Lara McCulloch

Lara McCulloch

On Posted on by Lara McCulloch to Corporate Branding, Crowdsourcing, Marketing Communications, Social Media Marketing

want a logo for $200 . you may want to read this first

crowdsourced logosThere are many reasons why crowdsourced design sites like 99designs and crowdspring are gaining a good deal of buzz. The idea behind these sites is that you post a project (like website design, logo design or writing services), you set the fee and you provide the brief and in return designers & copywriters submit concepts at no charge to you in a bid to win your business. You select a winner, pay them your pre-determined price and all design work is transferred over to you. For small businesses especially, the pay-what-you-want cost and the large number of designs you can receive in return are very appealing. But there is a darker side that companies need to consider when weighing whether or not this avenue, versus hiring a professional the more conventional way, is better for you.

1. Strategy

Ask yourself this, if a client emailed your business and said they wanted to hold an event, but didn’t need to meet with you and instead sent you a written brief that was 2-3 paragraphs long – no opportunity for a face to face or telephone dialogue – how good do you think your solution would be? It would be a challenge to really know if you’ve hit the mark. As an expert in your field there’s value in challenging what the client may think is best for their business. There’s value in delving deeper into the needs of the client. There’s value in asking questions the client never thought of answering. This valuable two-way dialogue is missing from the exchange that happens on sites like 99design.

2. Industry / Market / Regional Expertise

Having a designer with industry, market or regional expertise or at least experience can be a huge asset for your business. It’s important to know that a good number of the people who submit designs to crowdsourced design sites may be outside of your geographic area. In some cases this can mean that cultural needs, nuances and necessities may be overlooked. Another thing to consider is that a very big part of brand design development should include auditing competitors, target market and the industry. This won’t be done for $99.

3. Liability

This is an area that greatly concerns me. Unlike hiring a professional designer, you don’t know the quality of the individuals you award your business to. Although there’s a money-back guarantee, the 3rd party sites still absolve themselves of liability if a design is deemed defective. This area is really murky and I’d recommend speaking with a lawyer about who is ultimately responsible if the designer you award with your business has ripped off another designer, or worse, an existing brand. If another company goes after you for trademark infringement, I can pretty much guarantee that a) the designer will not have money laying around to pay you for lawyers fees and b) finding them or going after them in a foreign country may prove difficult.

4. Quality

Having spent some time investigating these sites, I’ve seen very blatant acts of plagerism and artwork recycling. Does the image below look familiar? It was created as a concept for a start up brand but looks oddly reminiscent of this logo.

As for design recycling…It seems to be common practice for some designers to resubmit the same designs over and over again, regardless of the project. Look at a few active request for design projects and you’ll see the same logo designs, but different names. Unless you plan on being on these sites 24/7 to compare the concepts submitted for your projects to others, you’ll likely not be able to tell what has been recycled and what hasn’t.

Contrary to what you may think, the purpose of this story is not to smash crowdsourced design sites, it’s to provide an overview of potential pitfalls that every business, small or large, should be aware of.

So tell me, have you used one of these sites? What was your experience (good or bad)?

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