99designs Reviews

There are very few interesting projects to illustrate.
Logos are everywhere.
You give up and start making logos too. Clients can change the brief or choose something completely different from what they originally asked for. That's their right, but it's frustrating if you spent more than 5 hours on a logo for free.
If you think your design looks great, but the client gave it a bad rating, you won't be able to add it to your portfolio, as if this is not the subjective opinion of a person who does not design at all, and your work is of poor quality.
If you want to make money, you need to track orders and do something every day. Do you have time for free work? There is no guarantee that you will make money on your next order, but you might get lucky.
Yes, for poor countries one gain = monthly salary. But you don't win every competition, and you don't win all the time. Don't think that 99 designs will save you from poverty.

If you don't have a portfolio, use 99 designs. You can parse 15 designs in 28 days. Create them all and... Look for a permanent job because you now have a portfolio.

The practice is the only plus of this site. You will receive real tasks to complete them. Perhaps you will receive a nice bonus - money. But you definitely need a regular job where you can talk to a client, make edits and get guaranteed money.

A client can ignore your ideas, not go to the site, postpone the choice of the winner for a week, not answer you, close the contest ahead of time, even if you managed to discuss something and you made edits for it. He just decides to stop submits artwork and choose someone else, even though he loved your design so much. The guaranty won't help. Clients can unlock their contest at any stage, even when it's day 60. And you won't get anything as a finalist.

99 designers are a toy. If you always have extra time or designs to spare, then this is worth a try.
If you want a portfolio, you should give it a try.

But don't take anything seriously. You don't have normal customer feedback, you can't discuss anything, you can't offer sketches and discuss an idea. You just do the design with your eyes closed and it all depends on luck.

I've seen really cool guys get 1 star and ignored, so don't think professionalism will help you win enough contests.

99 designs is a demo version of a designer's simulator.

SLAVERY AND THE IDIOTIC CUSTOMERS ARE PURE IDIOTS WHO WANT QUALITY FOR PENNIES, LISTEN TO ME BOSSES OF IDIOTIC COMPANIE: $#*! YOURSELF IN THE GRAVE!

While I liked working with the particular designer who did my logo, the process at 99designs didn't meet my expectations at all. The contest idea felt a little misleading, as you're guaranteed "30 designs," for example, but really, most of those are just a designer submitting the same design with different font options or icon-based designs, which I could have done myself. I was far from impressed with most of the designers and especially with the number of options for the contest. I debated about hiring a designer directly (which would have cost a third to half the price) and probably would have netted me the same result. It felt expensive and underwhelming.

The level of work does not always correspond to the promised standards. Often, designers make work of frankly garbage quality and you can't hide it. But at the same time, the selection criteria are simply unrealistic. Register and work IMPOSSIBLE! Don't waste your time!

I really was enjoying the whole process, until all the hard work was done and I had a poll set up and emailed to all my people, that one of the logos was taken down because it was a stock photo. So basically out of 6 designs on poll one was off thats 15% of my creativity and all the days work put in to it was waste. I am glad it was detected but it seriously affected my logo selection process. Also I was not offered any compensation apart from thats I can select a new design. How in the world thats an option when I have submitted the poll by email, thats extremely embarrassing. As a small scale start up business I felt this was great option, but I felt let down. The designer who won and all the designers who submitted were great but one bad apple spoilt the taste and the nature of this experience.

99designs is a fantastic way to get many different concepts for your project. The designers are fast, talented, and kind.

Nothing feels better than getting what you exactly paid for. After working with two freelancers and paying for designs I won't use. Thankfully I learned about 99designs from a friend and it didn't disappoint me. I was happy to work with talented designers and got a design that I fell in love with.

You would probably get many designs, but with little to no creativity. In our case we got over 200 different options, but all fairly standard. This is not the right place to look for something out of ordinary.

It's a great program. You can get many different designers with talent competing for your business. You can see other perspectives and not be stuck with one graphic design. We will use them again.

I had a great experience with 99designs! I chose the cheapest logo package, so didn't get a ton of submissions, but expected that. However, there were 2 that were great, and the one I ended up choosing, I'm super happy with. I felt like the user experience was easy, especially all the prompts for the creative brief. I am looking into working with my designer on another project.

