I recently spoke with Valerie Johnson, founder of Big Feet Pajama Company, to discuss why she has returned to 99designs.com time and time again when she needs custom graphic design work done. Over the past year, Valerie has used 99designs.com for custom logo design, web design and a host of other design needs for her business.

What brought you to 99designs?

In this economic climate we don’t have the need for a full time in-house designer, and designers are looking to find projects to work on to make some extra money…So your site is great on both sides. Through 99designs we have created a new logo, a whole new web site, some print collateral…in fact I’ll be running a new project in a month or so for a four page brochure that I’ll use at some upcoming trade shows.

Logo Design

What do you love most about getting design work done at 99designs.com?

When you hire one designer, either in-house or on a project basis, you only get their design aesthetic and are really stuck with their concept or vision. With the help of 99designs – you get ideas from so many different people. So what you may have had in your head as far as the concept, you might scrap once you see someone else’s vision.

That’s what I really like – is having so many different options to choose from. In fact the designers who have won my projects have been from all over – some from Bulgaria, the United States, Indonesia… so its really been interesting.

Web Design

Here’s some of the other design work Valerie has had done at 99designs

Postcard Design

Button Design for Website

Day in and day out we are blown away by the talent of the design community at 99designs.com. Here are just a few of our favorite designs from the past month (in no particular order):

Design Highlights

1. InZania web page design by Entertica
2. Fish on Fire logo design by Ulahts
3. Kona Jazz Festival logo design by Bold_Estudio
4. Hanger Alley logo design by Oliva
5. W1 logo design by Terry Bogard
6. Chimera Capital logo design by Wizmaya
7. Andi Gladwin web page design by Lene
8. SocialDressUp.com logo design by Ink
9. QFeeder web page design by Pdesignstudio

Which designs from the community have caught your eye?

Leave a comment and let us know.

Designer Profile

S. Riz – Toronto, Canada
99designs handle: Terry Bogard
Projects entered: 594
Projects won: 54

How did you get started in design?

Well I remember in school, my classroom’s bulletin board was filled with my drawings. My mom did quite a bit of drawing and my father was a very good poet, so I think I was born with the artist genes. Plus, I was lucky enough to have a lot of creative friends. One of my friends and I used to sketch fighting game characters and made storyboards for games just for fun. The first creative competition I ever entered was to design (shape) a game console for a worldwide contest. Later in 1993 when ATARI Jaguar (game console) was launched, I was happy to see that the design actually had a little bit of the angles I proposed. This alone felt like an achievement and motivated me to do small identity design projects from time to time. Later on I started working with a design studio where I learned more about identity design and market dynamics. That was the start of it really. I have no formal design education or background- I am self-taught.

How do you get your inspiration?

I think inspiration can come from anywhere – from an individual atom to the entire universe and everything in between. It’s all about observation and bringing your memory of visuals together FOR the right brand, AT the right time, WITH the right combination(s) and WHEN the need arises. But that does not mean that I’m just another creative junkie who is waiting for his next design hallucination. There is a process that formulates this creativity.

I think a product has both functional and emotional attributes. The functional attributes are the brand’s promise to its consumers, while the window to its emotional attributes is what design is really all about. Although design process will vary depending on the project, my most basic practice is to do a 20 second visual check where I brainstorm the keyword(s) that best describe the business or project I am working on. The idea is to know what emotions those keywords generate and what image those emotions translate into from a consumer standpoint.


What led you to start using 99designs.com?

I was at my office desk randomly looking at designs on sitepoint.com to pass some time, when I came across 99designs.com. I thought it was a great idea for both businesses and designers to come together on a platform that offers creativity from around the globe. I participated in a few contests just for fun and noticed that my designs were getting a lot of attention. I pretty much felt the same as I did when I entered the video game console-design contest back in my teens. After my first several contests I won one, and that’s when I started doing it more and more. Since then, the experience has been phenomenal and there has been a huge learning curve throughout. Watching the world design has helped me improve and deliver better each and every time. 50% of the projects that I won ended up with follow-on work. In fact there were times when even though I did not win, I was contacted and offered work. It helped me build a great portfolio and understand market dynamics. I have also made many friends from all over the world who have been extremely helpful and very appreciative. These are all very talented people with very respectful and professional attitude for the trade. I think 99designs is the only site that I have seen with so many contests running at the same time, so it’s a big opportunity to make money too.



