Some designers feel that sites like 99designs and design contests in general are not fair to designers, and erode the value of design work in general. In fact, some have gone so far as to create the "no-spec" movement: http://www.no-spec.com/faq/
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.
By acceptable, I don't mean outstanding. Just something I wouldn't be ashamed to put on a business card or website. You typically award one winner, but you do have the option to select multiple winners and pay them each the full amount.
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.
I don't feel they are taboo at all. It's an affordable way for someone to get a lot of opinions and attempts at a logo. I don't think it's a good use of my time to spend the effort finding a talented designer, waiting for them to produce things, go through the revision process and end up paying 10x versus what I do on 99designs. I absolutely understand the level of quality is arguably lower but when I just "need a logo" to have something to work with, I'm more than happy to utilize crowd-sourced efforts like this.
Taboo doesn't mean bad. I have had several great experiences with 99designs, but I don't bring it up in casual conversations with designers I know, much like people that have had good experiences with prostitutes don't mention it on dates. I do think 99designs has become more taboo over time. That being said, stackoverflow is a community site, so a community designed logo fits the business.
>"I do think 99designs has become more taboo over time."
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.
The difference is if someone doesn't choose to stay at your AirBnB, you take no loss. If someone continuously works on design competitions, they could walk away with nothing for hours of work.
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.
That's why I only use sites like Guru and vWorker. Development companies charge way too much for their work and take way too long. Seeing the attitude of devs on HN only solidifies my view: no, i'm not going to let you charge me to waste the day away with "daily billing," and no, I'm not going to pay for your day off and wait longer for my project just so you can have 4-day work weeks.
There is a big difference between outsourcing a logo v outsourcing software. For one, you can see everything you're paying for on one screen and there's no timeline issues etc. You get a finished product and it has a fixed scope.
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.
The distinction here is that few of us will think you're a jerk for taking that approach. It's a completely valid one, in my opinion. I think it rarely leads to success, but if it works for you, go nuts.
I'm assuming a significant portion[1][2][3] were not "real" logos, it seems half the first page are the sort of standard someone might pay for and the rest of generally cutesy "logos" that people submitted for fun.
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.
I think the "taboo" in this case is the same way some people feel about sites like rentacoder or guru where the programmer (in this case designer) has to work their tail off trying to land a paying job where as the client pays next to nothing comparative to how much spec work they are getting done for free.
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.
The designers only get paid if their design gets chosen. On top of that, you have clients that name their price, so you end up having races to the bottom for people trying to support themselves in their profession. Furthermore, the client has the last say in the design (they pick the winner), so instead of trusting a designer to create a solution that's the best for your business, you're going with your own (untrained) eye without any regard to what makes a design successful (a lot of people are incorrect in assuming that good design is anything that just "looks good", that's only part of it).
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.
You call it a "race to the bottom." I call it a functioning market. Lowering prices for a product isn't a bad thing. It's effectively what we're all in the business of doing.
I used to try making money as a designer on 99Designs. Basically, it's taboo because designers get paid like $2 an hour there. It's a business model skewed completely towards the clients.
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.
>"Basically, it's taboo because designers get paid like $2 an hour there"
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.
U$2 an hour is really bad, even by my country's standard (I live in Uruguay, South America).
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.
I think the OP was being facetious with the $2 per hour comment. In my experience with 99designs, the winner gets a few hundred dollars. Taking into account the fact that a designer may have to enter quite a few contests before he/she wins, that prize pool gets diluted for sure, but I'm sure the wage works out to a value greater than $2.
It depends a lot on the designer/buyer relationship. For example a friend of mine had for example his logo done through 99Designs but ended up getting the whole CI for his business done plus keeps coming back for follow-up orders. 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.
Not at all. I think with every creativity centric professions reaching true mastery is a long process. If a designer is not able to attract clients by previous work this can have many reasons, but improving the ability to produce work suited for professional use might be a great step.
Sounds like you'd have a hard time changing your price in the event a 99designs client becomes loyal to your work.
> 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.
I have no idea if it would work, but what if a site was made where you could hire designers that you knew were quality so you wouldn't waste the time of people that weren't likely to get their design chosen?
