99designsReviews 412

As the owner of an apparel screen print shop, I've seen numerous clients use 99 designs. On average the client's files are crap, they come to use with jpgs, pngs or psd files, often time low-mid resolution. Numerous clients have come to us with a t-shirt design that isn't even designed for screen printing.

Beyond that the creative aspect of the majority of designs is not original. We've seen so many designs that look like that appear to be copied off pinterest AND more than one that was a clear violation of intellectual property. It's sad to see some clients come to us thinking they have a great "new" design and we have to tell the client the file is actually stolen good or complete garbage but I guess you get what you pay for. If you want professional design, don't waste your time with the amateurs at 99 designs. Review portfolios and find a quality designer and create a relationship so you can grow together.

I am opening a new business and obviously can't afford to just throw away $500. That is, unfortunately, what I did when I engaged 99designs to draw/create a logo. I received maybe ten half-baked, sloppy "submissions"-none of which I am using. The money back guarantee is a farce, their small print exceptions include any client "guaranteeing their prize" or "entering the final round." Well, theres no other way to sign up for service on 99designs! If 99designs was a capable and confident service they wouldn't need to operate their guarantee in such a murky, nontransparent manner. Once I tried to get my money back, since I didn't even pick a design or winner amongst the awful TEN submissions I received for roughly 500 dollars; I realized that they had no intention of giving ANYONE's money back.

It's shocking, that's all I can say. It's ruining an industry and giving designers a bad name. Underqualified designers/computer users plagerising and copying each others work and just churning out stock images and vectors from free sites. Even tweaking these images to try and get by the copyright laws. It's a minefield. You might get a cheap logo, but god only knows what awaits down the line if you've (your designer) has infringed copyright law.

I'm a designer and heard about this site via a colleague so decided to have a look a signed up. $200 for a logo contest, 300 logo's submitted of which almost none were original work, $200 is cheap for a logo, yes. So well done if you get the dream logo, but was it done by the designer, where did the work really come from? Reverse Google your logo and see, you'll be suprised.

The designers are told add on work, or future work from winning a contest is the way to go and it's dangled in front of you, little do they know that there is a 24 month period whereby if the contest holdeer users them they have to pay 99designs a sort of finders fee, in axcess fo $1000 I beleive.

Do yourself a favour, find a graphic designer. You may pay a little more, but the entire design process will be a revalation to you. Consultation, creativity and originality cost money. Pay a little more and get a lot more from the quality of work, to satisfaction and peace of mind.

99designs is a sad sad concept that manipuilates an industry and belittles genuine creatives.

I was pressured to sign up for this in college. I was going to recommend this to a few of my friends because I thought the concept is great for designers who want to make money. However having it for a few weeks, it's nothing but an additional necessary headache that I don't want anyone to endure, not even people I despise.

A lot of requests there have very fast turnover rates, in that case, it would be difficult to come up with something breathtaking in two days. With that being said, you could follow what the customer or client wants and they would still tell you they don't like it. I didn't like the rating concept nor do I appreciate seeing other people creating designs similar to mine after viewing mine.

If you want to make money, seriously network and find real clients who aren't jerks like this. This website is so difficult to work with especially if you don't see your client on the other end. Constructive criticism isn't even the word used to describe how a design can get a poor rating because the client fails to see what THEY want themselves.

The contests idea is pretty cool until you realize you submit work to them numerous times and haven't made a single buck in weeks. It's a waste of time. Seriously, don't bother with this. If you're a designer and think you're getting quick money by using website like 99Designs or similar places that offer you freelance work, think again. Research first.

As a client I cannot say I am amazed at the designers reviews because a lot of the comment could be justifiable. There are too many people out there who don't understand what leadership is and how to collaborate with people.

I can say that as a client I did the following and had an excellent experience;

Be ethical - if a designer comes up with a concept only work with them to improve. Don't take shortcuts and select a design that someone has copied. Put in the time and effort.

Be respectful - respect the designers, provide positive feedback, understand that there may be language barriers, understand that there are different time zones & possibly multiple contests running.

Be honest - designers are spending a lot of time & so are you (if you follow point 1) only work on value added tasks & designs.

I found this to be an excellent experience because there are so many designers with different backgrounds, genders & industries. This provides an extremely diverse range of designs to select from and work with for the best outcome.

I'm a designer with 99designs. Recently I entered a contest and submitted a design, very simple and focused on the brief. The client was pleased with it and rated it 4 stars (out of 5). Then many participants started copying my design with very slight tweaking. I brought this to the clients notice pointing out that I was the first to come up with that particular concept and my design is being copied. The client reassured me and said he'd keep that in mind.
To my horror, in the end he awarded the prize money to a designer who had copied my design almost 99% (guess that's why they call it 99designs).
Also repeated mails to 99designs to intervene yielded no result. Zilch!

To all who say it's great and stop whining you're just part of them, 99designs is a mess and no one cares about designers rights, when you spend a lot of time on something just as the brief says, then you get eliminated in seconds, and when it's not blind and the client don't give a F about your efforts or ideas then that's the real disaster, when a new designer come and collect ideas then add an extra silly move, the client say wow you are creative! Now let's eliminate the others, another one comes and add something then the client eliminate the previous work! And we have a new star and so on... so the the summary is that we are "The Designers" is the main and the only victims, clients can end contest or refund i'm sure there's a solution, so please designers STAY AWAY and let's have some dignity, something is wrong there... specially that site, respect your work and experience.

