that. There are some (operative word, some) great designs there. The others… well… Let’s just say I’ve taken shits prettier than them!

I’m all for client relations, the creative brief, spending long, mind-numbing hours producing brilliant designs for my clients! I thrive on it! It makes me… A DESIGNER!! It’s the creative process that’s suffering with this site.

I noticed one competition for a dating site’s logo, in which the ‘winnings’ were $1000! So, I’m going to take a picture of one of my oh-so-fabulously-pretty pieces of shit, spraypaint it some loud, fluorescent color, take it in to Photoshop and add some rounded text, a gradient, and a reflection, and hope to win!!

Let’s see… 10-20 minutes to take the shit (depending on the day), 5 minutes to spraypaint, 20 minutes to let dry, 2 minutes to snap a picture, 3 minutes to transfer picture from memory card to my Mac, and another 4 minutes to add the Web 2.0 effects to the shit… 54 minutes… $1000 for 54 minutes??? I’m cool with that wage for only producing SHIT!!!!

(sorry for my bad english)

Great post ! we have exactly the same problem in France with a (sort of) startup called “Wilogo” (here for the english version: http://en.wilogo.com/).

It worse than 99design: its a “win win” system, except when the designer HAVE TO pay 40% of its benefits to the startup o_O’ the ratio of win loose is over 50:1

I wrote a post about this startup, and i receive “defamatory threat” too, just like you. funny hu ?

I think this is a very unfair review. There are designers out there in other countries that are willing to work for less and make good money doing so. There are also designers out there that do not know how to code a website but are awesome at graphics. Some web development shops outsource their graphic work to these types of places and make contacts for further work at decent sub contract rates with full rights to ownership. There is a market for low cost awesome copyright free designs and 99designs (former sitepoint) beautifully fills that need. Most of the artists are great and are simply making extra money VERY QUICKLY. Your view only applies to real design shops that offer the hand holding, coding, programming, marketing and possibly brand development skills along with the concept. Even the coded designs do not make a website, there is a lot more work to do especially if there is a dynamic portion to the site. It is also a great training ground for up and coming designers to flex there artist muscles and get constructive criticism of their designs. I would agree that your going to get the best designs from a higher priced crowd but that can be saved for the higher priced clients.

Quite honestly, I think that was a great article. Obviously a capitalist society will always breed start-ups that make us cringe, but that doesn’t mean we can’t knock them down a peg or two. While it’s true that a service (if you can call it that) like 99designs can provide small business owners with a more affordable solution to their logo & design woes, it also defeats the purpose of truly designing something FOR the client. How can something really be produced with the client’s business in mind when the actual interaction between the designer and the client is so limited? I also think it makes somewhat of a mockery out of design as a profession. It’s more like something you’d see on a reality show. A contest to earn your money? Please. What a joke.

People who want to make a career of this design thing should always resist the temptation to submit to these sites. When I started freelancing, I quickly learned that it was ok to spend time looking for a legit client in order to get paid a real hourly rate even if it meant having a number of unbillable hours in a given week.
There are plenty of business people out there who understand that effective services cost money. Heck, they pay their accountant and lawyer more than you anyway. Get out there and meet those people face to face. Show them that you will give them personalized service, and they’ll never regret hiring you, and you’re working relationship with just one client will be far more profitable than 20 “winning” entries on 99designs.con.