Yesterday, I wrote a post wherein I described my experiences crowdsourcing a new online list management application. One of the the highlights of that post was a relatively new service, called 99Designs, which provides an amazingly effective method of getting quality design work. After that post, I got a call from 99Design’s Jason Aiken, and we talked about my experiences.
During the call, we briefly touched on some of things I’ve found that have helped to make my experience with their site so productive, things I omitted from my original post because it was already on the longish side. Today I want to spend just a few minutes highlighting what I’ve learned and how they can help anyone to make the most of the experience.
For most people – basically everyone who doesn’t have a full-time staff of designers – getting something designed usually means spending a lot of time reviewing portfolios, selecting a designer, and then working with that person to execute the vision. There are a number of problems with this method:
- Unless you already know someone, reviewing designer portfolios is time consuming.
- I hate to say it, but some designers often misrepresent their work; their portfolios will include items that were designed by others. (In an extreme example, I had a designer submit work to me that I knew someone else had designed. I knew this because it was one of my projects.)
- You’re only working with one designer at a time, and that designer, though competent, might not be able to deliver what it is that you’re looking for. When that happens you’re going to have to go back to step 1.
The 99Designs process is completely different, so different that it completely eliminates the problems I’ve mentioned above. To begin, since you’re running a contest, there is no need to review designer portfolios. Second, because it’s a contest, you’re going to be working with multiple designers simultaneously; if one can’t provide what you’re looking for, another one will. Finally, you don’t need to care about their portfolio because only their contest submissions matter, and it is only when you wish to accept that work that they get paid.
I’ve now used this process twice, once for a logo, and once for a site design, and in both cases the results have been outstanding. While I once would have spent a lot of time dealing with the issues I’ve highlighted above, I now spend that same time interacting with designers, and in the process have achieved results that are, so far, significantly better than I probably would have gotten if I’d used my old methods.
If you plan on trying 99Designs for yourself, here are some pointers:
- Leaving feedback for designers is the most important thing you can do while your contest is running. Designers need this feedback so they can update their work and iterate towards something you find pleasing. Do it for every contest entry if you can. If you do, you’ll get more and better submissions that will result in a higher quality finished product.
- Don’t wait on giving your feedback. Once a designer has submitted a design, try to leave your detailed feedback as quickly as possible, while they’re still online and can make corrections or submit an entirely new concept.
- Since the site won’t notify you of new submissions, it’s up to you to check your contests frequently while they’re running. You can do this manually or, better still, use the RSS feed associated with your particular contest; add this feed to your feed reader and stay up-to-date.
- Be sure to create a good design brief for the contest. Provide the designer with as much detail as possible. Let them know what you like and don’t like, but leave the creative details to them. If you can provide a wireframe diagram of how you think the site should look, by all means do so.
- You don’t have to pick just one winner. When a contest is over and you think you might want to use more than one of the designs, you can pay a second (or a third, for that matter) designer and use both works. I haven’t done this yet, but the quality of the work I’ve seen has had me seriously considering it.
I fear that my enthusiasm for the 99Designs approach leaves me sounding a bit like a fanboy or a shill. Rest assured, my excitement is genuine, and I sincerely believe they’re on to something. I’ve done things the old way for so long that I can’t help but see the promise of something that has taken much of the grief out of what was, and remains for so many people, a painful process.
