99designs

I had a very focused goal: To hire an expert in Squarespace I could utilize to accelerate the learning of the front end authoring environment so I could build my own website.

I am a management consultant and am proficient enough in design to do it myself. It's the only way to go.

I found a smart gal to provide me 2 hours for a coaching, teaching engagement.

To my regret she helped me get started learning SS so I could build my own website. But there was really no pedagogical approach. In other words I would have benefitted from an overview of how SS organizes its web-based interface, the design conventions of SS. That didn't happen because the designer has no teaching ability and it WAS MY FAULT I DID NOT STRUCTURE THE TWO HOURS MORE EDUCATIONALLY. I didn't give her the guidance. And she went very quickly. My fault again.

She was very technically capable and a good designer but her communication skills were atrocious. She encouraged me to follow up afterwards with questions. Well she went AWOL. I was never able to followup. Very disappointed. Like a lot of hired guns she took the money and ran.

$250 an hour for a graphic designer through a middleman? If they can earn that I am worth $450 an hour. Very expensive. It would help to know how much 99designs earns as the bodypusher middleman. I am guessing $100 an hour? But since I don't know it is difficult to assess if the designer was paid fairly. $150 an hour because the bodypusher gets $100? That's fair to the designer. $30 an hour to 99designes and $220 to the designer? I would never pay a graphic designer $220 an hour directly absent the middleman.

You will have to trust me that I am a paying customer to 99designs for an SS website that is live but which I prefer to go unnamed for obvious reasons. People need to feel free to tell the truth without fear of retaliation.

I hired the designer in early August. Paid 99designs $500. Definitely too much for what I got.

I really like the concept of a design contest. The traditional transaction of just hiring a single designer for a single transaction that may never develop into your vision is unnerving. The design contest takes the pressure off the client and fuels the drive of competing designers. I will be honest. I was getting impatient with the results of my design contest early on and tried hard to keep faith in the process. The night before my design started to blossom, I almost pulled the plug on the entire operation. I woke up to a beautiful revision from my winning designer that put a smile back on my face. My vision was finally back on track after it was flying off the rails. I couldn't be happier with the end result of my logo as well as the new relationship I developed with my designer. I wanted an emotional connection to my brand upon sight of the logo. My designer made that a reality along with communicating flawlessly the whole way there. I am so, so thankful for this service! And shout out to Alli Schultz of Nomad Boutique who recommended this site and the design contest!

This is the second competition we have run and are very pleased with the results. We had submissions from all over the world and had conversations with designers we would never have had access to.

For about $600.00 I ended up having 20+ offshore designers all generically copying the first two designs that I gave 4 or 5 stars. I had to get really specific (and directly message most of them) to get any of them to develop anything original.

There also seems to be a HUGE issue with fraud. Designs in my contest were constantly being withdrawn (or designers' account suspended mid-contest) because they were ripping off other designs as blatantly as possible and/or simply reposting designs verbatim. I did a little snooping and found that multiple entry level designers in my contest were taking designs from better designers (from within my contest) and posting them to their own profiles as samples, continuing the cycle of fraud into other design contests.

I'm savvy enough to catch this, but I worry for all the mom-and-pop shops out there who wouldn't think to thoroughly review designer profiles and catch the scammers.

There also seems to be no chat support on the site, which (again based on experience) is a clear indicator that they anticipate their customers being annoyed and don't want to deal with it, so it's easier to funnel everyone into generic support FAQs.

Ultimately, after a lot of legwork I was able to weed out the crappy designers and find a couple of good ones, but it was a messy process. This one time I used 99Designs will probably be the only time. I'll stick with real agency designs going forward, even if it costs a bit more.

Hello every one,
Please donot participate in contest and do not submit project for design.
Only got you copy paste work plz check below link. This is winner designer logo and shutter stock logo.

https://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/make-holacracyone-fit-holacracy-*******/entries/61

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/vector-illustrations-company-logos-green-gray-*******?src=zropRNhAvFZ_Cgy-jswYMw-2-1 (vector no. 2)

Both are same. So do not enter in frod 99design company.
Thanks for reading

Just to add my experience. I also found myself thrown out of 99designs despite positive feedback and decent star ratings. I was in the middle of reading a forum post and they literally logged me out. I couldn't log back in and later discovered the delightful email in my inbox pretty much telling me I wasn't good enough and to go back to school! I've been designing for years and find this quite insulting.

