DesignContest Reviews

The biggest concern of clients against freelancers or design agencies is that they either provide a limited amount of artwork or ask for a huge budget. However, DesignContest offers a chance to get unique artwork at wallet-friendly prices by picking the middle-of-the-road approach: it puts you in full charge of organizing an art competition, providing you every tool you need. In other words, you are in control regarding the format of the competition, picking a winner from the many results provided by the site’s designer community and gaining all rights for the chosen artwork.

DesignContest’s project palette is pretty broad, notwithstanding that the site allows you to launch projects for graphical products only. But if your project involves art, DesignContest can host a competition for it: you can put out an assignment for creating a company logo or a business card, and ask for web design or a smartphone app image. However, if you want something more specific, you can also get t-shirt designs with special patterns, icon design and the list could go on.

DesignContest is an ideal place for creative talents to take wings. The registration can be done in the traditional way or by linking your Facebook account, after which you are directed to a minimalistic profile page that emphasizes your achievements, skills and portfolio. As for your profile’s visitors, they are able to toggle between full image galleries or just see your winning entries.

DesignContest does its best not to let artists work in the dark: designers have multiple channels to communicate with the contest holder who can provide additional feedback directly on the submitted entries. Aside from that, designs can be rated, approved or discarded, while freelancers are allowed to post multiple iterations of their creations. And as a nice little extra, the site sympathizes with struggling designers by opening up the possibility to award a second and third prize, not just one grand reward for the winner of a contest.

Contest briefings are surprisingly simple: most pointers can be done by assigning the design bar, choosing the preferred color or picking an example for the style. Once the contest is up and the entries of freelancers start rolling in, they’ll be put on a summary page for comparison. All images are enlarged automatically if you move the cursor over them, plus you can comment or rate the images you like or simply ask for modifications. Standard contests don’t guarantee a winner, meaning that you are entitled for a full refund if you are unsatisfied with the results. However, projects without a guaranteed winner are far less accepted by freelancers.

Although DesignContest claims to work on all devices, there is a bit of cheating: the site is indeed designed to function flawlessly on touchscreen-based smartphones, but it is just the desktop version adapted to mobile screens. Although the mobile site works great, the absence of a native app is a bit of a downer.

In order to be more attractive for aspiring artists, DesignContest is 100% free on their part, plus no service fee is charged on the prize money, whether it is guaranteed or not. Clients, however, must pay in advance by choosing one of the design plans. Package prices are fixed (with the prize money included), but they always depend on the selected category: for instance website designs start from at least $595, while a simple artwork for a poster costs only $195.

There are a number of additional options employers can pay for to further spruce up their listings. For $79 the contest will receive a so-called “Promoted” status, paying $49 makes it either featured or private, while for an extra $19 you can extend the length of a project/contest for another week. And let’s not forget about the always available option of increasing the fee to appoint a 2nd and 3rd place winner in your contest. Successfully referring a friend to DesignContest earns you a $30 Amazon gift card.