What are the three most important things that designers can do to have success at 99designs.com?

I get asked this question a lot via private message but nobody ever asked about three things…LOL! Well, success for me is an ongoing process on 99designs.com, and it’s hard to close the box with 3 things only. As I mentioned earlier, it’s important to deeply consider brand & consumer psychology. Here’s my advice for those who have recently joined 99designs:

• Enter as many projects as you can to get a firm grasp on the whole process, from presenting a design to evolving it as necessary. This not only increases your chances of winning but also puts you in a design-groovy-mode and helps you to consistently generate creative ideas. It very soon becomes a chain reaction and everyone else tries to deliver better and better.

• Do a little research before drafting ideas and look at other designs to make sure your draft is not similar to anyone else’s. This will help you to not waste time on a design that someone else has already made and allow you to invest your time in something unique.

• Explain your thought process if you do something outside of what the client described in the brief – After all, you might be able to produce and envision something that the client did not. Have a positive influence on the community by being appreciative of others for constructive criticism. It has always helped me learn in one-way or another.

What do you love most about being a designer?

I think I’m no different than other creatives in terms of enjoying their work. I can simply put it this way – I love being paid for doing what I enjoy. Imagine being paid to have fun, eat and sleep. Designing is my passion and every creation of mine makes me feel great regardless if its sold or not. But getting paid to be passionate is just great.

Without further ado…It’s time to announce the winner of the:

99designs.com $1000 Design Makeover!

For those of you who don’t know, 99designs recently attended BizTechDay in San Francisco where we had a special offer for attendees – the chance to win $1000 USD credits to use at 99designs.com. To enter, attendees simply dropped their business cards in a bowl from which we would draw one lucky winner.

Here is a video of the official draw for the design makeover:

Congratulations James E. Sullivan of Optic Nerve Direct Marketing – You are the winner of the 99designs.com $1000 Design Makeover!

A roundup of tips and resources for designers, entrepreneurs and marketers that 99designs.com shared via twitter @99designs in the month of October.

Startup, Small Business & Marketing

9 Deadly Startup Diseases—and How to Cure Them – http://bit.ly/NkWuT

5 Crucial Email Marketing Tips – http://bit.ly/tZ2Wj

Preparing and Planning for a Redesign – http://bit.ly/1IJpef

38 Marketing Mistakes That You Don’t Want to Make – http://bit.ly/3qYJr5

Tips for Choosing a Business Name – http://bit.ly/3tripJ

10 Things Google has Taught Us – http://bit.ly/JkKCN

Twitter for Customer Service – http://bit.ly/4dPqx3

10 Important Tips to Optimize WordPress for Search Engines – http://bit.ly/7q5zB

Logo Design

2009 Logo Trends – http://bit.ly/Rj4tv

6 Characteristics of a Great Logo – http://bit.ly/14KVPs

60+ Resources for Logo Design – http://bit.ly/5BT6d

How to Effectively Clean up a Logo in Illustrator – http://bit.ly/1RiKpL

34 Excellent Punctuation Inspired Logo Designs – http://bit.ly/lH7Sj

Web Design

43 High Quality Tutorial Sites to Start Learning Web Design – http://bit.ly/6AC0t

Interactivity in Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide – http://bit.ly/2XwTrE

