99designs is born
*update* check out our design contest for the logo!
You might have noticed that things have been a little quiet recently on the feature front. The reality, behind the scenes, is we have been furiously at work making some major changes to our business.
As Design Contests has grown, a problem with a percentage of contest holders abandoning contests or not paying designers has arisen. This has been deeply concerning us for sometime now, as I know it has been concerning our designers. The logical answer to this problem is to start taking some or all of the prize money up front from contest holders - in other words reducing the risk for designers. This combined with some changes to the way we run design contests, seemed like it would make things a lot better.
With that decision made, we sat down to figure out the best way to do things properly from a business perspective as well (as you can imagine the business model that we’re describing has many different ramifications associated with it). At the same time we realized that the “future” design contests was a very different business to SitePoint, and in order for it to reach its full potential we really needed to set it free from sitepoint.com and brand it differently. It very quickly became clear to us that the best way to achieve everything we wanted to with Design Contests was to separate it from SitePoint and setup a new company focused only on Design Contests, so 99designs was born.
Paul, myself and Mark Harbottle (one of the founders of SitePoint) have signed on as the full-time team for the new company, 99designs, which represents a massive leap for us. We believe that we can build something incredible for you guys and we’re totally excited about it - so much so that we quit our day jobs at SitePoint to do it!
So, what does this mean for you? Well, the steps between here and there are:
- A release of Design Contests with minimal re-branding, completely separate from the forums and sitepoint.com
- A logo contest and design refresh for the site - 99designs.com
- A reputation system, credit collection up front and some changes to how we run contests
Things should speed up from this point, as we have spent the past 6 weeks just working on step 1, which was quite an undertaking.
I will leave you with some of the design concepts we have been working on, look out for a design contest for our new logo soon!
January 14th, 2008 at 1:47 pm 1
[…] If you’ve been following the SitePoint development blog, you’ll know that the SitePoint’s design contests is in the process of being relaunched as 99designs. […]
January 14th, 2008 at 2:03 pm 2
Sounds great.. I believe designers will all be happy reading this news, the changes to occur..
January 14th, 2008 at 3:19 pm 3
Looks awesome! I can’t wait to see the new layout, especially the new forums (I have never been able to get on them).
VERY happy about the up front collection of prize money, maybe we can weed out some less-than-honest CH. One thing I didn’t see is a negative rep/warning system for those designers ripping and using clipart and other violations.
Maybe later I suppose.
As a startup designer, I see many rips and clipart usage that is very tasteless and the worst is when CH’s give them a GOOD rating and positive feedback to further work on their ‘clipart rips’.
Just my 2-cents.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:23 pm 4
I want to add that maybe you need to consider adding “rounds” to the competition. When designing logos we normally start with some concepts which are further revised after client comment. Maybe only those designs that meet the initial requirements should go through to a second round of revisions and then no new designs can be added.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:38 pm 5
I definitely agree with the idea of having rounds. The idea of shortlisting which we describe here is a step in that direction:
http://dev.sitepoint.com/2007/09/upcoming-changes/
January 14th, 2008 at 9:05 pm 6
yes……. yes… yes…. no more worries for doing job.. great work guys…
really2 outstanding.. looking forward to 99designs.com .
January 14th, 2008 at 9:44 pm 7
Thank you…Thank you…Thank you!!! I can’t wait.
I have also been worried about the abandoned contest and template copiers. I was about to give up on these contest and go another route myself. But this looks really promising. You guys/gals are great. Keep up the good work.
January 14th, 2008 at 11:55 pm 8
I think that Guttermouth and Dave Isaacs have given some great ideas. There definitely needs to be a penalty system for “copiers” and I agree about “rounds”, because that will eliminate the cheaters who like to lurk contests until the very end in order to enter a design that copies a leading entry.
At any rate, this sounds very exciting. Maybe finally the Design Contests can go back to being the fun and stress-free environment they used to be before the ripoff artists and cheaters discovered it.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:22 am 9
Great idea! I’ve been frustated many many times about abandoned contests. I’ve even won a contest once but never got paid for it.
I also agree with Guttermouth about some sort of rating system for designers. It may be misused though. What’s more frustrating is that many CHs has no sence for quality at all. And many don’t mind a copycat winning as long as they get what they want. Many times, entering a contest is like gambling, you never know who’ll win at the end. I’ve been much less active last year because of these issues.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:22 am 10
Wonderful Ideas….looking forward to 99designs.com
I think in the new version the CH’s must be more descriptive
Rather than just describing the type of work his company does, he must present a view in which his company is different from his competitors.
How he wants his audience to perceive his company. And he must also mention the targeted audience and their culture. These things will greatly help in creating a desired type of design. Designers make change, and many don’t like it. The CH’s must also mention who all is involved in making the selections.
Regarding the idea of giving ranking to the designers I think it will have a destructive effect. The CH’s will be looking into the position of the designer rather than the quality of the design. Design depends largely on constraints. Judging creativity creates havoc.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:33 am 11
yea!!! so sad when contests are abandoned. . .
we learn nothing, gain nothing and waste time.
looking forward to newer and bigger things!
be well
peace by peace, Dawn:)
January 15th, 2008 at 9:22 am 12
what’s the story behind the name 99 designs? I can’t seem to figure it out.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:32 pm 13
PUMPED !!!
