So you’ve read all about the pros and cons of freelance designing through bidding websites in my previous post A Design for the Freelance Life… Part 1 and now it’s time to find out the upsides and downsides of designing through competition sites, where work is done before you’ve even been paid.

Competition Sites

Like freelance bidding sites, there is no shortage of competition websites out there, with a quick Google search bringing up at least 10 sites specifically promoting just logo design. Of these sites, I frequented two main sites in the hope of increasing my portfolio and being able to secure clients for the future. These were 99Designs and crowdSPRING.

Although the idea sounds good – design logos on spec in the hope that the client picks you, and if not, it’s good experience – it quickly becomes apparent that the posters sometimes have no idea what they want, and if they do, it’s not easily translated into the brief. What this does provide though is experience of being able to read what another person wants, all of the little details, and also being able to take criticism, not only from the host but from fellow competitors.

The downsides to this are as plentiful as the upsides. You’re doing the work before you’re paid, which I was always lead to believe, at least in part, was a big no-no in the design game. Another is that you’re work is going on display, in full view of the rest of the competition (unless it’s a blind contest) which may lead to bouts of plagiarism and stealing, something which is quite hard to prove due to the artistic nature of the design process. We all get our inspiration from somewhere right?

99Designs

99Designs is the first website I used as a freelancer and at first loved the idea behind the site. As described above, I was doing work on spec and understanding clients, and also improving my time spent in Illustrator. This was all well and good, but I was not actually getting anywhere as none of my designs were picked as winning entries. I slowly started to understand that you had to have a lot of patience (but in a different way than the Bidding sites patience), and get used to the fact you might sit there for hours designing something that might ultimately be ignored. Similar in a way to bidding sites also, is sometimes the competition come to nothing as the hosts can’t (or even forget to) pick a winner, leaving a possible hundred entrants to think ‘Have I just wasted my time?’

One of the first you’ll probably notice, is that a lot of the prize prices are actually in line with the normal rates that designers tend to quote. Similar to Get A Freelancer, you do get the odd low price prize for a logo or web design, but these are rare in occurrence, and the lowest possible prize is $100 which makes it over three times better than Get A Freelancer’s lowest bids. Another thing also is in a lot of the competitions, the hosts will be actively involved in the contest while it is active, marking the entries stars out of 5 and personally commenting on their favourites, and providing valuable feedback. The only fault with this is that if there’s 50 entries and out of them, and 5 receive receive four or five stars, some unsavoury users have a bad habit of trying to copy and better the ones that have received the praise. Another irksome matter is people who receive bad feedback, or suggestive comments trying to help them, they take the seemingly snotty approach by withdrawing all of their entries and not bothering with any new designs.

crowdSPRING

Unlike the comparisons between Get A Freelancer and Elance on the Bidding post, the comparisons between 99Designs and crowdSPRING are minimal with only a few details to explain. The basic premise of the site remains identical to 99Designs, where users enter competitions designing logos and brochures etc in the hope of winning the prize on offer. Also, similar to the way Elance compares to Get A Freelancer, crowdSPRING automatically seems more professional, right from the outset. Prizes seem even more in line with professional quotations, and the hosts genuinely seem to know what they want and are able to describe in more detail than 99Designs. Well, most of the time anyway.

A good feature that both websites have is a blind contest feature (99Designs) or private contest (crowdSPRING) which enables the host to view all of the entries in private, without others users being able to take ‘inspiration’ from earlier entries. Another handy feature featured on both websites is a guaranteed or ‘escrow’ system of securing funds so that if a winner is picked, the victor will definitely be paid – taking away one vital concern for any freelance designer out there. One thing that crowdSPRING does seem to have though is an emphasis on community, with an active blog providing users with tips and advice and sources of great inspiration and a healthy forum. 99Designs does have a blog, but this seems to be aimed towards crediting 99Designs and their associated achievements.

Overall, personally, competition sites like those above are a great way of entering the freelance game without having to establish client lists and portfolios, and I would advise on starting on these type of sites for experience and for building your portfolio. Although your portfolio is checked (I found this out via my Google Analytics after receiving a lot of hits off a university, for which I’d entered competition to design their new logo on a competition site… ) the emphasis is based more on whether you can interpret client’s briefs and design what they want – a great starter for when you go freelance full-time. Sometimes, you do get the odd finnicky client, asking you to change this, that and the other and then not picking you at all, but these are thankfully few and far between.

Unlike bidding sites and job sites, you know what you’re letting yourself in for by joining and participating in competition sites. In part 3, I’ll be concluding my posts on my experiences with freelancing and commentating on job sites, and the offer of freelance work in your area…