A guide on how to effectively use 99designs

I have been rolling out an updated visual identity for The English Investor. Building a brand is hard and takes time. Some quality content, a consistent publishing schedule and a good dose of creativity are key ingredients to run a successful blog. Similar rules also apply to run a successful business: a great product or high-quality service, responsiveness and creativity.

There is a myth that the brain can process images 60,000 times faster than it does text. The statistic is probably wrong – I could not find a legitimate source – but there is some truth to it. If I mention Apple and Nike, your mind will instantly visualize a silver apple and the Swoosh. Therefore, it made sense for The English Investor to have a proper logo of its own. As my design skills are virtually non-existent, I decided to outsource the job on 99designs.

What is 99designs?

99designs is “the world’s largest online graphic design marketplace.” In other words, 99designs is a crowdsourcing platform for people requiring graphic designs. People in need of a design will prepare a brief to explain what they are looking for. Then, freelance designers submit proof of concepts and ideas.

How does 99designs work?

Your project is essentially a design competition that lasts 7 days. 99designs is the platform where the contest is run. All interactions are between you and the design freelancers. 99designs will guide you through the process but will refrain from getting involved (unless you reach out to customer service with a specific ask).

Step 1: Signing-up

First, you need to sign up to the platform. This is fairly self-explanatory. Note that you must indicate whether you are a designer or someone who simply needs a design.

 

Step 2: Start a new project

Now is the time to launch a new project. At this point, I strongly suggest choosing the “Launch a contest” option, especially if you are a first time user or if this is a one-off project. Launching a contest is the 99designs crowdsourcing feature. Hiring a designer is closer to working 1-1 with a design agency. It is the more traditional route.

 

Step 3: pick a task

99designs allows you to ask for pretty much anything. Logo design, business cards, web pages, apps, clothing & merchandising and the list continues.

I found the number of possibilities to be slightly overwhelming at first. I first thought about the Logo & Social Media Pack as the savings advertised by 99designs seemed attractive. In the end, as I had never used the platform, I went for logo design, which starts from £239. Click on “Start a contest” and you can begin populating your brief.

Step 4: choose your style and populate your brief

The brief is the most important portion of the contest because you set the tone of your desired design. This is the place to say what you want to see in your design.

To help you, 99designs will ask you to pick a few designs in an attempt to assess your style and show potential sources of inspiration for freelance designers.

 

Then, 99designs will help you assess your brand’s style based on the designs that you liked on the previous page. Those criteria are not set in stone so feel free to reshuffle those around if you disagree with the assessment.

 

After the style, you will need to choose the color themes that designers should favor for your design.

 

Then comes one of the most important aspects of your project: the brief. This is where you indicate the name of your logo, any potential slogan to incorporate, give some background on your industry and why you need this logo. You can also upload any images, sketches or documents that might be helpful to freelance designers.

At first, I was not quite sure how to describe what I wanted. I had explained that The English Investor was a personal finances blog with an emphasis on investments and passive income. I had mentioned that I was living in London and that thus the targeted audience was primarily people based in the United Kingdom, although I expected some traffic from the European Union and, to a limited extent, the United States.

It is only when I received the first submissions after a day or so that I thought that I must not have been very clear. The logos submitted were interesting. Some were bad and clearly designed in less than 10 minutes. Others were too serious: they would have been perfectly suited for an asset management firm or a financial institution. I noticed that I wanted something more playful (but not childish), embodied by a character with a touch of Britishness. I also uploaded a couple of pictures that showcased a few design ideas.

Step 5: pricing your contest

The next step is to price your contest, i.e. how much are you ready to offer as a reward to the freelance designers who will win the contest. Note that the prices below are only for a logo. Pricing may vary based on the designs package.

 

99designs recommends the Gold package regardless of the task at hand. I know because I tried a couple of projects (without completing the process) and Gold was always recommended. As you can see, the Gold package is significantly more expensive – by almost £400 – than the starter pack. Why is that?

Remember that this is a contest. Freelance designers are free to decide whether they want to participate or not. If you chose “Launch a contest”, you are not commissioning a specific designer (which would have probably been even more expensive). Therefore, the reward has to be sufficiently high to attract freelancers to participate in the contest. Freelancers don’t even get the full amount as 99designs takes a cut to run the platform. The good ones – the ones vetted by 99designs and the ones who tend to win more contests – are therefore unlikely to spend time on a job that they might not win unless the reward is reasonably high.

I thought that £629 was quite expensive at first. However, it is relatively cheap compared to hiring a studio agency. I also wanted to avoid wasting time. Of course, I could have chosen a cheaper package resulting in less submissions from top-notch designers. But what is the point of doing so if I only have a few low-quality submissions to choose from and end up re-running the contest with a better-priced package? Running an effective contest is time-consuming due to the numerous interactions with designers. Finally, the Gold package guaranteed mid and top designers, therefore potential eliminating less serious candidates. This is a logo that must last at least a couple of years. If successful, it will almost never change. This is not the time to cut corners and save a few pounds.

Note that you can also set your own amount. You are not constrained by the recommended 99designs pricing. However, unless it is absolutely necessary due to budgeting reasons, I would stick to the 99designs pricing. Freelancers will expect this and anything less will be looked at with suspicion.

For those reasons, I felt comfortable following the recommended approach and chose the Gold Package.

Can you really get your money back?

99designs promises that you will get “a design you love or your money back.” It is true that you can be reimbursed if you fail to receive a satisfactory design. The reality is however otherwise. Unless you guarantee the prize – you agree to pick a design no matter what the submissions are and therefore award the prize to someone – top designers are unlikely to participate. If you run another contest a few weeks later, designers might also remember you as the person who made them work for no reason. It is not entirely true and they know that they may not win contests when signing-up to 99desings. Yet, if this is the impression they have, then they are unlikely to participate in your next contest. I took a risk and guaranteed the prize in the hope of attracting more designers. I also wanted to boost my chances so that I did not waste time re-running the contest or finding a designer on another platform.