7 Key Principles That Make A Web Design Look Good – http://bit.ly/1cWpw4

Web Design Project Planning and Process – http://bit.ly/ry3g5

Different Methods for Choosing Color Schemes in Web Design – http://bit.ly/Yzkys

20 Do’s & Don’ts of Effective Web Design  – http://bit.ly/2Ac84e

30 Photoshop Tutorials for Specialized Websites – http://bit.ly/E8ytS

20 Mind Blowing Website Layout Tutorials in Photoshop – http://bit.ly/4smH2h

12 Useful Image Optimization Tools For Web Designers – http://bit.ly/4zxU3F

15 Common Mistakes in E-Commerce Design – http://bit.ly/NT5cb

Secrets From The World’s Top 20 Web Designers – http://bit.ly/3iJ0GV

13 Excellent Open Source Tools for Web Designers – http://bit.ly/3pXx1x

75 PSD to HTML Resources for Web Designers – http://bit.ly/38ni84

Top 10 Tutorials for Converting PSDs to HTML/CSS – http://bit.ly/hveVc

Modern CSS Layouts: The Essential Characteristics – http://bit.ly/B0aK7

Mastering CSS Coding: Getting Started – http://bit.ly/4gAjDV

3 Powerful Ways To Make Typography Talk On Your Website – http://bit.ly/2Cjll8

40 Quality Photoshop UI Design Tutorials – http://bit.ly/en4nU

Build a Slick Rich User Interface in Photoshop – http://bit.ly/4pVu7p

10 UX Blogs You Should Be Reading – http://bit.ly/3T0Wdk

WordPress & Blog Design

How to Make an Impressive Blog Layout in Photoshop – http://bit.ly/fCbEE

20 Creative WordPress Designs – http://bit.ly/mqxwn

How a Design Blog is Attractive to Clients – http://bit.ly/n3UN3

WordPress Theme Design in 4 Easy Steps – http://bit.ly/47NQ9t

17 WordPress Theme Design Tutorials – http://bit.ly/1DCJlQ

How to Make a Creative Blog Layout – http://bit.ly/3lVEe8

18 Examples of WordPress jQuery Plugins – http://bit.ly/2BCzQG

10 Useful WordPress Coding Techniques – http://bit.ly/14gOni

WordPress Theme Cheat Sheet for Beginners – http://bit.ly/3oa5my

Print Design

The Ultimate Round-Up of Print Design Tutorials – http://bit.ly/xaoeb

16 Prepress Tips For Graphic Designers – http://bit.ly/2RouQk

iPhone App Design

iPhone App Design Trends – http://bit.ly/3E1C7u

Setting Up Photoshop For Web, App and iPhone Development – http://bit.ly/TJx2F

55 Adobe Illustrator Icon Design Tutorials – http://bit.ly/nu3nM

General Techniques, Tools & Theory

Elements Of Design: The Line – http://bit.ly/2nsTf

Elements Of Design: Texture – http://bit.ly/cKQfx

Making A Clipping Mask With Text In Photoshop – http://bit.ly/lbpwh

800+ Photoshop Tutorials, Plugins and Brushes- http://bit.ly/2OEgXs

Photoshop Cheatsheets & Must Know Shortcuts – http://bit.ly/19sLcT

20 Handy Photoshop Tips For a Faster Workflow – http://bit.ly/3Dwaij

Advanced Photoshop Techniques – http://bit.ly/4DKleG

Create A Painted Text Effect In Illustrator – http://bit.ly/343wKm

Resources for Freelancing

50 Essential Web Apps for Freelancers – http://bit.ly/4oS8wD

Freelance Contracts: Do’s And Don’ts – http://bit.ly/1pmpYi

How To Respond Effectively To Design Criticism – http://bit.ly/mU8hu

The Art of Branding Yourself and Your Freelancing Business – http://bit.ly/35NnJF

