99designs

Maybe this could be a great service, however, my first experience with 99 designs has not been great. We choose the Silver, 3 day contest and payed extra for blog promotion and fast 3 day delivery. The "promise" is lots of response from top designers. We've had 4 responses to our contest, all of very poor quality. So my advise is: when you have no experience with setting up contests, either contact the customer service to help you or choose to work with a designer you like directly. Big cheer to the customer service, they are very helpful and respond quickly!

I got a lot of great covers to choose from very promptly. They kept to their timetable very well and designers were quite responsive

The all concept, the details and the process of 99Designs is very well done and professional! However in the first drafts I got few designs of the logo and when I asked for adjustments I had to commit 100% that is fine, but that all depends on the designers you get! One of them was very willing and quick on doing revisions, others not really and one refused all together, instead giving me advise on what to do... At last I picked a logo and then purchased another design package that offers the business card, branding and facebook cover for an extra $250 and that was fine. However that was done quickly and not as nice! Most important for me was to get the original and editable files, instead I the files they sent me are all flattened out, not quite editable and for the fonts they just gave me the name, not the actual original. Even if that would be a separate charge I would be willing to pay for if but they should have give me that option and say that before... Maybe any other customer may be more lucky and get everything done super nice because the concept and the process are very nicely done!

I had a horrible experience with a designer. I reported him to them and nothing was done about it. I left an honest review about my experience and the work provided and he went on google and yelp and spammed my business profile with bad reviews. I contacted 99 design to let them know and nothing was done and to top it off yelp and google won't remove the reviews. Be very careful with that site! The designer was "Arteam_design"

So I got a silver contest for a brand design. Got 500+ designs. Much more than the promised 60. Many looked very much alike and contestants kept mimicking each other. Most did not follow the brief and ignored messages about things they should and shouldn't do. Many did not seem to speak proper English. It cost me much more time than expected, logo files are visually of good quality but require some tweaking before print after 7 days of revisions with a designer in a completely different timezone.

End result is nice, but the road there was tough, price paid was too high for what I got. Will not do this again for logo design. Fiverr is probably a better idea, will probably find someone with a style I like and ask them for something original in the future. Will contact 99designs staff about this though.

I got an offer for logo design for $19 with two concepts, after a week i was given two concepts, the two concepts did not include the colors i have mentioned or the logo styles i gave as example. They literally remade someones logo, second round came up and same wrong colors and not even close to the concepts i shared. Its a simple logo for a business no fancy icons just text and yet they made them like its 1980's. Asked for refund told me i am not eligible for it. Such a shady place, the first call they gave me is to upsell services before we begin the project. They are so rude in communication...Dont fall for their low prices

Exploitation of designers. Too many hours of work wasted to this platform. Asking for revision without a clear winning.

Very useful for creating branding logo for our non-profit organization. The designer we ended up choosing was a delight to work with. Great value!

The designer I worked with was very unpleasant.Costumer service is not much help and receiving a refund is significantly difficult.I recommend that you look elsewhere for design services where quality is of importance.

I am a designer and I've been registered recently, but I had enough time on this platform to understand how everything works. (more than 6 months)
It is a total scam for professional designers. They keep the best designers and the most creative ones to entry level and they let mid and top level copy and steal the concepts from the first ones. I have experienced more than 3 times this kind of modern scamming. They take my concepts, modify the design slightly so they would give the same exact response at the end (that the overall look is different and the concept is common so they didn't steal it from me) and let the amateurs win. Ironically nobody thought of that exact idea before I submitted it. Most of the designers have 0 creativity so they go on by stealing other people's ideas. Even in a blind contest I was scammed. The client himself showed my concepts to another designer and he mixed them and won the contest at the end. I noticed from the usage of the same exact font and color palette, which is totally impossible in blind contests where nobody can see what I've submitted, unless the client sends my work to them (or the platform does in this case).
I would not recommend this platform for professional designers, and the clients have been unsatisfied more and more because all the best designers have left this platform. I will probably be gone too, very soon. Even when the winner has not copied the design from other contestants, they copy it from the internet and the clients end up paying $400 for a $5 logo or even worse (someone won, in one of the contests I participated, using a free logo from freepik.com and he just outlined it). Pretty unbelievable, but it happened!
I wrote this and wanted to be 100% honest because I would have wanted to read this before I registered to that awful workplace.

