Art Of Money

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I need a new logo for my city blog network, and I was going to use a traditional logo service like My Logo but I thought it would be fun to get the network bloggers involved in the process so I decided to go the SitePoint Marketplace and run a logo contest.

The process has been really interesting so I thought I would share my experience and the tips of what I’ve learned:

1.) Wide Variety of Entries

You’ll get a wide variety of entries, which is mostly a good thing. You can expect a wide range of quality too, but traditional logo companies often charge by the number of concepts that you will receive, so to get 25 or 30 original designs presented to review is a fantastic luxury.

2.) Put Up Enough of A Reward to Attract Good Bids

The base reward for a logo competition on SitePoint is only $100, but My Logo charges $199 minimum so I was afraid that if I went with the minimum that I wouldn’t attract any real pros, so I made my competition $160, which seems to have done the trick, as I have received some great entries.

3.) Review Existing and Past Contests

Check out the other current and past logo contests. While you look at them, take a look at the quality of entries (especially in relationship to the amount of prize money offered).

Look at the summary and detail descriptions of the project…borrow heavily from the ones that are really well done.

Pay attention to the feedback give to the designers, as this is a key area to getting a logo that is a good match to your business.

4.) Give Clear Instructions

Vague or loose instructions will ruin the contest. I could have spent more time defining what I wanted. It’s good to have a basic idea of colors, and even some examples of styles of logos that you are wanting.

The more you can narrow down the focus for the designers at the begriming the more energy they can spend refining design rather than struggling to figure out what you want.

5.) Communicate With the Participants

It seems like the designers are very eager and by providing updates as to your thinking and by quickly answering questions, you will encourage more and better quality entries.

Creating a logo is a process that involves the logo contest sponsor and the designer working together to hone in on a winning concept. The designer can’t do it without your participation.

6.) Get Other Eyeballs Involved In Your Decision

With the large number and wide variety of entries that you’ll get, it’s easy to dismiss a good concept based on your first impression, so get some other people to take a look and give you feedback.

I’ve had the bloggers on my network and my wife take a look at the submissions and I definitely discovered that a fresh perspective helped me see potential new directions that were valuable.

7.) Be Grateful

These people are doing quite a bit of work purely on speculation, so even if some of the entries are really lame, be kind.

It is likely they are students or even young kids involved (alongside seasoned pros) so really attempt to keep this in mind and offer constructive criticism.

Summary

The major thing to realize in comparing having a contest like this versus hiring a traditional logo designer is that you are going to have to be much more involved in the process, which means a lot more of your time.

The advantage of paying the price of more involvement is that you’ll get a much wider variety of concepts and points of view on your ideas than any one designer could ever provide, at a much lower cost.

The ideal I guess would be to use a contest like this to create and build a relationship with someone that works in a way that you can rely on and use over and over. I’m not sure that this method of getting work done is efficient enough to be used consistently, but it is fun and I’m sure that the quality of the final design will be much better than if I had use a traditional service.

You can see my logo contest,which is still in process and I’d love to hear any thoughts that you’d like to share about the logos being presented (which one would you pick?) or the process in general.

- Jon Symons