Identity design process for a personal rebranding – http://bit.ly/c4cl9

12 Excellent And Useful Design Process Tutorials – http://bit.ly/6K5IY

How to Freelance from Just About Anywhere – http://bit.ly/4c2xy3

Design Inspiration

Inspirational Tips and Tools from a Designer – http://bit.ly/15awip

30 Clever And Creative Package Designs – http://bit.ly/2jbEmk

25 Beautiful Content Heavy Websites – http://bit.ly/3eu5gw

25 Excellent Examples of Using Texture in Web Design – http://bit.ly/2AI5sC

Beautiful Gradient Typography in Web Design – http://bit.ly/17XJU9

20 Essential Infographics & Data Visualization Blogs – http://bit.ly/1BNShl

40 Apple Inspired Photoshop Tutorials – http://bit.ly/Z66ss

Cool Miscellaneous

30 Tutorials for Designing Fun and Creative Characters – http://bit.ly/3ckf94

The Ultimate Round-Up Of T-Shirt Design Tutorials – http://bit.ly/21RA1B

Have you ever had a situation arise where you needed the skills of a graphic designer – FAST? We recently found ourselves in that position when 99designs.com got the opportunity to exhibit at BizTechDay in San Francisco – just two days before the show.

Immediately, we went into scramble mode to try to pull together a professional booth and just to make things a little more interesting – we decided that we wanted to run a special promotion for BizTechDay attendees. To make it happen, we needed a slick tabletop poster that described what we were offering.

It was a perfect opportunity to “eat our own dog food” and demonstrate how you can get fantastic custom design done in just 24 hours!

Here’s what we did:

We quickly posted a project on 99designs.com – briefly describing that we wanted a small table top poster that said:

Win a $1000 Design Make Over
for Your Business
from 99designs.com

We further indicated that we wanted the colors and style to be consistent with the overall look and feel of 99designs.

We offered $149 and “fast-tracked” the project so that it remained open for submissions for only 24 hours.

Here is the link to the project:
http://99designs.com/contests/30388

In 24 hours we got 123 custom designed submissions and were absolutely thrilled with the result.

Here is the winning poster from sonorocreative.

That’s right, 99designs is giving away $10,000!
All you have to do is connect your 99designs account with Facebook now and you’ll earn your $10 share.

As a Designer, connecting with Facebook allows you to:
• Show off your folio – Add the 99designs tab to your Facebook profile and share your best designs with your friends and future clients.
• Share your wins – When you win a contest, we’ll post a message to let your friends know. It may even lead to your next job!

For Project Holders, Facebook connect allows you to:
• Attract more designers – We’ll tell your friends when you launch a contest so they can spread the word
• Get feedback from your friends – Your friends will be able to check out your contest and let you know which designs they like best

What’s more, all users connected to Facebook can log into 99designs with a single click!

How do you connect? All you need to do is go to the 99designs login page and click the “Connect with Facebook” blue button.

If you’re connected to Facebook when we reach 1000 connections, $10 will be applied to your account within 7 days. And yes – if you are already connected then you already qualify.

Easiest way to make $10? We think so… make sure you don’t miss out!

UPDATED 11/04/09:

Thanks for the great response!
We have hit the thousand connection mark. We are processing payments – for those of you who were part of the first thousand connections, expect payment within the next 7 days.

Cheers,
The 99designs Team.

99designs.com is very happy to introduce one of the most requested features from our design community: Blind Contests.

This is big news for designers and project holders alike!

Blind contests offer greater protection for designers and promote fair competition, which means they will attract the best designers and higher quality designs.

In a blind contest, each design submission can only be seen by the project holder and the designer who submits it. Therefore, designers can express their creativity more freely without worrying about protecting their concepts. After the submission period ends, designs become visible for all to enjoy.

Project Holders - We are currently only offering blind contests to project holders that have run at least one previous contest on 99designs. There is no additional cost for eligible project holders to run a blind contest, all you need to do is select the blind contest option on the ‘premium options’ page.

As usual, your feedback has led to this exciting new feature and we look forward to hearing what you think!

Cheers,
The 99designs Team

Designers – 99designs.com has a super cool opportunity for you to design an official t-shirt for South by Southwest 2010!

For those of you who don’t know, SXSW is a truly amazing event in Austin, Texas that brings together original music, independent film and the hottest technologies from the web.