99designs is by far the best site for an independent author to find a book cover design that will enhance their work. It's no secret that title and cover are the two first signals to a potential buyer/reader. 99designs puts one in front. My friends loved the polls I sent out. I received over one hundred fifty designs and thoroughly enjoyed the process of finding the one I liked best. I recommend this site to anyone out there who isn't scared to invest a few bucks in what will be a gold mine of design.

Design you will receive are often copied, use stock icons and stock fonts. Any proactive requests to try and work with 99 designs to get the outcomes you want will be dismissed in the name of efficiency.

Almost 10 years following the contest at 99designs. Have won many contests there and got regular clients, but only because the ip and payment address are the same as my wife's, my wife's account was deleted because it was considered a double account. And I sent a message to support only in reply the system they have like that. The automated system which they say is sophisticated but looks stupid and they are not responsible for my loss. From my lost projects and clients. And no awards have been received for almost 10 years of working there. Like your time is wasted there

I have won several times as designer, and it's important for me to find clients that are easy to work with. Although you can't always win, even when you have provided designs that will work better than the ones chosen by the clients in the end, you can always learn and place the unused design to your portfolio. Also, there can be other opportunities from 1-to-1 projects and—as your skills grow and made it as a top level designer—offer your services without having to go through complex contest processes.

Edit:
Changed review after customer service sorted it all out. Helpful and polite.

(A little sad I had to go to social media to resolve probelm, but, all's well that ends well, I guess.)

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.

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.

For the first time customer, there is no option to create a "blind" contest. All designers can see what other designers are submitting. Then they will wait until the last minute and flood you with similar submissions in the hopes that you irrationally pick theirs. I was also told by a designer to delete certain designs based on rule violations.

Customer service didn't read my emails thoroughly and kept suggesting things that I already disputed. Then once the contest completed (I used guaranteed payout) I've still not heard back from any of them... sad

The designer we ended up choosing was polite and easy to work with. But, we had 200 submissions of very similar logo's.

99Designs have connections to the best designers. I was given so many wonderful designs for my book cover. I had a hard time choosing the best one! I will be using them for all my future projects!

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 hate to leave a negative review for an Australian company because I use to live here. Their designers are really stupid and dumb. They miss spelled my company's name on the logo. You could of even copied and paste it from my brief? Duh? Support doesn't want to help with back and forth useless information. They job is not protect the stupid designers so they too must be stupid. $450 wasted for some idiot and dumb company.

I am graphic designer from last 3-4 years, specialised in Logo design and Stationery designs. I earned nice and positive feedback from my clients all the time by providing them best quality work with all necessary formats. But recently I tried 99designs because I had heard so much appreciation that this market place respects designers and pays the money worth to design, not like useless fiverr with just 5 dollars logos... I tried 99designs but after submitting best of my work, they refused me to take. I thought, may be there standards are much higher, then I approve my work and again try to get in but again rejection, I tried three times on 99designs with different emails because they only gave 2 chances on one email under one year time period. But all the time, they sent emails with full of love and best wishes but with REJECTIONS... So much I have to say about that ***** marketplace but... So disappointed that in todays time, no one is taking new registrations seriously, I'm talking about new registrations, not the newbies* thanks for the time... And if anyone from 99designs community is reading this, take some time to accept new registration

99Designs was recommended to me by a friend when I needed a logo design and business cards for my new company. I've just received the final design and I am over the moon with it. In fact, I had responses from over 40 designers within a matter of days - which gave me plenty of options to choose from. The designers are all highly responsive to feedback. I am very happy with the process, the support from 99Designs, the quality of the design work and also the pricing. Highly recommend it.