January 15th, 2008 at 2:16 pm 14
99 is the average number of designs submitted across all contests. Hence http://www.99designs.com. Or at least it was when we were thinking of a name. It might have gone up since we launched our contest for the logo - http://contests.sitepoint.com/contests/4850
January 15th, 2008 at 8:42 pm 15
I definitely think that number has jumped after just viewing the number of entries in that contest. PIty I don’t do logos
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This all sounds great - congrats and hopefully it all goes as planned and the new system is in place asap!
January 15th, 2008 at 8:54 pm 16
This is definitely great news!!!
January 15th, 2008 at 9:12 pm 17
Hey guys, just noticed a ‘jump menu’ for sorting entries… was this a bit self serving for the logo contest?
I only ask because for the majority of contests, the 2 options available are pretty superfluous…. Latest entries are always shown first anyway, and in a lot of cases, the star rating isn’t being used to it’s full potential as this point in time….
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A select option that may be more useful could be sort by ‘designer’, so if someone has more than one entry, the CH can seem them as a group instead of scattered - just an idea ?? Can’t think of any other sort options right now… but may be useful down the track.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:22 pm 18
We will be adding many sorting and filtering options over the next couple of weeks, we just decided to bring in the basics earlier to stop the servers from melting from the interest this contest has received.
- Lachlan
January 15th, 2008 at 9:28 pm 19
Thought so, thanks for confirming
Shouldn’t you be over there now - unless you needed a bit of a break of course - I know my eyes are going cross eyed trying to check them all out
January 15th, 2008 at 9:31 pm 20
Yup, I just got back to it, although it’s getting pretty late over this side of the globe
January 15th, 2008 at 9:44 pm 21
Same as it is here 10.40pm….. east coast Oz - and you call that late !
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Just stay up as I do until the early hours of the morning, and I promise you won’t feel a thing tomorrow
January 15th, 2008 at 9:49 pm 22
Oh of course, I forgot you were over here too
It is late when you started leaving feedback at 8:30am! 
January 15th, 2008 at 11:06 pm 23
LOL - gotta ya
as you can see I’m still up and it’s 12.05 am ….. hope you have a good nights’ sleep - you’ll need it !
January 15th, 2008 at 11:10 pm 24
Filters are great, layout is great.
I can’t wait to see the logo and the whole thingf going up live.
Cheers fellows.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:48 am 25
One more thing.. we “pre-new contests” designers has already lost some of our history, if you understand what I mean. I hope, with the new 99designs launch, we’re not going to lose the rest of our history and start as newbies
January 16th, 2008 at 9:28 am 26
Nope, don’t worry, we will be bringing all the historical data over to 99designs, and hopefully making it easier to navigate and explore too.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:43 pm 27
YES! Finally my worries will be over and no more chasing CH’s! Sweet! I wonder if our winning entries and information from our accounts here will be transfered to 99designs?
January 16th, 2008 at 12:44 pm 28
OH SWEET we keep the records! That’s great fo you eh Emi?
January 16th, 2008 at 8:35 pm 29
This looks GREAT! can’t wait to see the design content page.
Id like to ask if its possible to add some watermark in the design entry when we hit the “Submit My Entry” button. The 99designs logo will be added as watermark. I saw this in some site and its really good.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:45 pm 30
Haetro : not sure that this would work and may actually upset some contest holders. Many contest holders don’t tell their clients that they are holding a contest for the design and don’t want any watermarks on the concepts when they show the client.
I don’t think this will be too much of an issue once payment is being taken up front by 99 Designs. At least that’s how I see it anyway.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:02 am 31
WOW!! cant wait to sign in to 99designs.com
January 17th, 2008 at 8:01 am 32
Thanks NadiaP, you have a point and i hope 99designs will solve the issue regarding those abandoned contest.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:09 am 33
I have seen so many rebirths of the same design in many contest, how will 99designs help insure some originality?
January 17th, 2008 at 8:11 am 34
this is going to be great. cannot wait until it finally starts.
I am sick of all the scammers on here. Most of us are just going about our business as best we know how and more and more CH seem to be running off with our designs or some kid has offered half the prize amount and they have taken it!!!
okay when 99designs starts there will be less contests overall (i assume) but finally CH must pay upfront…..fantastic!! finally no more abandoned ones and a definite winner in each contest.
keep up the good work everyone,
Rich
January 17th, 2008 at 10:50 am 35
I hope there won’t be less contests overall
January 17th, 2008 at 6:31 pm 36
you can bet on that Mark. But see it this way: now there are 25% (maybe more?) abandoned contests or just ended ones. So 25% less contests but garanteed paid isn’t bad.
I hope 99designs is getting the trust from CH’s like SitePoint did. Will take some time probably.
January 18th, 2008 at 12:34 am 37
If data will be brought over to the new site, will info on our past contests come over? Like # of contests held in our profile, and access to the old contest including designs?
January 18th, 2008 at 2:45 am 38
As a CH, I’m happy about this development, too. Just as ripoff designers hurt all the legitimate designers, CHs who abandon contests hurt CHs who use the system as intended.
With the new changes, I’m looking forward to more legitimate designers participating without fear of getting burned. That will be a good thing for everyone, and I expect it will result in higher quality (and eventually more) contests.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:41 am 39
@imagineinternet
i asked this question to Lachlan within the 99designs contest itself.