This is your chance to put a design in front of thousands industry professionals across the arts!

So get those creative juices fired up and check out the full design brief here!

After the project closes and designs are no longer accepted, SXSW will choose the top 5 designs and allow the community to vote for their favorite.

Cheers and Good Luck,
The 99designs Team

How much money should I offer to the designers?

It’s important to remember that 99designs.com is a marketplace and your design project will be competing for attention among all the other project listings. Offering more money than other similar projects will help separate you from the pack, but ultimately you need to ask yourself:

• What is my budget?
• How many designers do I want to attract?
• What is the skill level of the designers that I wish to attract?
• What are other similar projects offering?

If you are running a logo project for example, browse the other logo projects currently running on the site and take a look at how much money is being offered and how much interest the projects are attracting from the design community.

How do I attract the most submissions?

There are a lot of factors that influence the number of submissions that a project will receive on 99designs. The amount of money being offered to the designers is certainly one factor, but it is not the only one.

• Be clear about what you are asking for.
  • Designers need to be able to look at your design brief and quickly understand the scope of the project and what the deliverables are. The more clear and specific you are about what you are looking for the more submissions your project will get.
• Browse similar projects and invite designers that catch your eye to join your design project.
  • Designers like to be invited to projects particularly if you say upfront that you noticed their work and would love to see a submission from them. To invite a designer, simply click into their profile and click “contact” to send them a private message.
• Stay involved and provide feedback.
  • Feedback may be the single most important factor in the success of a design project and designers are hungry for it.  The more engaged in the project you are, the more engaged the designers are.  Feedback can be given by rating the designers using the star system or eliminating the designs out right if they are way off base. Be sure to give specific written feedback for the designers/designs that show the most promise.
• Guarantee your project
  • When you feel confident that you will get a good result, waive your right to a refund and guarantee your project. Guaranteed projects are far more attractive to designers and therefore receive many more submissions.

What should I put in my design brief?

The design brief is your chance to sell your project to the design community. It is your job to inspire the designers to work on this project.  You need to be very clear about what you are looking to have designed and try to make it sound exciting if possible.

• Title and Subheading
  • The title is basically the headline that advertises your project…think short, sweet and provocative. The subheading is your chance to expand upon the title, adding a little more detail but not repeating yourself.
• Brand Name
  • Who/What is this design for?
• Tell us About Yourself
  • Providing a little context about your business or organization helps the designers understand it better and can fuel their creativity and provide inspiration for their design.
• Target Audience
  • Every design is targeting someone or something. The audience for a child day care center is significantly different from that of a corporate law firm. The more a designer knows about the audience the more it will inform their design.
• Requirements
  • Requirements are the nuts and bolts of the design brief. Here you should be providing the specifics of what you are looking for.
  • What is it…a logo, a web page, a t-shirt, a brochure etc…
  • Do you have color preferences or are they free to be creative?
  • What style are you looking for?
  • What elements does the design need to include?
  • Do you have specific examples of things you do or don’t like?
  • What file types do you need?

Check out a sample brief here: http://bit.ly/1o1cSO

What kind of files should I ask for?

If you’re running a project for a logo or some other design which will be featured in print, you should ask for a CMYK image in either PDF, EPS, SVG, Corel Draw CDR, or Adobe Illustrator AI format.

For website designs, Twitter backgrounds and other designs which are destined to be displayed only on computer screens, you should ask for a “layered RGB file” in Photoshop PSD or Fireworks PNG format. These are the source files of the design, and you’ll need them if you want to be able to easily tweak something. It’s a good idea to also ask for a JPEG version.

You shouldn’t ask the designers to provide any of the fonts used in the design, as many of them are owned by type foundries and carry hefty license fees.

What if I don’t like any of the designs?

We offer a full 100% money back guarantee on all projects, with the only exception being if your project has a guaranteed prize or you’ve awarded a winner and the designer has been paid.