How To Run A 99Designs.com Contest
Crowd sourced design is one of the best uses of internet technologies that I have seen in awhile. And no one is doing it better than 99designs.com. Earlier this year, the crowd-sourcing contest firm won a prestigious Webby People’s Voice Award for Best Web Service & Application of the year! But how does 99designs actually work?
99designs Business Model:
- Contest Holders (CHs) arrive on site and post a brief with their design requirements
- Available categories include: Web Design, WordPress Themes, Logo Design etc.
- Most contests range in value from $300 to $1000
- Designers from all over the world read the brief and submit their work
- CHs and Designers iterate over the length of a contest (usually a week)
- CHs select the winning design and the Designer is awarded the prize
- 99designs keeps a fee for brokering this relationship
Sounds simple enough! However, in order to make sure you get the most out of your contest, it is essential that you work closely with your designers. The following guidelines will help you succeed in
1. Be Honest
I bet you have heard this one before, “Honesty is the best policy”. And as much as some designers will not want to hear the truth about their designs, creating an open, trusting and honest environment for the designers to work in is essential in creating the ultimate design. A big part of the honesty comes down to communication. Make sure you tell the designer exactly what parts of the design you are pleased with, and what could use some work. As long as you treat all of the designers in this manner, you will be surprised how much feedback will be accepted, and acted upon!
2. Guarantee Your Contest
This should almost be a default setting! But imagine this from a designer’s point of view, they work away at a design over the course of a week, they hammer out those last revisions, this is the best work they have done in weeks, they can almost smell that prize money from winning the contest. Then, not only do THEY not win the contest, but NO ONE wins the contest. If that happened to you even once, would you go back and try again? Not guaranteeing your contest will scare away some of the top designers. Guaranteeing the contest will also force you to commit to the outcome! I would call that a win/win.
3. Be Constructive
This seems so simple and straightforward to me… but somehow it seems to get missed! You need to say exactly what you are thinking, but in an honest, fair and supportive manner. Try working with these points:
- Push, but not too hard
- Remain Positive
- Say Thank You
- Bonus (Don’t upgrade anything)
The end result is an environment that is conducive to designers producing their best work, and that is what we all want, right?
Do you have any tips to share about running great design contests? Or are you a designer with something that irks you in the design process? The only way we are all going to get better at working together is if we let each other know. So let everyone know your feelings in the comments below.
Only recently i started to submit designs on “99 designs” with 5 wins .
I am a freelance designer and also a pro photographer .this sort of phenomenon could never work in the photo industry , but , in the design world it works pretty well.
Overall i think its a great concept as long as long as the contest is run in the manner that has been so perfectly put in this article.
I have seen way too many contest come to an end with no winner chosen and im sure it leaves designers with a very empty feeling , luckily it has´nt happened to me as yet .
Many CH´s do not give feed back and expect the world from the designers , it takes two to tango as they say .
99 is all about trust and having some cense of morality both from contest holder and designer
cheers