He said all data and folio etc will just come across. Nothing will really change just we all get better chance of getting paid!
January 18th, 2008 at 3:40 pm 40
Any estimate on when the site will go live? I’d like to run a contest at launch time instead of on SitePoint. I was apparently CH of the year in 2006, but haven’t ran any since as a lot of the good designers have been pulling out.
January 19th, 2008 at 11:41 am 41
Ok, now that there will be a winner on the logo I guess it’s all set-up and maybe in the near future we can see the new 99designs live.
I have a few suggestions / proposals maybe on the contest system that I think that can improve a lot:
1) A good point is to start with the idea of forming some design teams and let some options for possible contests held with some of the design teams already formed.
2) To avoid the who’s who idea and copycats of other designs submitted, maybe a good idea would be the following procedure:
a) Blind submissions for the first 48 hours
b) Open to new submissions for the next 48 hours + improvements but only for the people that already submitted
c) Contest holder requests for the next 72 hours
d) If a contest holder is not satisfied with the results there are still 48hrs to reopen the contest for everybody and if he found already some designs that he likes then a shortlist is chosen and the contest is open only for the designers shortlisted. My note: Either way the CH and the designers will be in advantage.
e) There still is 24 hours – time to finalize shortlist to no more than three designs.
This way, many of the issues can be solved and would be a more professional approach.
3) NO USAGE of stock icons / clipart / dingbats or any doubtable source – thing that I have elaborated to Matt in a few PM’s
4) Some rules regarding theft and compromised imagery usage, ripped designs and copyrights.
5) Some very to the point rules regarding designer before submission – for example: if a CH asks for VECTOR SCALABLE FILE – that means: Illustrator, EPS, PDF and a designer submit it’s design in other formats than the CH requested then there should be at least an eligibility to win/get paid rule.
6) You roll here fellows, show some other options beside the payment in advance, feedback or any other already discussed thousands of times issues.
I believe that these can be linked somehow and there is enough room to debate over them. Until now, I have seen only very good improvements on the SP contest system and I am sure everyone appreciate it so, as a creative man, I have added few more ideas.
January 20th, 2008 at 6:28 pm 42
Finally, escrow! That will indeed cut down on abandonment.
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As for “Many contest holders don’t tell their clients that they are holding a contest for the design”, oh well. CHs shouldn’t be reselling the works as it is either, because that’s taking money away from the original artists. Holding a contest for a $100 prize should be just that–turning around and reselling that concept for $500 is WRONG and it’s ripping off the artist who does the design, period.
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As for thieving, I see lots of thieving even from people you wouldn’t expect it from. I think mods should step up in tearing down the ripped or inappropriate submissions, because I know for a fact that the vigilance is lax in that area (as evidenced by the beMuz contest that is up…last night I reported the REALLY inappropriate content subbed (the racist spam) and when I woke up this afternoon, it was still there). If you need help, ask for it…some of us really are looking out for stolen artwork/clipart/ripped designs.
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Re: the 99 contest, I glanced at the highest rated ones and I just have to say…really? -Really?- *sigh*
January 21st, 2008 at 12:43 am 43
Things can only go on up from here! Great news, and the prospect of actually designing the new logo for the website is impossible to turn down
Good luck.
January 21st, 2008 at 1:52 am 44
I support those suggestions, Emi. Looking forward to using the 99designs.com!
Best,
João
January 21st, 2008 at 5:32 am 45
Also, glad to see some of my suggestions I gave in Issue 129 of the Crier are going to be implemented. I still think that none of the entries should be visible until contest’s end, and that placeholder images should be visible to all (so we can see who entered, just not what they entered)…and feedback should only be visible to the individual entrants as well, to kill feedback poaching.
January 21st, 2008 at 8:51 am 46
True, but the work with the contest holder should be open, at least to finish it up.
And, about feedback, either it’s open or not…it does not impress me.
_
The brief should be very well elaborated, believe me. That’s a real need for us, the designers.
_
I guess, the way it is written above in my previous post and combined with an escrow, will make 99designs a more professional market place than SP already is.
_
A blind submission for 2 days will be enough for the designers and especially for the CH to see if the entries are going in the right direction. Maybe i would like to see an interruption of communication between the designer and the CH for the first 4 days (which basically is the submission period) and reopen it after the submission ends.
Another point i forgot to mention: of course the possibility to announce a winner before the whole 10 days.
_
Regarding the level of moderation it should be much higher.
I am ready to provide a list of the logos that i have seen along time that has been sold a few times (maybe a top100’s); list that should be provided in advance to the CH. I have seen logos that were complete copies of already existing logos - with or without conscience - submited and furthermore, being choosen. Most of the times that happens in 80% of the cases because the level of professionalism, logo design knoledges and past activity of the designer that submited. For example you should be aware that placing an “e” in a box can be found elsewhere in the world and you should have doubts when you sell that as your own design. Most of the CH aren’t aware of that, and if the designers aren’t also then who should be aware?
Another few points
January 21st, 2008 at 12:46 pm 47
Personal opinion is that 10 days is just too long for a contest. The most successful contests (web design section-cause that’s where I frequent) with a declared winner are the short duration contests - up to 3-4 days.