We used 99d for 2 back-to-back logo redesigns. After the 1st was so impressive, we immediately started a 2nd contest. We knew we wanted complimentary logos for sister companies and the designer really picked out the elements that were specific to each company. We received many more choices than we expected and found it to be well worth the money spent. We will use the site again.

I was ready to complete my second book's cover, but in the end didn't have enough faith that it was good enough and asked for feedback. I was told it and the first book would not stand up in the crowd, and for a little bit more, I could have paid for a 99 designs cover. I went with that advice and am blown away at the improvement I received by the winning designer. Now I have someone I plan to use going forward and I hope sales on my book will rebound once I release this sparkling new beauty on top.

Wanting to write and deciding to publish is a daunting experience for any new author. When it came time to choose a cover I realised this might be a show stopper, being on a tight budget. I opened a competition and in came 99 designs! When you have this picture in your head and then you see it in colour in front of you down right to the smallest detail, it is a relief. Thank you 99 designs.

I bought the silver package and ended up purchasing 5 different designs to be used overtime. I had over 200 submissions of designs. A lot of good idea and please.

I would recommend 99 Designs for anyone embarking on a logo or design project. The site is easy to use and the designers were all helpful

Piggy back designers off other off another. Do not use them. I found a designer on my own who was actually superb and he told me his application to go after jobs on there was rejected, just goes to sho 99 doesn't know what they are doing.

I was on this site some years ago as a designer and I immediately noticed that the "best" (or highest voted) designs by the person running the contest would IMMEDIATELY start getting copied to the point that it looked like it was just one designer creating most the designs.
Also, if you are not seen as "good enough" which on 99designs seems to mean if you refuse to simply work off of the designs that are being highly votes, then you are not a good designer and you get booted off the site, which is what happened to me.
That's not the worst of it. If you are booted of, you can NEVER get back on. I guess people don't improve! Mind you, I am a graphic designer. I do this for a living. I sell my designs on many items everyday. I think this policy is idiotic and they really need to change their contest process so you just don't end up with hundreds of copycat designs. Where's the creativity in that?
If you are a serious designer with creativity and your own mind/personality, I would avoid this site. You will end up wasting many hours entering contests. And when you refuse to go along with the crowd long enough, you will get booted... PERMANENTLY!
(PS: please don't get the wrong impression that I didn't follow the design briefs. I always worked within what the customer was asking for.)

I will definitely not be using 99designs again. Only 3 designers offered designs, so from the get-go, I felt pressure to use stuff I wasn't in love with. Each designer was on the other side of the planet, making timely communication difficult, especially adding to the time pressure as contests wound down. The communication and file sharing interface is TERRIBLE. I was frustrated every day while trying to navigate 99designs as the middleman between the designer and myself. Then I did some research non how much of my money (mean how little) the designer gets to keep and was furious. Skip 99 designs and find a designer directly. 99 deserves $0 for their efforts.

I've used this site several times now for both personal and business designs and it just couldn't be easier. I was so pleased in two contests I chose two designs because I liked them so much. I would highly recommend.

I was looking for a similar service when I stumbled upon their website and it's One of the things that that made me use their service. The website was quite the charmer.

I was a bit nervous at first about running a design contest on 99Designs since I wasn't really familiar with them. But I'm so glad I took the chance. The level of talent on the site is amazing, and it was great fun to be presented with approximately 25 potential covers. It was very tough to pick a winner. It's also really nice that you can set your own budget. I'd definitely use them again.

I enjoyed the whole contest. The hardest part was choosing a winner from over 30 designs and a dozen designers. It's a good value for the money, and well worth the tax deductible expenditure. I'll be using 99d for future projects.

I saved 1000s by using them. I recommend using them instead of an expensive web designer. T

The turnaround time is quick.

First time using 99designs and was nervous and skeptical. Paid the fee and a flood of designs came in each awesome and according to what I wanted. I paid for 30 designs (approx) and received over 60! The final design for my book cover was MORE than I thought I wanted. Definitely using them again. Dont be scared. If you do a contest and you don't find a design you like, you get a refund.

Book artomatic for ANY JOB, you will not be disappointed, a true prodigy!! He listened to my brief and I barely had to make any changes. (which is insane because I can always find stuff) I only asked him to add a few special symbols to incorporate into the design which he did subtly and beautifully, barely any revisions!! book him!!! artomatic!