Even if a designer isn't up to the mark, surely a better system would be to subject potential designers to a vetting system so they do not waste their time and effort. Either that or lower the limit of contests they can enter until they improve via a polite message, instead of such a heavy handed approach, actually throwing them off the site as though they were a criminal.

Like an earlier reviewer, to add insult to injury, I couldn't log back in to unsubscribe from their email notifications. I wish I had read reviews about 99designs before signing up, but was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that my husband has used them as a contest holder in the past. He was reasonably satisfied with his experience at the time, but he will not go near them in future, after witnessing the callous way in which they treat some of their designers. I feel very uncomfortable about the fact that I had to upload a photo of my passport and am now worried about what 99designs will do with that information. Well, lesson learned, I guess, better to stick to traditional work methods.

I started on 99designs two years ago from scratch. I was a big 0 in design. In just two years the awesome staff and the amazing community of designers helped to create a great portfolio, wherever I show it, people are amazed by it, not speaking about my little overall experience.
I really learned a lot and everybody was ready to help even when I failed. So thank you 99d, you are amazing.

I had no job and no profession, 99d helped me to feed my family for 2 years and then I was able to get a nice job in design. (and I can still use 99d for extra income)

As a designer it's an awesome place. I do not recommend it however for those who are not willing to learn, who don't like to play fair and be nice and for those who are dumb. These people will most probably get themselves a ban for good reason.

For customers I can safely say that there a ton of really really good designers and it is impossible to not find a man for the job. You just have to know at least partly what you want and invite the right man to your contest or for 1to1.

But rule of the dumb applies here as well. If you are dumb don't come, you will be disappointed most likely and just make designers waste their time. If you are normal guy with more then 80 iq you can come safely, you will get what you want. And if you have questions just ask the customer support they are awesome and happy to help.

Cheers to the normal people ;)

As a 8 year graphic designer I decided to give 99designs a shot. I designed a logo for a pizza company and followed all the procedures necessary to enter the design contest. However, within a day my account was suspended from 99designs. I don't really know why it was suspended but from the email they sent me it stated "As a result, we have put your account on hold. We encourage you to improve your design skills." I thought this was a slap in the face and really unprofessional the design contest that they host should be decided by the client and not 99designs cause ultimately the client is more important. My suggestion to all new business owners out there please hire a freelance designer that will take care of your business in the long run. The best designers build companies a brand identity not just a logo. 99design robs freelance designers for there craft. They get a bunch of designers thinking they are going to win some quick cash but they end up spending more time and work then the actual cost of the design. The one element that is missing is the personal relationship between the designer and the client and that is something you cannot replace I wouldn't recommend 99designs to anyone after this incident.

This is a buyer beware for anyone using 99Designs. I hosted a contest for a book cover and selected the $299 option for prize money. The process was easy and I received several good designs from which I awarded a winner. I immediately got a bill from the designer for $50 to purchase the stock image used. The design page stated the designer used stock images, but did not state I had to pay for them. The stock image cost $15 with $35 as a fee to the designer. Contacting 99design support, they told me I had to pay. I refused and they encouraged the designer to redo the design with free images. I selected one of the three options of lesser quality because I had no other choice. To get the files for the book cover, I had to award the money to the designer. When I downloaded the files, I found that I could not use or edit them without purchasing a software program costing $600. I asked for the files in a different format, yet the designer stopped working with me. 99designs have ignored my emails and messages for help.

Like so many others have said, then frequently ban your account if the site owners think your standards are not up to scratch. Even if you were a finalist among contests. Their support team is non existent, yet they sit and police people's submissions. Its nonsense. Im sure they scam more people and there are a lot of fake reviews here. Stay away from them. Bunch of idiots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFss5cTlIl0, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlpy0ESmBgQ. A quote from the video above """""A good number of "clients" on these crowdsourcing sites are associates working for large corporate ad/imaging/graphics firms... What they look for are either ideas or designs for the smaller non-contractual "penny ante" clients on a limited budget (usually $5K and less), and then go to these crowdsourcing sites, and hold contests in order to get their pick of a cache of designs, and either pay the winner pennies on the dollar, or (more often) not at all... Then the associate re-works the project to make it feasible for print, or for the web, and then sells the finished project to the actual client at market price, and is still able to devote all their creative time towards the large scale big money contractual clients, while making extra money for the company, or for themselves on the side..."""""

UPDATE: As usual those morons copy/paste a generic reply below. Dont use their site or give them any business.