January 21st, 2008 at 6:39 pm 48
I still firmly believe that feedback should be public. An important part of the process is designers knowing what feedback other designers are getting, removing that communication mechanism would be a bad thing for the contest holder. As for increased moderation, we simply can’t police “idea copying”. If it’s not copyright infringement or a direct knock-off, we can’t get involved, it would be a never ending battle of utterly arbitrary decisions. It’s not possible.
What we will do is get better at tracking reputation of designers and contest holders and improve facilities for people to report copies to the contest holder and 99designs staff. We can also get more responsive when we have clear copies reported to us. We are working on that, life is tough as a startup!
As for contest length, the shorter, sweeter contests seem to be much more successful. I would like to see this trend continue more, we will be looking into reducing the maximum time.
Finally, on feedback. Running this last contest has been a real eye opener for me. Thankfully it has come just as we are redesigning the feedback mechanism in the new design. Giving feedback for a Contest Holder is tough, especially in large contests. The shortlist concept that we have talked about, with an initial “no feedback” period, followed by the selection of “shortlisted designers” and detailed feedback to those designers is a FAR more scalable, practical model.
Thanks for the considered feedback guys. Gee, you can’t tell that we are all used to forums, can you?
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:47 pm 49
Give me a good–no, great–reason why competitors should be seeing what other competitors are doing. If designer #1 ends up doing the same thing designer #5 does with the blind submissions, then it can -clearly- be considered coincidence and NOT copying. It removes the gray area of “possible copying” out of the process completely, and assures ALL designers that their idea is safe from pseudo-designers who will take your initial concept/composition and rip it for their own design. It’s what Worth1000 does, and it works. I forget how feedback works over there, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t visible until the end of the contests (when all of the entries are revealed) too. From that model you can modify it towards a shorter contest and implement the revisions idea.
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Web template design contests are more difficult to police than the logo design contests because you can get a web template from anywhere where there’s a free template and just plug in the elements, and normally that’s why the contests are so quick (there’s hardly any illustration involved…just mechanical gestalt placement and font issues). I think there’s a site that showcases ripped designs like that (prated-sites.com). Perhaps a “quick contest” for those contests work, but for something that requires people actually picking up a pencil/scanning, “quick contests” aren’t practical, particularly when you have designers participating in 3 to 5 contests at one time. Otherwise, you -will- end up with more people believing it’s okay to use quick clipart/ripping off designs from online sources for their logos. We need to be fostering and encouraging people who can’t draw to hone their drawing skills, not just giving up and using someone else’s drawing skills. KnowhutImean?
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I haven’t anything to say regarding the ripped off logo winners that wouldn’t get me in trouble here, so…heh.
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:48 pm 50
Blah, that’s *pirated-sites.com, whoops
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:40 pm 51
Would it be possible for the entries to view only the thumbnails of the other designs and not view the the enlarge versions of the design? Only the contest holder could view the enlarge versions of the designs. This would help eliminate the other entries from viewing the detailed styling of each design. The entries could still view the thumbnails for feedback and comments. Just a thought.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:08 pm 52
I’m a true believer of the hidden submissions and the hidden feedback.
This way the concept is gaining value again as it should be. people who wants to learn can learn when it’s over or a shorlist is created.
Now we wait for feedback also, so it doesn’t make a big difference.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 pm 53
Lachlan - received an email notification to say that a new entry was submitted a little while ago to the contest even though it ended days ago. I know it’s probably not important now - but just a heads up
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:14 pm 54
First, I need to make a response to Tropicandrew. If I hire you to do a job, we agree on terms, I pay you, then sell to my client, that is in NO WAY unethical. Thats what being a subcontractor is about. You get paid a little less because as where the contractor gets paid more because they have the connection to the paying client. Let’s be honest, there are tons of options for people to find web designers, logo artists, ect. What is hard to find is the client. If I so happen to have that connection and pay you an agreed upon price, that is called business. That is how any company makes money. That is how any company with employees makes money- they charge more than they pay an employee. That is how any retail place makes money- they charge you more for the product to turn a profit. If you had the clients coming to you for work you could charge whatever you want. You cannot call a CH a thief for paying you an agreed upon price for your service and then giving it to his client.
Secondly, as a person who has held many contests, including a graphic to help me ask my girlfriend (now fiancee) to marry me, I have some input to give. I think that blind submissions are good. I do, however, think that once a winner has been picked, all submissions should be made public. Why? I think there should be an invite system built into 99 Designs. I like to look through old contests and find designers I like and invite them to participate in my contest. There is a similar feature in Outsource marketplace odesk.com where you can invite people to interview for your job opening.
As a CH, I am a little weary about an escrow system. I do think it is a good idea, but does have some things to think about. This has yet to happen to me, but I know some prominent SitePointers who have run contests and did not find anything they liked. What happens if you hold a contest and you do not get an entry you like? Maybe you get to repost the contest for free and keep the money in escrow? I don’t know the answer here. I do know that escrow will be good for the people who enter their designs, so that is good.
I would like the ability to choose multiple winners. I recently held a logo contest and ended up paying three designers for a logo because I liked them all and couldn’t decide which one I wanted. So, I bought the rights to all three. I also remember seeing a t-shirt contest where the CG wanted to buy many shirts and many were great as well.
I think a good reputation system with commenting is needed as well. I also think these should be public for anyone to see.
