Welcome to the Ideal Reverie. I am excited to have you here today. Today I wanted to go over 99designs, and I can’t speak for everyone, but personally, I am far off from artistic. While I can use Canva to do some basic touch-ups and color changes, I don’t have the chops to be a designer. I gave it my best go at creating a logo for my brand and quickly realized I was out of my realm for a few different reasons.
The first is that despite doing some research, I didn’t have any training or practice regarding authentic design. The second is I can investigate the color theory and current big brands to see what works for them, but that doesn’t mean I could replicate it. The final reason is I was still struggling with what I wanted my logo to incorporate, and the amount of time I spent pondering on it should have been better utilized with something I was more attuned with.
I had done some research into the costs of Fiverr, 99designs, as well as agencies and took into account a few different things. The first thing I considered, which I’m sure is essential to many people just starting their brands, is cost. I did not mind spending the money so much as I wanted to ensure I would be happy with the result afterward.
The second is the quality of what I was receiving. Everyone knows the age-old adage of “You get what you pay for,” but that can be far from true with certain online services. I wanted a logo I would be happy and proud to share everywhere and with everyone.
Finally, I wanted a logo that would work for the multiple parts of my brand now and my future plans. This logo would be a part of my brand forever if done correctly. While I am not opposed to rebranding if that need arose, I didn’t see a reason to plan for that when I wasn’t even done for the first time yet!
All of this came together for me to take a chance with 99designs, and I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am with the results. Throughout this post, I will talk a little more about what 99designs is, the flow of the contests, and my experience after using the service. With that out of the way, let’s first move into a little bit more about 99designs –
What is 99designs and how does it work
For this post, I feel it’s vital to discuss a little bit more about what 99designs is and how it works. 99designs is a crowdsourced design platform where you can find creatives worldwide to help you with what you’re looking for. While I used it for my logo, they can also help you design websites, stationery, tattoos, and much more. I have only ever done the logo, so I will focus on that for this post. However, if you are looking for something else designed, check out their options and see if they can help. There are two ways you can get something designed on 99designs.
The first way is essentially the same as if you were going to hire any other freelancer. They call it a 1-to-1 project. You can do this by clicking on designers and looking through their past work or going through the design library. The two design libraries can be found underneath design services. Choose either find a designer or discover inspiration. This is an excellent option if you have a concrete idea and want to find someone who has done similar work before. It can also be wonderful to look through all of the great designs if you’re looking for any inspiration. I spent more time doing that when I first found the site than I planned to. The other option, which is my favorite way to utilize it, is the contest option.
The contest version is exactly how it sounds. You hold a contest for people to enter, and you get to choose one of the designs. My opinion is that your logo should be something you’re excited about and you can’t wait for it to be designed perfectly. While some people end up stressing about this, that’s okay too. Just try not to make the process something you hate. That is a big reason I love the contest option. It phrases finding your perfect logo more like a game, and you are the one in control. There are a few options for the type of contests: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. There are similarities to all of them. The higher tier you buy, the more you receive and the more it costs. Each of the tiers has a minimum amount to qualify for the contest. You can pay more money than that to attempt to persuade more people to enter your contest. I will focus on the pricing for the logo contest, as that’s what I did.
The cost of the bronze package is the cheapest, with prices starting at $299. Following that is silver, with the minimum for that being $499. Next up is gold, with the minimum going for $899. Finally, surprise surprise, is platinum rounding us off at $1299. Each of these packages comes with design concepts, the approximate amount depending on the package you chose. For the bronze package, it is 30, silver is 60, gold is 90, and platinum is 60. Now remember this is an approximation, so while some people may get less, others will get more. I was lucky enough to get much more, but we will review that later.
