Overview: 99designs Review | Is 99designs Safe? What Graphic Designers Should Know About Sites Like 99designs
If you are looking for the services of a graphic designer, whether for a business logo, a book cover, a website, a t-shirt design or whatever it might be, 99designs can help you.
What is 99designs? 99designs is a crowd-sourcing site for graphic design. It offers design services in every category that you can think of – from business logos to brochures to wedding invitations.
Image Source: Pixabay.com
The company helps entrepreneurs and businesses all over the world by connecting them to a global community of graphic designers. There are a number of other sites like 99designs that offer design by crowd-sourcing, but none come close to competing, in terms of sheer size and number of subscribed designers. 99designs is the world’s largest online graphic design marketplace, providing clients with solutions for their design needs at an affordable price.
As with other crowd-sourcing websites, 99designs has caused some controversy since its launch in 2008. As a marketplace disruptor, the site has not been uniformly welcomed in the more traditional world of graphic design.
As a result, a number of conflicting 99designs reviews can be found online.
It is important to look at all the facts before making your decision. In this 99designs review, we will be covering the following topics:
- What is 99designs, and how does it work?
- Why are there so many conflicting 99designs reviews online?
- What other sites like 99designs offer graphic design via crowdsourcing?
- What are the pros and cons of 99designs?
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What Is 99designs, and How Does It Work?
The mission of 99designs is to provide businesses of all sizes, all over the world, with access to great design. As many of the 99 design reviews agree, a large part of the attraction of the website is its huge pool of graphic designers.
The site boasts 364,571 happy customers and 1.2 million designers worldwide.
Designers have earned $142 million through the site to date. In 2015, the company achieved almost $60 million in revenue as well as an eighth consecutive year of double-digit growth since launching in 2008.
Despite the mixed 99designs reviews that can be found online, the company is clearly doing something right.
So, how does it work?
The site effectively has two product offerings which will be discussed in the following sections:
- Design Contests
- 1-to-1 Projects
Design Contests
This 99designs review focuses mainly on the Design Contests, as this is the main element of the platform.
A client will launch a Design Contest and determine the cash prize. Designers then compete to win the prize by submitting work that meets the requirements of the brief. This gives the client multiple designs to choose from. The winning designer takes the cash prize and transfers copyright of the winning design to the client.
Launching a Design Contest
As many 99designs reviews note, launching a contest is simple. The client will be taken through the following simple steps online:
(1) Choose what kind of design you need.
Choose what you need designed: a business logo, business cards, greetings cards, a website design, wedding invitations, etc. There are over 90 categories to choose from. Discounts are offered for “bundles,” which group a number of different products together.
Image Source: 99designs
(2) Indicate what types of designs you like and fill in the design brief.
The site will show you a variety of different designs and ask you to pick up to 10 that you like, in order to assess your brand’s style.
Image Source: 99designs
You will also be asked to choose three choices out of a variety of color schemes. You can also select “Let designers make suggestions” if you are not sure what colors you want.
Image Source: 99designs
After picking color schemes, the client is asked to provide a written design brief.
As noted in many 99design reviews, writing an effective design brief is key to getting the most out of your Design Contest. A good design brief should include your brand name, details of your business, the target audience, the values you would like to communicate with your design, your stylistic preferences, colors, and any other important information.
You can also upload files to provide images of designs that you like or provide a link to designs online.
The more detailed the design brief, the easier it will be for the designers to successfully provide you with a design that you like.
(3) Choose your design package.
After completing your design brief, you must choose your design package. This effectively sets the amount of the cash prize that the winner will receive.
Unlike other sites like 99designs, the company provides a range of packages that cater to different budgets.
There are four different design packages to choose from: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Your choice will depend on your budget, the number of designers you hope to attract to your competition, and the quality of the work that you require.
For example, the price for a logo design using a Bronze package is $299 while the Platinum package would cost $1,299. The higher the cash prize, the more top-notch designers you will attract to your competition.
Image Source: 99designs
Another differentiating factor from other sites like 99designs is the system of awarding top-performing designers with Platinum Designer status.
Platinum Designers are chosen by 99designs as the most talented, professional, and hard-working designers on the site. This helps clients pick out the top talent and work with only these people if they choose to.
Choosing a Platinum Package for your Design Contest may be the way to go if you are worried about the varying levels of quality mentioned in some online 99designs reviews.
Platinum Design Contests (the most expensive) offer more incentive for designers to enter, as all finalists will be paid 15% of the total prize. The winner will be paid both the first prize plus 15% of the total prize. Only Platinum Designers can enter a Platinum Contest, so you will be seeing submissions from the top designers.
(4) Pay and Launch Your Contest.
You can pay for the design package you have chosen either by credit card or PayPal. Once paid, the Design Contest is launched on to the Contest Listings page and is open for designers to submit work.
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The Stages of a Design Competition
Many of the 99 designs reviews note quick turnaround as a benefit of crowdsourcing designs. Design competitions are fast, generally lasting for 7 days, and have three stages:
(1) Qualifying Round – 4 days
During the first four days, designers will submit designs. The client will provide feedback and interact with those designers that have submitted promising work. By the end of the four days, the client must choose up to 6 finalists.
(2) Final Round – 3 days
Once in the final round, the contest is guaranteed, and the client can no longer request a refund (see the money-back guarantee section below).
During the 3 days of the final round, the client works closely with the finalists to help them revise their designs to perfection.