That is all I can think of right now. Good luck on 99 Designs- I think it will be a great enhancement to the community.
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:04 pm 55
@Jason, I really like your comments. It is wonderful that you view past contest to invite designers to participate in your contest. The only problem is alot of the designers, like myself withdraw our entries after a contest is over. I do this for three reasons: 1. Contest holder purchased my design along with the winners design or another contest holder purchased my design. 2. To use the design concept in another contest. 3. To keep other designers from copying my work.
As a designer, I look forward to the escrow system. In the uncoded design @contest there has been a very large percentage of abandoned contest. I can understand if the contest holder is unhappy with the entries and doesn’t pick a winner. What I don’t understand is of all the abandoned contest I have entered, they all ended without any feedback or comments from the Contest Holder.
@Lachlan: I can’t wait to see all the enhancements on 99 Designs. I think the team concept is a great idea for large projects.
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:09 pm 56
createabit: That makes a lot of sense. I totally understand why that happens.
Ah yes, abandoning things without clear communication or comments is bad. Maybe CH will have to verify their accounts somehow? Maybe a SP employee calls phone numbers to verify somehow. If you abandon to much and are banned, that phone number is blacklisted, so it makes it harder to sign up with a new name? What about using a credit card as verification?
I’m not a as creative as you folk. I am better at business ideas and manging things and therefore am truly astonished by the skills of designers. I hope we all can find a middle ground where everyone is happy. I kind of like this round table discussion
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm 57
Taking credits up front from the CH should pretty quickly reduce the rate of abandonment I would guess. Our intent is to focus all of our attention onto that rather than come up with an interim solution.
I understand the reasoning for deleting past contest entries, although I disagree with deleting winning entries. In the long run we are going to put more and more emphasis on designer portfolios and reputation. Deleting your winning entries is likely to seriously hinder that.
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:32 pm 58
I also like these discussion.
@Lachlan. I don’t delete my entries where I am chosen the contest winner. I do delete the entries if sold to a contest holder and not chosen as the winner. I wish there was a way to display multiple winners so you could include those entries you sold in your portfolio.
I really like where you are going with more emphasis on designer portfolios and reputation. This is very important.
Would it be possible for the entries to view only the thumbnails of the other designs and not view the the enlarge versions of the design? Only the contest holder could view the enlarge versions of the designs. This would help eliminate the other entries from viewing the detailed styling of each design. The entries could still view the thumbnails for feedback and comments. Just a thought.
@Jason
I wish I had the time to market myself and start my own business. There isn’t enough time in a day (or night).
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:21 pm 59
I too remove all entries *apart* from winning submissions, for the exact reasons outlined by createabit. So if anyone is checking past contests, my entries won’t be found
Copying is quite rampant here at the moment and I would rather withdraw an entry and use it myself in future contests or other purposes.
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I believe a link to our offline (apart from SP) portfolios should be allowed also. This gives credibility to the designer and showcases work that may not be available via the designers SP portfolio - particularly if they haven’t won that many contests.
I’m in agreement with Jason regarding the onselling of concepts. I do a lot of sub contractor work for other developers (design & code) and know that there are costs that need to be added to cover this type of work. I have no problems with CH selling our designs to their clients without telling them the source of the design. Once we’ve won a contest and been paid of course, we don’t need to now what happens after
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The only niggle I have is that the pricing of some of the contests should really be looked at - more and more CHs are asking for way more than befits the minimum prize allocated. If a CH wants a ‘killer design’, with 5 pages of coding then the prize money should reflect that…. For me, $200 min for a coded web template is just not enough- particularly if you take the time to code the template to web standards and not just use the graphics software to spit out the html, which of the newcomers probably do ;-( … we should also be educating the contest holder that they should *expect* to pay for compliant coding and not for something that is going to break as soon as it’s opened in a variety of browsers!
As for taking of payments up front, can’t come soon enough - I’m sick of looking at the number of ‘abandoned contests’ in my contest list
January 24th, 2008 at 12:41 am 60
Just reading some of the latest comments in the 99designs contest - if you guys haven’t decided or finding it difficult to decide, what about holding a poll amongst the long time designers at SP ??
January 24th, 2008 at 5:44 am 61
NadiaP You bring up some great points! A link to a portfolio would be nice. I could see 99 Designs becoming a portfolio site too where people could upload their works and display them nicely. I can even see a widget being developed where you could embed your portfolio in another web page.
Also, it might be good to let SPers do a poll to decide which design they like best.
I cant wait for 99 Designs to be released. It will really help me out as a CH too.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:32 pm 62
Jason,
You’re not writing from a freelance graphic designer’s viewpoint, nor do I suspect you’ve read anything from non-spec work artists or the Graphic Arts Guild. The designers here have little respect for GAG rules, since the entire “contest” site is modelled around practices that the GAG most definitely disapproves of (working on spec). It is bad enough that some of the excellent artists get paid pennies on the dollar for what it would cost them to hire a real design firm (Sayles, Hornall Anderson, Barnstorm Creative) to do; to have someone come on here and ask you to do the best logo you can for $100 and then resell it to a client for $500 is a further kick in the face. I mean, it’s great that you guys are getting your money’s worth, be -we’re- doing all of your work for you. If you’d really like to bone up on what it’s like to be a graphic designer, then you really need to read the GAG Guide to Pricing/Ethical Practices (and JFYI, I do somehow miraculously manage to balance out GAG ethics and spec).