Add-ons to boost the visibility of a contest

99designs also offers a couple of add-ons that are meant to boost the visibility of your contest on the platform. The more your contest is visible, the better the chances are that designers will see it and hopefully decide to compete. I only bought the Blog item, which listed my contest on the 99designs blog. I presumed that serious designers would consistently check the blog to track contests and any potential design discussions.

Step 6: invite as many people to participate in your contest

99designs allows you to invite up to 50 designers each day. As the preliminary round of the contest runs for 4 days, that’s potentially 200 designers to message. It is a very tedious task. Targeting the right designers is also tricky. To maximize my chances, I narrowed the search to designers who had done logos and who spoke English (it is very important to be able to communicate clearly with your designer). Then, I only invited top-designers and selected them by quickly visiting their page to view sample designs. Some designers have a style and you will quickly know if you like it or not. It took me a solid two hours to invite 50 people. I did not repeat the experience on each day.

Also, the designer who won my contest is someone I had messaged taking advantage of the free invites. So it is definitely worth the hassle!

Step 7: feedback and grading

The success of the contest hinges on the quality of your interactions with designers. On 99designs, you may grade submissions and message each designer (group messaging is also possible). The submissions probably won’t exactly match what you are looking for. It is, however, possible to improve them at the preliminary round (no need to wait for the qualifying round if you can save some time). There are generally three categories of feedback:

1. Crappy designs and fraud: the designs do not match your requirements, designers did not read the brief, or they came up with a design that is a copy/paste of previous work. For example, I received a design that looked promising, I then went to the designer’s page and noticed that there was already another similar design. I asked him/her if he/she had already provided a similar design to another client as I feared potential copyright issues. The design was withdrawn by the designer and I never received a response. For those designs, only give one star.
2. Random designs: those designs are interesting but either (a) they fail to fully take into account all requirements of the brief or (b) they are nice but you don’t feel anything special about them. It is difficult to put words on this but your “gut feeling” will tell you if this is the right artistic direction. Give two to three stars with feedback to encourage designers to stay in the running and submit a revised design.
3. Top and original designs: if you are lucky, a designer will instantly nail it. The design will match the specifications of the brief and be original. This is what happened to me. I still gave feedback: I asked to see revised designs with different colors and a repositioning of the character. You may end up preferring the first version of the design submitted by the designer but it does not hurt to experiment with different things. Four to five stars for those designers. Grant those 5 stars wisely.

 

Feedback at all time is the key. 99designs also publicly displays the percentage of designers to whom you have responded as well as the proportion of submitted designs that you graded. It is important to show that you are engaged in the process and that designers are not spending time on a project without guidance. The more engaged you are, the more serious and committed you appear to be. If you are putting in the work, then designers are likely to go above and beyond to win the contest.

Step 8: awarding the prize and receiving your design files

A normal contest runs 7 days: 4 days of qualifying rounds, and then approximately 3 days of “final rounds” to refine designs and continue to interact with shortlisted designers. I took advantage of the full four days prior to making a selection to ensure that I would receive as many designs as possible. However, at the beginning of day 3, I was 99% sure that I had a winner. Besides the hope of receiving more designs, I also waited for another 24h to make sure I was comfortable with the design that I was choosing. At the end of the qualifying round, I immediately declared a winner and bypassed the final round.

Once you declare a winner, the designer and yourself will sign the 99designs agreement whereby the designer transfers the intellectual property of the designs to you. The designer will then prepare the files for transfer. Those can be downloaded from the 99designs website. You should check that the files work properly. You may download a free trial of Adobe Illustrator to test the files ending with the .ai extension. Make sure that the designer included all the file formats recommended by 99designs. Be thorough although if there is an issue, I’m quite sure customer service can help. If you are happy, you only have to approve the files and you are done!

 

A Note on Blind Contests

If this is your first contest on 99designs, the default setting is for your contest to be visible to everyone. When designers submit proof of concepts and logos, other designers will see their work. As soon as you start grading the first submissions, people will notice the ones you like and may be inclined to copy them or use them as a source of inspiration. Some designers might refrain from submitting a design until they see you grading the first designs.

This will hinder the creative process. The point is to have as many original designs as possible. If you give five stars to one design in the first 24h of the contest, chances are that this design will be copied and you will see many similar submissions.

The answer to this issue is to turn the contest into a blind one where designers cannot see the other submissions. If this is your first time on the platform, you will need to reach out to customer service so that they update your contest. Note that once a contest is blind, there is no turning back.

 

Customer Support

I was pleasantly surprised with 99designs’ customer support. First-timers users will receive emails guiding you through the process. Those are automated emails with tips on how to run an effective contest.

Then, if you have a specific request (i.e. blind contest), then you can reach out to customer support. I first called them but nobody responded. I, however, left a voicemail with my number. Someone called me back less than three hours later. I was in a meeting so I could not respond immediately. Customer support left me a voicemail and followed up with an email asking me to confirm if I wanted to have a blind contest. I found them very quick and very efficient.

 

Pro tips on how to get the most out of your money on 99designs:

1. Guarantee the prize
2. Go for a blind contest
3. Feedback, Feedback, and Feedback
4. If you can afford it, choose the Gold Package
5. Check the design files thoroughly

 

(This post is regularly updated. If you notice any discrepancies, please get in touch at theenglishinvestor@theenglishinvestor.com)