As many have said before if you decide to create an account as a designer you get bundled into a verification process which seems like its a bot or if not someone ticking boxes on a design but 'luckily' their design gods of a quality team verified my account.

I can't say whether or not new designers coming onto the platform would be better but some of the designs currently are horrible, some are copied straight from a Google search, some are from logo generation websites, some are just so bad or off brief that it amazes me they passed their quality checks. The worst part of all is some designs break copyright law but win contests without DesignCrowd (DC) ever checking it over before paying out, if you are a business owner using DC please make sure you check designs are ORIGINAL before choosing them.

I personally only ever had one experience with DC's support team and that was when a business owner didn't understand that all the relevant files they wanted had been put into one single folder and thought I was trying to rip them off (Don't worry I wasn't) DC's support team without checking asked, no wait, DEMANDED I hand over the files, once I explained to the support team member it was all in one and everything was there I never heard from them again not even a confirmation message to show they checked. Not the worst dealings I've had in my time but also not the best - the team member came across as rude and impolite.

Dealing with clients / business owners was probably the easiest part of this whole process most were friendly, easy to deal with and some even skipped DC and emailed me off site to do more work.

I will say the pricing is very low, not to mention if a client pays for a design in anything other than pounds (GBP) I would often lose money due to the conversion rates, this made going for any jobs not based in the UK a chore specially if the client wants a few revisions and I found myself skipping over jobs from other countries. If you are looking at DC as being anything other than a way of developing your skills with the different briefs and potentially getting some money for the practice then you'll be disappointed, DC is NOT a viable alternative for a full time job.

Overall if you are a designer I'd say to avoid DesignCrowd; the prices are low, an almost non-existent support staff, briefs vary from being extremely detailed to a barren wasteland of information and even if you read this and decide to give it a go please only use it as a way to sharpen your skills don't go quitting your job to make this your main source of income its not that kind of site.