As for this: “What happens if you hold a contest and you do not get an entry you like? Maybe you get to repost the contest for free and keep the money in escrow? I don’t know the answer here.” I think that what Worth does is allow a second posting of the same contest for a small fee. It seems to work for them.
I still like the idea of blind submissions, in whatever format it can be best managed. Even if you don’t block out feedback, blocking out the entries towards other designers is still best to cut down on thievery of concepts/elements.
January 25th, 2008 at 1:57 am 63
hi all.. are you aware that recently a spammer frequency is increasing.. ?
they submitting entries which IS NOT related to the contest absolutely.. just advertising their bureau or else..
January 25th, 2008 at 6:24 am 64
Your reference regarding W1K is not quite good. There you submit 8 days, open for a voting system that counts only for the site … and not see the client, don’t talk with him, nothing. Beside there is no oportunity to work furthermore so , no interest anymore. No.1 there for a long period - me
- has left that place and checks it once in a while.
Submitting blind ideas for a short period is ok but only if after that the contest is open to feedback and viewers - that would be public - and should end that way.
@Nadia, you are right, some of the prices in the sections should go up a bit.
@Jason - regarding Escrow
If a Ch does not find a logo which fits his wishes he could do another contest by paying a small fee - like the one that you have to pay when you start the a new contest these days - and do the proccess again. I am sure in two rounds there will be definetly a winner. No more than 2 though.
January 26th, 2008 at 12:12 am 65
another thing i have just noticed happening more…..hopefully 99 designs can somehow address contests like these two where the CH blatantly enters a design of his/her own under a different name near the end of the comp and declares it to be the winner!!
……taking all our ideas with them.
http://contests.sitepoint.com/contests/4814
http://contests.sitepoint.com/contests/4882
how can 99designs address this problem?
even when full prize money is collected from the start it will not stop determined scam artists. They could still open another account enter a design and pay nobody.
thanks for all the hard work so far,
Rich
January 26th, 2008 at 4:11 am 66
“Beside there is no oportunity to work furthermore so , no interest anymore.”
Are you serious? You really can’t be serious, because a good designer will get more work, period. I still have clients coming back to me for more work, from all design sites.
And whoa, I didn’t see those shill contests that designabot posted. That’s just crazy, but yeah, I can see that’s a problem. The escrow payment thing should clean that up a little bit though…because I can’t really see someone ponying up the $200 to 300 + contest fees -up front- only to “repay oneself” for all of the ideas. Though I suppose the only loss would be the contest creation fee, so…it’d still be a good deal for the slithering fool who does so.
January 26th, 2008 at 4:12 am 67
FYI I don’t care too much for Worth’s voting system either, it didn’t really benefit anyone as far as encouraging cr@ppy designers to get better.
January 26th, 2008 at 5:57 pm 68
i just had a thought. i don’t know if this would work or if you guys at sitepoint want to do it but have you thought about having a joining fee for designers?
this may not be a popular idea but say it’s 50 - 100 bucks or whatever to join as a designer. That may stop dodgy CH from entering at the end and claiming their own prize.
Also it may stop the ridiculous number of new ‘designers’ that have signed up to sitepoint recently. I am sick of seeing clip art and copies all over this site from people that don’t read the rules and don’t know (or care) about legal issues.
The decent designers who are actually good enough to make a living from sites like this i am sure would not mind paying a bit, if it would help refine the whole site.
…..Also agree with tropicandrew
sitepoint is just the start for building relationships with clients. If your good and professional in what you do clients will always come back!
January 26th, 2008 at 8:00 pm 69
Hmm, a small fee for joining (or maybe a small annual fee) actually sounds really good. But not something ridiculous like Guru’s fees. But yes, that’s a great idea, designbot, so long as the fee is reasonable. So what about the rest of us already joined? We would probably be subject to the new fee or our accounts become inactive. That’d work.
I’m actually surprised at my loyal customers. Some guys I thought would’ve been long gone are still with me from other sites. So I must be doing something right.
January 27th, 2008 at 4:21 pm 70
About the rep system I brought up….I didn’t mean it as a ‘power’ ranking, but more of a status thing I imagine it something like this:
Say I enter 10 contest, of the those I win 1.
Of the 9 I didn’t win, I get 2 ‘top competitor’ (5-stars), since 2 winners can’t be chosen.
That would get me some REP value.
Of course there would be factors such as: number of entries (not removed from consideration), number of entries from RED’d contestants (as a handicap) and input form our community mentors/creators.
I’m just saying that is is easy to get a few winning designs on contests that some of us wouldn’t enter like templates vs. logos or low paying/over extravagant requests. Also as in a previous comment, some CHs do invite their favorite designers. Maybe an ‘Add Designer’ icon for CHs so when they have another contest, they can invite some of us for a ‘hidden entry’. Also when a CH browses our as-of-yet not mentioned mini profile, they can see that X-amount of CHs have considered us to be some of their first options when tossing a new contest in the market.
Just what I think ^^
January 28th, 2008 at 2:38 am 71
That’s an interesting concept, Guttermouth. Allow me to add onto that concept/idea.