(3) Selecting a Winner – 2 weeks
At the end of the final round, the client has up to two weeks to choose the winning design.
The Poll Tool
With so many designs to choose from, it can sometimes be hard to make a decision! Luckily, there is the Poll Tool to help. The Poll Tool allows you to poll your friends or colleagues, asking them to vote on which design they like best. You can share your poll either by email or via your social networks.
Money-Back Guarantee
As with other sites like 99designs, the company offers a 100% money-back guarantee up to a certain point in the process. If you are not happy with the designs submitted during the qualifying round, you can ask for a refund.
It is important to note that the money-back guarantee only applies up to the end of the qualifying round. Once you select finalists to move through to the final round, you will no longer be able to request a refund.
Discover Designers
The “Discover” page of the website lets you browse through designs that have been submitted to the platform as well as to view the profiles of designers that you like. There are over 1 million designers subscribed, but there are handy filtering categories to narrow down your search.
Image Source: 99designs
While there are other sites like 99designs out there, none of them come close to having the huge number of designers to choose from.
When you find a designer that you like, you can invite him or her to join your competition.
1-to-1 Projects
Instead of launching a contest, you can also choose to work 1-to-1 with the designer of your choice.
The cost of a 1-to-1 project is negotiated directly between the client and the designer. 99designs charges a 7.5% support fee and a 2.5% fee for payment processing. These charges are added to the amount of each invoice processed through the 1-to-1 Projects platform.
99designs Reviews
Looking at 99 design reviews online may leave you a little confused. Opinions seem to differ so dramatically; not just from consumer to consumer but also from site to site. It should be noted that a lot of the 99designs reviews on consumer review sites include feedback from not only the clients but also the graphic designers that have used the site.
Below is a summary of the 99 designs reviews from 5 different consumer review sites.
- SiteJabber.com – Of a total of 62 consumer reviews, 42 gave 1 star and 5 gave 5 stars. The average rating was a 2 out of 5.
- TrustPilot.com – TrustPilot has gathered 54 99designs reviews and has given the company a “Poor” rating, with a score of 3.5 out of 10.
- Resellerratings.com – Out of a total of 89 consumer reviews, 77 were 5 stars. The average rating given was “Excellent,” with a score of 4.5 out of 5.
- Comparakeet.com – In his 99designs review in December 2015, Daniel Shehan gave the company 4.7/5 stars.
- Feefo.com – of all the consumer review sites, feefo has the highest number of 99designs reviews. The vast majority of the reviews are positive, with all ratings in the last 6 months being either “Excellent” or “Good.”
While there are a lot of both negative and positive 99 designs reviews to be found online, the fact that the company has been growing at double digits since 2008 indicates that it is providing a service that clients want.
Other Sites Like 99designs
There are other crowdsourcing graphic design sites like 99designs. 99designs, however, is the biggest of the lot.
Here are some of its competitors that may be well worth researching:
- Crowdspring.com – A very similar concept to 99designs, but nowhere near as big. Crowdspring boasts 49,523 successfully completed projects to date and 185,324 creatives subscribed.
- DesignCrowd.com – Again, this is a very similar site to 99designs. It is just under half the size of 99designs, with 528,212 graphic designers signed up.
- Designcontest.com – This site has 177,799 graphic designers subscribed and has run 7,712 contests to date. It is the smallest of the sites.
The Pros and Cons of 99designs
Below, we summarize the good and bad elements of 99designs.
Pros:
- More Choices – Rather than working with only one designer, you have the opportunity to work with a number of different designers. You can pick your favorite out of a large number of designs from different people.
- Access to a Large Number of Talented Designers – 99designs is by far the largest design marketplace out there. As the number 1 site, it has attracted 1.2 million designers to its design community. Other sites like 99designs have less than half the number of graphic designers subscribed to its platforms.
- Graphic Design at Affordable Prices – By providing a range of packages, 99designs ensures that it caters to all budgets. Prices are much lower than using a more traditional graphic design firm.
- Choice Based on Finished, Custom-Made Design – Rather than choosing a designer based on his or her past work for other clients, you get to make your decision based on the finished designs created specifically for your company.
- Quick Process – Design contests generally last up to 7 days, and the client will be in possession of a finished design, ready to use within three weeks.
- Money-Back Guarantee – You can try it at no risk. If none of the designs submitted in the Qualifying Round are to your liking, you can ask for a refund.
- Responsive Customer Service – The 99designs team is keen to make your contest a success. It provides a free consultation at the start of your project and ongoing help if you need it.
Cons:
- A Mix of Quality –Given the nature of the Design Contests, you will receive multiple design submissions, and the quality of these will vary greatly. Providing clear, brief, and good feedback and a higher cash prize will help your contest attract better designers.
- No relationship established – You will not get the same face-to-face building of relationships that you would get if using a traditional graphic design firm.
- Designers from All over the World – Some of the 99designs reviews online complain of communication problems with designers that do not share the same first language.
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Conclusion
If you have a design project you need executed, 99designs is a great place to look. The site offers design work at great, affordable prices, with a quick turnaround.
If you are still unsure, you can even try the service out with a money-back guarantee. But remember, once you pick finalists, the money-back guarantee no longer applies.
It is worth checking out other sites like 99designs, so that you can compare. However, given its number 1 position in the market, 99designs is the first place most people look for crowdsourced design.
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