: On which crowdsourced design site have you the best experience? I'm looking to have a couple logos and website designs done. I've had some great local designers, but each one has moved or gone

@Eichhorn212

99Designs is a racket. Their commission rates are 30-45%, and inversely proportional to the project price- i.e larger projects = higher rates. (Compare to Elance at 6.75-8.57%).

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@Kimberly620

None. Please do not use them.

They are all harmful to the graphic design industry and should be avoided at all costs.

When participating in these logo contests, you are devaluing the design industry as a whole. Also it gives off the perception that logos can be "ready made", with the ability to simply change the name and have it work. There is a LOT of hard work, research, and unique consideration that should be taken into account when creating a great logo. Even if you decide that you would like to work for pennies, think about the greater implications of bringing down the industry as whole.

Example, "Why would I pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for a logo from you, when I could go to this site, have 50 people make me different logos, and choose one for 0?"

That is the point of view that people begin to view the graphic design industry with after seeing or using these contest sites. Of course many will be able to spot the difference in quality and understand that you get what you pay for, but at the same time many will not.

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@Samaraweera207

I, like many, have dabbled in spec/crowdsourcing work (notice the past tense). The problem for designers are legion. There is a website www.no-spec.com/ that perfectly illustrates the points designers try to make in against spec work, so I won't delve into that any further as DA01 made that point earlier. :)

But, as that is not really the question, I've had some good experiences in the past with Pim Tim, they are not as large as 99designs but that means their team is also flexible.

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@Turnbaugh909

I have no experience of any other crowd-sourcing sites, but currently I'm having some amazing designs developed on www.designcrowd.com. You can get really good designs at crowd sourcing sites, but the one thing to bear in mind is the time you will need to commit to a project. Even if you only have 4 or 5 really good designs developed during the process, you are effectively managing the delivery of 4 or 5 small projects whereas if you had a single designer working on a project you only have to manage that one project. Giving feedback on all the designs you receive is hard and takes a lot of time, but in my opinion that is the commitment that you make as client on a crowd sourcing site. I am fully expecting that by the end of my current crowd sourcing project the time costs of the time I've had to put in will far outweigh the fees associated with the project.

You must bear in mind there are a lot of good designers on crowd-sourcing sites and often they are looking for experience rather than payment so you must give them feedback as part of your commitment to receiving designs.

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@RJPawlick971

Consider the type of talent that will participate in online logo contest/crowd sourcing sites. These are people willing to spend hours upon hours designing logos based on weak or non-existent business requirements with nearly zero consultation with the clients to compete with 100 others in the same boat for the slim chance at winning 0?

I usually say you get what you pay for, but you don't even get that at sites like that.

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@Dunderdale640

I haven't used it myself (yet), but the logos for Stack Overflow and Server Fault were done at 99designs: 99designs.com/users/245023
Actually, one of the reasons I proposed this site was so that I could improve my design skills and do my own designs instead of paying for them at 99designs.

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