At the moment, I’m tired of devoting my time and energy–and creativity–into a contest where the CH delineates specific rules/guidelines for the designers and the winner picked ends up being 1) everything the contest holder said it DIDN’T want and 2) the most horrible piece of “design” cr@p I’ve ever seen. I know that this will probably never happen, but I honestly wish that the worst pieces could be determined by trained designers/judges/”experts” to be ineligible to win. While taste is certainly subjective, gestalt rules of perception (in design) are not; there is a certain formula for good design vs. bad design.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:05 am 72
Judges…means very much…i think the CH should make it’s decission sole. If a design is picked and i think it’s crappy…then it’s my problem and contest ended.
Regarding relationships, yes i agree, i have many clients that i have been worked with, more or less. But sometimes, i really encourage them to submit a contest…as i don’t feel that i can manage with deadlines and so on.
Until now, SP is one of the best things that happened to me in my whole designer career and i wish to amaze me furthermore as it happened until now.
Great thoughts here and i hope they will be taken in consideration for the little b99by.
Cheers
January 28th, 2008 at 12:55 pm 73
It’s-everyone’s- problem when we all have to look at a piece of cr@p design ugly-ing up the internet or offline world. Aesthetics is every bit a part of the craft as technical abilities and a lot of the utter junk that clients pick here would never, ever fly in professional design houses like CDG, Hornall Anderson, Sayles, Barnstorm. Oh G-d, if only they ran the world…I’d never have to worry about seeing some cr@p-on-a-stick designs ever again.
I reserve the rest of my comment re: design careers for a rainy day.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:31 pm 74
Tropicandrew, no offense but it just seems like contests are not for you, they will never make you happy, and you hate them. Thats okay, I just don’t know why you have to bring all this negative energy to these discussions. Seriously, they may not be for everyone, but there are a lot of us who do like them. Sorry you don’t.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:06 am 75
The AIGA has said that “doing speculative work seriously compromises the quality of work that clients are entitled to and also violates a tacit, long-standing ethical standard in the communication design profession worldwide.” This comes from the AIGA site. Are contests like these filling a need for quick and dirty logo design for small business? Or are they devaluing the design profession as a whole?
I can see it both ways since Mom & Pop down the street don’t have the money to hire Saatchi & Saatchi, at least they can get something better than what their nephew could do with Word Art. But, without some quality assurance and/or fair compensation for submitted designs, are we ultimately doing them and our profession a disservice?
anyway, something to think about…and, to get back on topic, anything that helps reduce the amount of scammers on both sides of these contests is a step in the right direction.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:57 am 76
Hollowmyth, both you and Tropicandrew quote GAG and AGIA, which according to their websites are US organizations. Yes, $300 for a logo, by US terms might be a small amount, but in some countries this is a great deal of money. And people from counties such as this are participating. And to be honest, I cant afford those super high end graphic design firms who charge thousands of dollars for a logo- neither can my clients.
If you want to follow guidelines of GAG or AIGA, you would have to limit contestants to US citizens only. I think that would be a mistake to make that a site wide restriction. Maybe we can solve this problem for those designers by allowing a contestant to specify that. I know on Rent a Coder you can specify which type of economy you want to have bidders bid from. Obviously there are benefits from only getting contestants from your same country- cultural standards will be similar (ie work ethics, payment, ect) and you can easily communicate with them.
Again, I really think this comes down to a personal choice.If you do not like the prize amount, dont enter. I do understand where you and Tropicandrew are coming from, I do. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, outsourcing is here. It is changing the way things work. These contests are changing the way things work. I think it is great and hopefully we can find a way to make everyone happy.
January 29th, 2008 at 6:16 pm 77
LOL, if you believe that I -hate- contests from what I say, then you’re really misreading what I do have to say.
It is not the contests that I dislike. It is the devaluing of -good- design that is problematic, and within that devaluing it’s more than just the amount of money that some people offer for a good design (because some people actually offer a decent amount for the work that we do).
It’s not just “outsourcing” as you put it Jason, it’s -crowd-sourcing, which in this context means that there’s a HUGE ratio of people not getting paid for the “work” that they do. In outsourcing, the people who do the work get paid. And yes, I do realize that some people in other countries are living like kings because of the good old’ USD/AUD that they’re winning, but at what cost? There is barely any policing, self or otherwise, of peoples’ designs, and some day some amateur (and/or SitePoint) is gonna get sued because said amateur won a contests with a logo that’s already been done; not that some of these people care, since it sure seems like the idea of intellectual property is truly “foreign” to them.
I’m merely bringing up the problems with the contests AND offering some solutions. Just because they’re unsavory to you/you don’t want to hear them doesn’t make my concerns any less valid. I’m sorry you feel like it’s “bringing negative energy”, but this is serious business here; we’re being trusted to create the business identities for people, and if some people can’t make sure that what they’re doing is bulletproof to protect themselves, the site, AND their clients (because the clients can get sued too!), then we’re not doing our jobs as designers.
And like I said in a different thread under here, I have clients coming back to me for more work from old contests AND clients coming out of the site without me having won their contest in the first place, so I do appreciate the value of the contests. I’m in this as much as the next guy.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:26 pm 78
Feature request:
–
1. Email notification when a winner is announced for a contest (important one I believe)
–
2. In the contest/short list, have the:
*contest WON line in a different colour
*contest abandoned in another colour.