Next, each package comes with a money-back guarantee. This is one of the reasons I really like the idea of contests, as you have a safety net in case you don’t find what you’re looking for. To get your money back, you do need to give them a call, so there is no quick, easy cancel button. I will also point out that there are some caveats to getting this guarantee. First, you cannot receive a refund after choosing the finalists. Second, it has to be within 60 days of the payment. The third they cannot refund guaranteed contests. I will get more into what the finalists and guaranteed contests mean later. The final similarity is that you’ll get full copyright ownership no matter what contest you choose. This was important to me as I didn’t want to get into the murky waters of copyright infringement. Now there are differences as well besides the price.
The only difference between the bronze and silver contests is the cost and amount of approximate concepts. For the most part, I would stick with bronze or go straight up to gold. That is just a personal opinion. I haven’t done silver, so I don’t have any hard data to prove whether there is a difference. I didn’t see a good reason to ever use silver, especially as you could do a bronze design and just make the prize money more, so it feels like the productivity of this category is more psychological than anything. Similar to medium fries at Mcdonald’s, who is that really for?
Anyway, gold is where the changes really start. For the gold level contests, the only people that can enter are classified as Mid or High-level designers. I’ll be the first to say that I didn’t see much difference between the majority of mid or entry-level designers in my contest. However, on average, I’m sure the difference is noticeable. I am also pretty sure this is the lowest level of contest that high-level designers will enter. I wouldn’t expect some sort of luck for a high-level designer to enter a bronze contest.
For the Platinum tier, things really start to change. The number of design concepts does go down. There is a good reason for that, though, as with platinum contests, only top-level designers can enter. This should ensure that every concept entered is from one of the best designers the platform offers. In addition, Platinum Contests have a dedicated manager to ensure the contest goes the way you want it to and priority support on the off chance anything comes up. I cannot speak to precisely how those would change the experience as I have yet to do a platinum contest, but I think of them more as extras.
At the end of the day, what is most important is you get the design of your dreams. Now that we know a little more about 99designs as a whole, let’s talk about how the contest flow is.
99designs contest procedure
The exact flow of the contests is slightly different for everyone, but the beginning is the same, and what to expect remains the same for them. After logging in, the first thing you want to do is select design contests. You will then want to choose what you would like designed. Again for this example, I will be focusing on logo design. After you select the logo option, you will see an array of example logos. They will ask you to go through and choose the logos you like and most closely represent the type of logo you’re looking for. You have to select 10 for this step to work. You could also choose to skip this step if you don’t see any you like.
After you click continue, it will ask you to rate what you think of as your brand’s style. This page will have sliders to help you place options in a comparing fashion. An example is if you consider your brand as more modern or classic. Other options for these sliders are mature or youthful and abstract or literal. After putting the sliders where you want them, the next step is choosing colors.
You then get to choose three colors you want to see in your design. You could also let the designer choose or tell them the specific colors you need in the design. Finally, it will ask you to fill out a brief and some background information that the designer can use to help them create the design.
Personally, I would never let 99designs prefill your brief. I would recommend filling one out yourself. Try and be specific with your background information. This will only help the designs be closer to your brand. I will talk more about what I did in the next part. This section also has you select the industry you will be working in and if you would like to add any pictures, sketches, or documents that you would like the designer to use. When everything looks perfect, you then continue. The next page is the promotions page.
This page is how they incorporate the wonders of upsells. The only three things on this page I think are important are the name of the contest, which package you want, and the guaranteed section. Please look through the other options, as there might be things that work for your specific situation. Many people I had read about doing contests said they preferred blind contests. While their logic for why made sense, I ran mine as public and didn’t have difficulty getting unique submissions.
The name of the contest, similar to the brief, can sway people to enter, so put thought into both of them. The package you choose matters, so be aware of your budget and what you think is best for your brand. As for the guaranteed part, if you select that, you are saying you waive your right to the money-back guarantee. You will pick a winner at the end of the contest. All right, there you have a quick run-through of starting a contest. After that, you pay, and the designs start rolling in.
The contest itself is made up of 5 rounds. The first is the qualifying round. This is when the designers will submit designs; anyone can enter, depending on your chosen contest. When designs start to show up, I recommend rating and commenting on all of them you get, at the very least, in the beginning. This will help guide the designers to begin slight edits early so you can see a more extensive array of options. Don’t forget the average amount of entries is per concept, not per designer. So, helping a designer get closer to your end goal design is long-term beneficial. Next, you are given time to select the finalists. I was already aware of the finalists early on, but it gives you tons of time to choose.
