99design

Crowdsourcing a logo

I’ve been wanting to get a formal logo for my consulting work for awhile, but have been putting off the arduous

Image representing 99designs as depicted in Cr... Image via CrunchBase

task of finding a designer and starting the process with them.

In the last two weeks 99designs.com flew across my screen twice and I realized it was the answer!

How it works

You decide what you want to have designed, how much you’re willing to pay, and you write a project brief describing what you’re looking for.  You pay 99designs and you submit the contest.

Designers then start submitting ideas, which you rate and give feedback on. I picked the cheapest logo package and on day 4 I was feeling very nervous with only a few submission.  I didn’t need to worry though because by day 6 I had a LOT to work with!

99designs is also built to easily let you create polls to ask people what they think (also easy to share via Facebook and Twitter).  This is a great way to get feedback on what you’re seeing and considering.  My project closes tomorrow (Wednesday) and I’m on poll #4 - would you like to weigh in on my choices?

What do I think

I think this has been an amazing experience.

- I got a lot of different people coming up with concepts giving me the choice of a lot of different styles and ideas. I can’t imagine I would have gotten this with just one designer AND I may never have gotten around to getting the logo designed because taking the time to find and make the commitment to one designer would have been put on the back burner.

- The poll option allowed me to get great feedback.  There were so many thoughts people had on logos that I never would have had, but once suggested to me I couldn’t forget. It had huge impact on my choices (although one logo that kept getting great reviews just wasn’t to my taste. I realized I needed to take it out of the equation).

Overall, I would highly recommend the service to anyone !  Now go vote on my logo!

Have you tried a service like this? What do you think?

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