99designs

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"

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.

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.

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 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.

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

Never... ever again... 600US$ and 1 month lost to get a mediocre design. My advice... hire a designer you like forget contests.

I joined 99designs, last weekend. I did a few logo designs here and there for a couple of days, then bam, out came the ban hammer. This solidifies that they are a scam and how would you know. My work was awful? I've been designing for 5 years now and did a lot of work for clients. Most of them are happy with my designs. In the end, stay away from this bull$#*! of a site.

By suspending accounts and not offering a different way to participate to improve, is not very encouraging of designers to want to come back and participate.

Funny how I was in the running to win one contest, and received very good feedback from another and now somehow after 2 years, the quality of my work is what? Bahahahaha

With sites like designhill, designcrowd, there is a whole world where I would rather participate and I do and make money.

Don't bother with 99designs, not like they pay benefits or support people working.

Staff use racist and homophobic insults when dealing with disputes. Truly a disgraceful business

Upon doing a one to one project, the work was so bad it could have been done by a child. Had to laugh it was so bad otherwise the only option is to cry.

There is no way out then, even if the work is bad. You have to pay those disgusting sums of money for work that a toddler could do better.

A scam of a company with a disgusting attitude

As a client you may get cut price designs, you may even get something wonderful you didn't expect, also you may receive lazy and sub standard artwork. From the designers point of view it is a system of exploitation. Please don't use this site for your design needs. Talk to designers and research your freelancers, pay them fairly for the job they do. If this is the future of our industry we are staring into black.

I was also suspended on 99design and I have over 10 years experience, they said my work quality is not good enough which is absurd, I worked for top agencies, I wrote several times to support because I simply was humiliated by their rejection as long as 99% of the logos on 99 design are a joke, and every time I had the same automated answer that my quality of work is not good enough without taking in consideration my portfolio I submitted.

I'm currently fighting over my refund. I butted heads with my logo designer and decided I couldn't work with her. During my dispute I tried contacting my project manager (which I paid extra for) and she was not available for the whole thing. I decided it was just best to part ways and go a different route. I know they have a money back guarantee on their website but they will not honor it. My project manager told me I already picked a winner so the project is completed. I chose a winner but never clicked to finalize it because my designer sent me mock pictures of my logo, which looked nothing like my design I picked. That was the whole reason I would not finalize it yet they told me just because I picked the designer that it was completed which is false.

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?

They treat you like you are not their client. They just want money and provide no service or support. The "packages" they offer are all the result of poor designers' good will, efforts and hard working (they have no part in this service except taking money). They are not transparent and unclear with their terms of service. I don't recommend them at all.

It may not be everyone's experience, but mine was so poor I am actually writing a review. I have dozens of projects on the horizon, and I thought I would test 99 Designs out with a simple Logo project to test the quality before committing large resources to them. I issued a very detailed brief, citing dozens of references, competition analysis, look and feel, colour persuasions etc. I got just over 50 designs back, some within minutes of posting (first red flag). Out of which, only 2 had bothered to read the brief. Dozens comprised of people simply typing the company name out in a very bad free font, and sending it back as if that was real design or effort. Most simply ignored the brief and one (Kelly Norman) actually argued with me that if I wanted revisions then don't pick them as they don't do revisions. Effectively - 'take my poor, off-brief logo or go away. Not only a violation of the basic terms, but also, who talks to a client like that? That is the kind of poor quality, low-level, amateur thinking non-designers I got. Others have faired better, but that's just my experience.

I had big projects to complete and a ton of money to spend and I needed a company that had it together. From what I saw in the reviews, I was scared to take a chance on unprofessional losers. One of the designers from 99designs that got suspended, ran into him at Starbucks, showed me some of his work and we are investing in him. Sometimes it pays to go to the real designer and their studio.