–
at the moment it’s rather difficult to differentiate between lines and I believe colouring of lines will make contest in our lists much easier to follow
–
3. A checkbox to allow for a ‘Watchlist’ of contests that we may not necessarily enter, but are keeping an eye on. Rather not have then in my own shortlist.
–
Only a few to start with and shouldn’t be that hard to implement …….
–
Or maybe there should be a new post allowing designers/contest holders to offer up opinions on what they’d like to see in the new version of the contests ???
January 30th, 2008 at 4:48 pm 79
Just found the Sitepoint dev blog, glad I did! Anyway, the the new version of Sitepoint contests aka 99design sounds like it will incorporate some really good features.
I can’t wait!
January 31st, 2008 at 7:47 am 80
I will say in addition to Nadia to add a “invite ulahts” button to every contest
January 31st, 2008 at 3:13 pm 81
Every contest that involves shapes?
February 1st, 2008 at 6:05 pm 82
haha…yeaaah! Only good shapes.
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:30 am 83
I am having problems signing in and with the site loading. I have to refresh the screen several times before it finally loads correctly. Also, there are ended or won contest still showing up in the uncoded design screen. Hopefully these are just glitches. Hopefully this will be corrected soon.
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:05 am 84
Well done you guys. Will you also make it abundantly clear to agencie that they can’t just make money-for-nothing. I’ve only been on SitePoint for 3 weeks, and already found a bunch of them that will not provide feedback.
It’s all very well to go to a client and say ‘no probs, I’ll submit a few ideas’.
Then, after 9 days of a hundred designs, pick 5 or 6 designs, take it to the client, and award about a quarter (on average) of the total agency fee.
This whole ‘I’ll submit to my client’ crap has got to be reviewed. Not stopped.
Perhaps a different tariff for agents…?
February 3rd, 2008 at 7:02 pm 85
When trying to view a contest page, the page shows up without the styling - css not kicking in. Refreshing a few times brings up the page correctly.
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:36 pm 86
And i guess you all knw that the e-mail notif. system is not working in the contest area.
February 4th, 2008 at 7:21 am 87
I am having problems signing in and with the site loading. I have to refresh the screen several times before it finally loads correctly. Also, there are ended or won contest still showing up.
Some of the contests have ended, but entries can still be submitted.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:14 pm 88
Withdrawn contest still showing up in active un-coded contest.
February 7th, 2008 at 6:47 pm 89
The withdrawn contest is still showing up in active un-coded design contest.
February 7th, 2008 at 10:17 pm 90
createabit: Thanks for pointing that out. It looks like some of the contest archiving behavior needs to be looked at.
February 8th, 2008 at 8:38 am 91
After the outcome of the following contest, I’m not sure I’m going to enter any contests in the near future ):
http://contests.sitepoint.com/contests/5112
February 10th, 2008 at 11:06 pm 92
About annual fee for designer actually it’s not as good as it seems (imho).. reasons why sitepoint becomes so popular and great is because the “open”ness system which attractive to everyone. It’s a great place for both designer and who ever need design service. Conclusion about this is Sitepoint isn’t so exclusive as any other site out there, which is a great thing. Sitepoint needs to maintenance this advantage for the sake of every party involved.
Mainly just because there are a lot of scammer.. no need to change characteristic, which in fact is the basis of sitepoint forum and for the future of 99designs (in my opinion).
I’ve got an idea to solving the payment issues mentioned above :
1. We already know about this one..the most important thing is to collect prize first thing first from ch.. with the regulations clear and comprehensive for everyone.. there will be no abandoned contest .. everybody happy about this
2. needs an official moderator as a hub between designer, ch and SP admistrator who pro active in the design contest.. I think sitepoint can arrange this.. list of moderator can be picked from designers itself..
Moderator CAN’T judge design (it’s absolutely CH privileges).. their job is only to control and reporting to administrator if there are something fishy and suspicious emerges : such as ch entering a contest and declared himself as a winner.. this is really2 unforgiven !!!..
3. CH should PICK and DELEGATE a moderator from a generated list (moderator who is available or not) when they make the contest brief. So in the contest brief announced who is the moderator of the contest that ch held. Every participants can aware there is a moderator in the contest. I think it will reduces a risk to minimum for cheating.
4. Private messages feature issue and CH contact information.. there is a risk that ch and designer can bargaining about contest prize.
I don’t agree with the pm-ing to CH process.. I think every messages including questions and answers should be loud and clear in the message boards. But I don’t know how to handle if something occurred like designer A found an entries submitted by designer B uncoincidently/ not on purpose violating design guidelines.. instead telling everyone in the messages board, it preferred using pm to clarify this mistake..
I prefer to eliminate pm feature, but this is up to you guys :D.
I hope my idea about official moderator can be considered… and forgive for my bad english..
Thanks,
Gandecruz
February 11th, 2008 at 7:28 am 93
Thank you Paul for your reply. However this contest is still showing up on the uncoded contest listing. Also, there are other contest where a winner has been selected or the contest was withdrawn that are also showing as up on the uncoded contest listing.
Hopefully this can be fixed soon.
Thanks!
February 11th, 2008 at 7:50 am 94
Thanks for all the feedback guys, I am going to close this post now, feel free to post feedback in our feedback forum:
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=257
- Lachlan