99designs is a site where businesses small and large can create contests with prizes in order to get logos and other design work for an amount they can afford. Designers are free to enter whichever contests catch their eye and should they win, they’ll be awarded the prize. Prize money varies according to what the contest holders want and how big a business they are so logos go for as little as $100 whereas full websites or branding can be in the region of $1000.
There’s some debate about whether or not contests like these ‘devalue’ designers. Sitepoint has an article praising design contests which is no surprise since 99designs spun off from their site. For the record, I agree with Sitepoint’s article; if designers want to increase their value, then they shouldn’t enter the contests for low prizes (which isn’t quite the point I think they intended). Of course amateurs still will but then it’ll be a case of ‘pay peanuts, get monkeys’. Which is a shame for some of the really small, local outfits who simply want a nice logo to put on the shop.
What bothers me most, however, is the number of contest holders who seem to have put little or no thought into their business names or what they want their branding to actually achieve.
Take, for example, the recently launched contest for crankybear.com’s logo. Can you guess what they sell? I bet you can’t. And since the brief asks for inclusion of bear elements rather than anything to do with their goods, the logo won’t leave you any the wiser either.
Crankybear.com will sell women’s lingerie. Right. ‘Bear’ is slang for a butch homosexual man like the blokes from Bearlesque (marginally not safe for work - they’re a burlesque troupe). ‘Cranky’ mostly means ‘odd’ or ‘erratic’ and, in this country at least, is best used to describe a woman with PMT/PMS. It makes no sense. They have immediately given themselves an uphill struggle to attract and maintain customers.
Then there’s a logo contest for Aggregated Media and it does exactly what it says on the tin. They offer tools that are supposed to make it easier to get to content: Quick, easy, simple. Try saying Aggregated Media five times, heck, try spelling it right five times. It is neither quick, easy nor simple. You know what is quick, easy and simple? Fark. Twitter. Digg. Seeing a pattern?
That’s two examples taken from the latest contests and they’re not alone in their lack of forethought. Usually when a company seeks branding, they talk to a branding consultant but not everyone can afford that. However, if they’re competent enough to use an online contest to get their logo, they should also be capable of using their search engine of choice to read up on business names and branding. The examples above are rookie mistakes that stem from picking a name out of the air without properly researching it but by using a design contest. These are mostly start-up companies for whom it would not be impossible to simply change their name but by using a design contest rather than a branding professional, they’re bypassing the one person who could help them with that.
Starting a business yourself and don’t want to make these mistakes? I’ll post some resources tomorrow that you should read whether you’re looking to brand yourself, your offline shop, a potentially massive online community or something else entirely.
