business design contest personal school management technology websites: business design contests logo school management
by sendaiben
2 comments
Outsourcing design -using online design competitions for logos, websites, and more
(I’m really excited. This is my first post in response to a reader question. I feel like a real blogger now :))
A few years ago, after deciding to get a proper website made for us by a company, we realized we needed a logo for the school.
I originally approached a local designer, but that would have involved paying a high fee (over 150,000 yen) with little recourse if we didn’t like the end product.
Looking for alternatives, I found a website that arranges design competitions: people post their design projects, put up a prize, and designers then submit their ideas. The person who posted the project chooses a design they like, and that designer gets paid. We used DesignContest.com but there are now dozens of websites based on this same model. I recommend doing some research before committing to one.
The advantages for us was a much reduced price (we paid $300 for the design above), a much wider variety of ideas, and a chance to work with various designers to narrow down what we wanted.
My original idea and the final product were completely different, and I am convinced we would not have gotten such a good result if we had commissioned someone in a more traditional manner.
The best thing about the process for me was that the contest lasted for a couple of weeks, and during that time we were able to look at designs, comment on them, and have designers then come back with new designs based on our comments.
We had about 40 people participate in our contest, and it was a very smooth and interesting experience. If you don’t get enough entries or don’t like any of the designs you get your money back, so it’s a fairly risk-free process.
You can do the same thing with logos, website design, blog design, t-shirts, etc.
I’m planning to get someone to redo my blog at some point 🙂
Has anyone else used online design contests? How did it go?
Hey Ben, thanks for this. Yeah, there are a ton of similar sites now and http://99designs.com/ seems to be well rated. I am looking at a design for a business, not ESL related and fortunately have found a local guy who is (a) local and (b) very willing to listen to input. I went local as being a small business owner I rely on local consumers and believe in karma. I think some call it networking. I really like the idea of face to face meetings as it saves a lot of time for me, writing things in E Mail leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation, probably my poor writing skills.
He was able to do sketches real time as I was talking to him and I could steer him as to weather his vision and my vision were going down the same garden path. Actually he was steering me away from my original over complicated design for as they say ” less is more”.
I had a meeting and a week later he sent some ideas, initially I was disappointed as his ideas were not what I had in mind, but other people I asked really liked what he had come up with and we are meeting again next Friday to go over revisions. He will do me three versions for 1: website banner. 2: Stationary logo 3: Characters for catalogues and kids promotional stuff. All for about ?40,000?
Was a bit anxious about the whole process but having dipped a toe in the waters am enjoying it a lot. That’s what the professionals offer.
Next step finding a web site designer that understands what a budget is. Fingers crossed.
Once again thanks for the blog and I actually quite like what you have here. What would you want to change?
Wordpress is simple and quite ubiquitous; good in my opinion, I really don’t enjoy over flashy blogs that are distracting and that have funky menus e.t.c.
Like they say ” less is more”.
cheers
Simon.