99designs *angry face*
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Ralph Tags: 99designs, design, logo
in Articles | 3 Comments »
When you’re a designer many things irritate you that normal people don’t care about; the use of Comic Sans on pretty much everything, pixel pushing and when people say “the [insert word here] really makes it pop” come to mind. However none of those are our focus today. No, the focus of today is 99designs.
99designs is, according to them at least, “the #1 marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design” where they “connect 55,439 passionate designers from around the globe with small businesses who need design projects completed.”
Sounds great, they follow on to say “99designs was started by designers for designers.” This is where it stops sounding great. How is this for designers? How is this for anyone except 99designs? The client is entering a lottery where they will be overwhelmed with entries, most of which either wont fit the brief or will be designed badly, resulting in the client making a poor choice.
Before I resume my rant may I state that this will not be the case for all the contests on 99designs, I am sure that once in a while a client ends up with a good piece of design. The problem is that in the majority of contests held both the client and the designer get screwed. The designer ends up thinking they know how to design a logo/whatever and the client has ended up with something that isn’t suitable and may harm their brand later on.
Here is the winning logo for a new affiliate network called Revenue COP.
I am not going to go into why this is not a suitable logo, it should be obvious and if it is not, I hope you’re not a designer.
Here are two earlier entries from the same contest that were eliminated without feedback which would be better choices.
The point I am trying to make here is that without guidance the client will just choose what they like whether or not it is even what they asked for. Here is the brief the designers were given;
Brief Overview
We are a new affiliate network looking for a solid design that differentiates us from our competition. With a brand name of Revenue COP. Looking for fresh, innovative ideas that are clean and memorable.
Brand name
Revenue COP
Target audience
this website targets Webmasters
here are some examples :
Requirements
- We need Innovative, sharp, tech and cool design…
- full freedom for design…
- we have a project for web page design too…
- contact me for webpage design….
- this project will come up with in 24 hours in 99designs.com. Stay Tuned!..
Not only is the brief ridiculously short but the design they picked doesn’t do meet what they asked for, they weren’t even close. So a designer that did fulfil the brief wont get a look in anyway.
The thing that annoys me most of all is that the clients are happy with the service. This is where 99designs is brilliant, by letting the client write their own brief and choose the design the client will remain happy and oblivious to the fact that the, in this case, logo might be terrible. What is more because professional designers steer clear of the place there is plenty of room for people are handy with Photoshop and have a bit of spare time.
Voice yourself in the comment section below.
Ralph.
3 Responses to “99designs *angry face*”
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I don’t know what you are talking about. That winning design has flames. FLAMES! I’ve looked at a few of those “contest” design sites. They aren’t for me. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but it feels like it cheapens the whole design process. I suspect many of these projects will end up on “Clients from Hell.”
i stay clear of the place anyway. not my thing and not the way to go about getting yourself some design work done.