I would choose the finalists based on two things. The first, of course, is how much you like their designs and how close they are to the end design you are looking for. The truth is some designers that enter the contest will be better than others or be closer to what you desire for a logo. That is extremely important, and will make fewer revisions necessary in the next round. The second and equally important is the response time and willingness to work on the part of the designer. I will talk a bit more about my issues with this later, but if a designer never gets back to me or argues with me it’s an issue. No matter how good their design might be, it wasn’t perfect if I needed changes done. I would instead work with someone who would be fantastic rather than someone who does not respond.
After the finalists are chosen, the next round is working with those finalists to perfect their designs more. Different from the qualifying round, you will get no more designers in this section. Work closely with your designers to get the most out of this round. This is a big reason why working with your designers in the qualifying round is essential. Never expect to get more or better designs than you have already received. The final round felt really short to me, but make the most of this time to get the designs to a point where you would be proud to show them off as your logo.
The next round is just picking out your winning design! This should be the most exciting part of the contest, but if you’re anything like me, it will also be very hard. If you would like feedback, 99designs has a really cool poll system you can use. You can send this poll out either on social media or to specific people and have them vote to help you narrow the designs down. Once you have decided on one, you enter the final round, the handover step. This round is where you get your design. After the past week of working with the designers and narrowing it down, you are ready to show your logo to the world.
They will hand it over in a few different file formats. These files will be the source, print, and digital files. These files are all essential and will be used in different ways depending on your needs. After the handoff is complete, there you go. Your first design contest in 99designs has finished. Congrats! I really enjoyed my experience with it, and next, I will go over a few specifics of my contest and some tips I picked up.
My 99designs contest
I had a wonderful time during my contest and realized a few tips that really helped mine go better than I had assumed it would. The first is your contest title, and the brief really does matter. My contest title and brief were quite cheesy. Still, the number of concepts I received was more than even the silver-tier average. At the end of my qualifying round, I was lucky enough to get 73 concepts! I had originally been worried about getting up to 30, so this was a surprise to me.
The next important step I would like to stress is to talk to the designers that enter. They are all there to help and want to be pointed in the right direction. Remember, though, to always be polite. The way I responded to my designers was to start with something I liked about their design. It could have been the overall idea, how they used my business name, or what I thought their intent was. After that, I follow it with what I would like changed or to be different. Perhaps I wanted a new version of the design with a different color or altered font. Whatever the change was, I would spell it out. Then I ended all my comments by thanking them for their help and hard work. This worked wonders for me and helped me get a multitude of beautiful designs. The majority of my favorites were reworked from contestants that had entered and whom I had spoken with.
I did not go with any contestants who did not answer back. A few designs looked beautiful and only needed minor changes that I would have loved to work on. With that being the case, they did not respond or communicate, causing me to pass over their design to designers who were actively trying new designs. The final round was a lot of fun, and all the designers submitted new designs based on my feedback. I was lucky enough to end with over 100 designs and found one that matched what I was going for perfectly.
After the final designs were in, I had ample time to make my final choice. When I chose the winning design and designer, I had a few more necessary changes that they were willing to help me with. This was not required of them, so I was very grateful. After another day, I was left with the designs you all see today. I got my primary logo as well as additional options with beautiful colors and a fun font. All in all, the contest went better than I had imagined originally. I also got a design I wouldn’t have thought of without the help of the designers.
I am delighted I decided to go with 99designs as my choice for logo design. I have yet to use their other services, but I look forward to trying them. If you are on edge about your logo design, I would very much recommend checking out 99designs. Definitely do some more research, and I hope this article helps a little with your decision. Thank you so much for your support. I would love to hear if you have had any other experiences with 99designs or what you decided to go with for your logo.
-Dreams and Reality, two sides of the same story.