Haha, seems like so many bad reviews.
Between, I'm an UI designer.
You know what?
One contest holder has clearly stated his design brief and he mentioned he want super clean design. Then he rated me 2 stars, he commented 'yes it's clean but it has no personality. your design i can buy via wordpress theme store for $20. to get to the top your design still need more work.'

one thing i'm not really satisfied:
what is actually a great personality of web design?
even i searched via google and returned 0 results.
what is that thing huh??
contest holder issue or mine?

excuse me?
anyone?

This site promises you a way to build your career and portfolio while making money. This couldn't be farther from the truth and in reality diminishes the profession and the creativity of a graphic designer. You put in countless hours into contests with minimal odds of you winning. Pretty straight forward but after a couple weeks of watching and submitting to contests I noticed a few thing that should drive every designer, amateur or experienced, away from this site.

1) Contests disappear regularly without warning. This mean all your work (while having low odds in the first place) was for not. For the contests that do stay up you can be contacted by the client to change this and that just to have them eliminate you completely.

2) There is little to protect your work. In open contests you are constantly subject to forgery by other designers. 99designs seem to have no issue with this. This is probably because once you submit a design it is theirs. There is no way to retract your work.

3) This is an homage to #1 but not only do designers copy your work but so do the clients. They can easily cancel a contest after designs are submitted and steal your design which is probably the reason so many contests disappear.

When I questioned 99designs about the above concerns my account was suspended due to "sub-standard work" and I was told to educate myself and return. I have over 4 years freelance work, a client base to back me up, and a degree. From the other reviews I have read this is a common occurrence when designers question their sketchy practices. It's their way to silence any negativity on their site to help them maintain a false positive image.

99designs is the equivalent of a 3rd world sweat shop or a pyramid scheme. They pump out all this hype of success and riches while in reality they pay chump change and steal your work. They profit off those that dont know better while putting minimal effort in themselves and silence anyone that remotely questions their ethics.

If you have any respect for your profession stay away. Build a portfolio and market yourself through Linkedin or other similar sites.

If you're a serious designer this is not the site for you. I work as a professional designer and after I had a complaint that buyers kept canceling the competitions after work was submitted and said I think it's a scam, they emailed me this.

Thank you for your interest in 99designs. However, the current quality of your work does not fit our site standards. As a result, we have placed your account on hold.

We encourage you to take 3 months to improve your design skills. We suggest finding tutorials online to improve your design skills heres a great starting point: http://99designs.com/designer-blog/category/design-tips-and-resources/

After 3 months, we encourage you to come back and reapply to be part of the community. How to re-apply:

Create a portfolio of 4 to 5 new designs in vector PDF file format
Send your new designs to *******@99designs.com with the subject line Portfolio review: louiseasha

We will then review your work and determine if your account will be reactivated.

Thank you and we look forward to reviewing your work in 3 months.

Regards
99designs Community Team

Really? I have photos showing the bias I am talking about and really would just like to let people know they shouldn't waste their time. You're better than this garbage site.

Recently launched a packaging design contest. Guaranteed the prize to attract more designers as suggested by the company's blog post - HUGE MISTAKE! Even purchased their 99-dollar worth of marketing bundle to promote the contest - another MISTAKE! So the results? Only about 6 designers participated - among the 30 designs submitted, none of them are high quality. All of them look as if they were done within 5 to 10 minutes. Very amateur looking terrible designs.
Lesson learned! I will never use 99designs ever again! If you want a good design done, look elsewhere. Save your money and thank me later.

I'm a designer working full time in a graphic studio and doing occasional freelancing. I've been winning identity and packaging contest on this site since the month I signed up and those are my thoughts about it: A designer can make some money out of this site provided that she doesn't do much research beforehand and goes with first, obvious, mainstream ideas. Cliché is given applause. Too many dots to connect is not welcome.

I've won with designs that made my boss, an art director with a fine art degree and 25 years in the advertising go 'meh', and got eliminated after submitting great, creative designs made after hours of research and brainstorming. To have good work rejected and get paid for mediocre work is well, kind of disappointing.

Company owners who use this site instead of finding a designer in their area don't care for design much, really. They just want a pretty picture. There are exceptions among the contest holders, though. Companies just starting out and on a tight budget, who will very likely replace the place-holder identity from 99designs within a year, if they will survive that long. Then there are ones who don't know any better, but have time on their hands to guide designers (well, pixel pushers in that case) to a decent solution.

Design quality seems to be slightly better in the platinum category, but there are platinum users who do design below site's average and basic users who do better than platinum but just didn't sign up to platinum verification.

Another issue is the business model 99designs has that is hurting designers both on and off the site: every designer on 99designs works on speculation of getting paid, which basically means free work, unprotected with any agreement until (maybe) awarded, which means contest holders can save the propositions and cancel the contest, share the insights a designer has made in an attempt to sell her design in public comments and to promote/rate high on copycats. Faint chance of winning a contest a designer is really interested in, means having the urge to join mare contests, spending less time on each one. The result being lower quality work and giving the designer profession a bad name.