http://feedgrowth.com/idea-categories/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/ Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:41:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 hourly 1 http://feedgrowth.com/idea-categories/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/comment-page-1/#comment-29401 Get a professionally designed, custom banner ad in 48 hours with PointBanner | feed growth! Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:18:30 +0000 http://feedgrowth.com/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/#comment-29401 [...] 99designs and Crowdspring, this service is strictly banner ads and all design work is performed by [...] http://feedgrowth.com/idea-categories/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/comment-page-1/#comment-10599 Tom Klein Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:36:56 +0000 http://feedgrowth.com/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/#comment-10599 Point taken. Agree that it's certainly a threat to the freelance industry. Keep in mind that participants might be: offshore and have trouble finding any work or maybe just work at a much lower rate than in the US (rates can be as low as $5 hour outside the US). In school and not actively employed (so this is indeed more of a contest). Also, as to the mechanic and painter examples . . . both work in the analog work, not the digital one. So their competition tends to be much more local than anyone who might be in the digital trade. http://feedgrowth.com/idea-categories/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/comment-page-1/#comment-10597 Ben Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:44:47 +0000 http://feedgrowth.com/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/#comment-10597 I've seen a few of these sprouting up, even entered one contest as a designer at Crowdspring out of curiosity. I have to say that they are a tremendous value for the buyers, but a pretty terrible proposition for the designers. Take, for instance, a $200 logo contest that receives 40 submissions. The buyer is effectively paying $5 per logo. That's, like, vending-machine prices. The effective hourly rate might be around $1-2, if that. As a designer, I can't figure out why other designers would enter these contests (and that's what they really are--contests). - You are essentially working for free. There is no contract between you and the buyer, no guarantee that you'll get paid. Imagine if this was a standard practice for other services--ask 40 different auto mechanics to fix your transmission, then pay the one who does the best job; ask 40 different house painters to paint your house, then pay only the one who does the best job--it doesn't seem very reasonable to me. - Even if you do win the contest, which is highly unlikely, the award is almost insignificant. $200 for a logo, $400-500 for a complete website design--these figures are well below a reasonable price, in my opinion, especially considering many of the buyers have the budget to pay a reasonable price. If anything, the award in a contest format should be far greater than a normal price for that service. - Another serious problem is that designers can view all the other designers' work throughout the contest. There are rules about copying other designs, but it's loose enough that one designer might have a great idea and execute it poorly, only to see someone else take his idea, nail the execution, and win the contest. In this case, the person with the winning idea doesn't get paid. Needless to say, I think this is a bad system. But I can't fault Crowdspring or 99designs for exploring the business model. It is naive/inexperienced designers that allow the model to work by offering their services for free. In the examples of the mechanics and painters, this business model would never work because the providers would never agree to such unfavorable terms. I suppose much of this problem stems from a lack of barriers to entry in the graphic design industry. Anyone with a computer and a pirated copy of photoshop can call themselves a graphic designer, whereas becoming a mechanic would require significant investments of time (for certification) and money (for space, equipment, etc.). Well, this comment is starting to ramble, but I think it's clear that crowdsourcing sites like Crowdspring and 99designs are pretty serious threats, maybe not to agencies, or even creative shops, but definitely to the freelance design industry. http://feedgrowth.com/idea-categories/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/comment-page-1/#comment-6018 Source new brand names with namethis | feed growth! Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:03:08 +0000 http://feedgrowth.com/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/#comment-6018 [...] model is very similar to logo and web design service, 99Designs, which we discussed in Take that- luftballoons. Both crowd-sourcing platforms offer ideas and inspiration in a pinch and won’t eat into your [...] http://feedgrowth.com/idea-categories/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/comment-page-1/#comment-3673 Emily Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:53:09 +0000 http://feedgrowth.com/collaboration/take-that-luftballoons/#comment-3673 Great article!