Design Contests - A Creative Alternative to Traditional Website DesignAs a business owner, it can be easy to overlook website design updates. However, a company's web presence is more important today than ever before. Unfortunately many websites haven't changed much since their debut. There are a number of factors why this business element commonly takes a back seat. The most common are time, cost, and process. Traditionally when a website redesign is needed, a company enters a closed ended process with very few parties. This scenario creates increased designer competition during the solicitation process and decreased competition during the design process. As a result business owners are first overwhelmed with designers then underwhelmed with designs.
Design contests present a new alternative when searching for professional design services. Design contests are hosted on a number of industry websites and are managed by the design client. Most contest sites charge a modest listing fee but the client controls the contest rules, prize and time-line. Based on the contest criteria, contestants submit entries online to be evaluated by the client and further refined by the designer. Depending on the difficulty of the project and the prize provided, the number of entries can quickly reach into the double digits. While 10 designs may pale in comparison to the vault offered by the leading web template company TemplateMonster.com, it is far more than the few proofs offered up by most designers when requested. Not only do business owners get a choice of many designs, they get to sample the offerings of a larger talent pool. Even companies with full-time webmasters would be foolish to ignore the fresh ideas and creativity of a dozen objective, competing designers.
Interactive online design contests are a relatively new phenomenon, but have quickly been adopted by online communities and burgeoning designers. Currently the largest communities for contests are Sitepoint.com, DesignContest.net, DigitalPoint.com and NamePros.com. Sitepoint currently hosts the largest number of contests and also seems to be the most organized. The cost to host a contest on Sitepoint starts at $20 but is free on many other websites. The main cost, however, is going to be the prize offered by the contest manager. Again, this may vary, but current offers for logos are around $100 and just under $500 for coded websites. On average contests from these two categories garnered two dozen submissions. In creative terms a company can preview custom designed web layouts for about $10 a piece.
What makes a design contest successful?
1. Be Open – Tell the entrants exactly what you’re looking for, everything you need and everything you don’t want. Be specific in your directives and reasoning. Most designers with experience may be able to suggest alternate options after evaluating your needs. Show potential entrants example web sites that incorporate elements appropriate for the organization.
2. Be Honest – If an entry doesn’t look good now, it’s not going to look any better later, so don’t placate a designer to save their ego. This practice may result in the designer wasting time by building on a foundation that is unstable. In addition, other designers may look to this piece of work as inspiration causing more submissions based on dislikes.
3. Use Your Resources Wisely - People like contests and hate to lose in public. Specifically, a design contest is viewed as a personal challenge for most designers. The fear of losing in public is a powerful emotion and should be harnessed when managing a design contest. Be sure to give public feedback to each entrant using direct comparisons to their peers work. This will solidify the possibility of failure at the hands of a competitor and create motivation.
4. Timing Matters - The length of a design contest is very important. A client can expect the quality to be directly related to the length of the contest. However, contests lasting longer than a week or two tend to lose interest by both parties.
5. Publicity and Anonymity. Publicity is a tough issue and can be a burden or a boon. For most companies the publicity is a boon because it gets their name into the public eye. However, a company that wishes to keep its plans internal may have issues publicizing them. Anonymity continues to be one of the largest hurdles facing internet productivity. Because no off-line relationship exists between the contest winner and the client, delivery and payment issues could arise. In these cases, it may be wise to utilize an escrow service to secure your transaction.
If managed properly, a design contest can be a cost effective mechanism to obtain a terrific new site. Leveraging the creativity of ten designers certainly has greater potential for making a redesign successful than working with just one.
