Fitsmallbusiness.com has had some experience with business logo design. We recently re-designed our logo using 99designs and had a great experience. In this article we will discuss that experience and compare 99designs to its main competitor, DesignCrowd, and the Do-it-yourself logo design service, Logo Garden. Once you have finished reading, you should have a pretty good idea of which logo design service will fit your business needs.
Best Business Logo Design Service: 99designs
We recommend 99designs for several reasons. First, we have done several logo competitions through them ourselves and have always had good experiences. Second, they have the highest pool of qualified designers. And third, they have a $99 low-cost template option for businesses that cannot afford the $500 price-tag.
99designs vs. DesignCrowd vs. Logo Garden Comparison Table:
Best for Businesses that Want: | To work with the largest pool of high-quality designers to develop a lasting business logo and ongoing designer relationship | A good logo design option if you want to work with quality designers but go a bit cheaper (or bid a custom amount) than 99 Designs | A Do-it-yourself logo creation service that is quick, easy, and cheap. Good for small businesses that do not need a fancy/original design, one-time event logos,and/ or marketing campaign logos |
Cost | $99 for template logo or $499 for Silver level competition (our recommended level) | $440 Standard level Plan (our recommended level) | $19.99 - $49.99 for high-resolution logo images |
How Logos are Created | Competition, Crowdsourcing or pre-configured templates | Competition or Crowdsourcing | DIY Logo Creation |
Quality of Logo Design/Concept | High | High | Average (generally unoriginal) |
Overall Quality and Size of Designer Network | Large Designer Network that is high-quality (950,000 designers) | Medium Designer Network that is medium to high quality (450,000 designers) | N/A |
Timeline to Create Logo/Total Time Invested | 1-2 weeks from start to finish and 4-10 hours of invested time | 1-2 weeks from start to finish and 4-10 hours of invested time | 2-4 hours of invested time |
Overall Quality of User Reviews | High | High | Average |
Other Services/Options | Web design, packaging design, t-shirt design, car wrap design, business card design, infographic design, and much more | Web design, t-shirt design, brochure design, flyer design, business card design, and more | Logos, business cards, websites, phone cases, t-shirts, signs, and more |
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99Designs
DesignCrowd
Logo Garden99 Designs: Best Overall Logo Design Service
99designs is pretty much the industry standard when it comes to logo competitions. The site has over 1,020,000 designers, more than twice as many as DesignCrowd and other similar sites/competitors. The quality of designers is high as well and the site consistently has a 4 star rating and higher from its users. Fitsmallbusiness.com has used 99designs for several of our own logo design competitions and have been very pleased with our experience as well as the logos we have ended up with. Also, 99designs has just recently created a new $99 template logo service, which is an awesome option for businesses on a budget. You can buy a custom-designed template/logo, tell 99designs what you want changed (name, color, etc), and have your logo within 24 hours, for only $50-$60 more than a DIY logo builder.
When To Use DesignCrowd
In a lot of ways, DesignCrowd is similar to 99designs. It is a crowdsourcing/competition site where designers bid for business design jobs. But, unlike 99designs, DesignCrowd lets you set your own budget, although they do have a minimum budget of $220 for logo design. So, if you could not afford to pay $500 but want a little better quality than a $250 contest could get you, DesignCrowd lets you set a budget/prize of $375 to split the difference. DesignCrowd has a solid designer base of around 450,000 designers. Although their user reviews are not quite as solid as 99designs, most customers express satisfaction with their DesignCrowd experience.
Logo Garden: Create Your Logo Yourself in Less than a Day for Under $50
Logo Garden is a different animal altogether from 99designs or DesignCrowd. Instead of running a competition/contest so that a designer can create a logo for you, you create the logo yourself using Logo Garden’s database of images and their logo editing software. This really is a case of the old saying, “You get what you pay for.” The designs are basic and not too original. But, it can be perfect for a business that just needs a basic logo on the cheap. Also, it can be a great option if you just need a cheap one-time logo for an event, non-profit, or marketing campaign.
Business Logo Design Service Pricing
There are a variety of different costs associated with each logo design/logo creation service. Logo Garden is the cheapest, with DesignCrowd and 99designs being more expensive, although higher in quality. We break down the costs below.
How Logos are Created
Overall Quality and Size of Designer Network
Timeline to Create Logo/Time Invested
User Reviews
99designs and DesignCrowd are pretty similar, both with high user reviews and ratings (4 stars or above). Logo Garden has pretty average user reviews.
Other Logo Design Services/Options
Conclusion
All in all, 99designs is definitely the way to go for the average business owner, providing both the cheap template logo option and the design contest for more original and customized logos. However, if you want to be able to set your own budget or prefer a cheap DIY option, then DesignCrowd or Logo Garden might be more your speed.
Scott Nicolas
Hi, if your looking for descent, original logos, go on http://www.logogenie.net. I know it’s an online service but these guys are raising the bar. I was thinking of doing a contest site but it ended up being a little to pricy for me. I opted for this site and the outcome was great! No glitches in the files. Everything was just clean and flawless.
Roger Talkit
Our company’s experience with crowdSPRING was not so good. We are not a small business, but we have spent plenty on graphic design in recent years and wanted to see if we could get a new logo without spending a whole lot more. For that reason, we went with crowdSPRING’s express logo package. The idea behind this package is that the buyer gets 5 Platinum creatives with a 5-day term for the contest. Now, for $200, this sounds really great. There is the potential to get 25 different design entries, assuming the buyer takes an active role and provides feedback and guidance to each designer. In principle, it should be great. But, in reality, there are several downfalls. The first is that when the first five designers take their places in your project, in the first 24 hours, you are stuck with those folks. We created a very complete brief for the designers to work from. No stone was left unturned. We stated exactly what we wanted and several things we did NOT want. The first entry in our project was something that was on our “do not do” list. In terms of design, it was pitiful. It was a word typed out in a script font- that’s it. We gave feedback to this person immediately and then heard nothing. We then got another similar entry and another. We gave feedback and an assessment of the logo design and how it could be changed or a reminder of what we were looking for, but it didn’t matter. Two of the designers, who were taking up the positions in our contest, didn’t even respond to multiple private messages. We brought this to the attention of crowdSPRING and they basically said “tough luck.” The rules are the rules. We explained that it looked like there would be no design that had anything to do with our brief, but that didn’t matter. In this situation, what they try to do is to up-sell you. Apparently, for just another $100, you can convert to a silver project contest and get many more entries. We were not convinced that we would get a resolution to our problem this way since we were not seeing any designs that were suitable. In the end, we awarded our project to a design that was not what we wanted and we never used it. We have used other services in the past, including 99designs, and were much happier. Can’t speak to crowdSPRING’s other levels of contests, but this is only about the express level. If some deadbeat, who only intends to make a single design submission and then disappear, enters your contest, you are out of luck. When you get two people like that, and you watch the clock ticking away, then you realize you could have thrown $200 out the window and it would have been faster. I know there will be people who say that you can’t expect much for that amount of money, but this is crowdsourcing and there is a lot of talent around the world. Our company is always interested in making the customer happy. If it looks like the customer is getting a raw deal, even because it is about our policy, we will make an exception to make sure the customer is satisfied. That doesn’t seem to be the case with express projects from this provider.
Nathaniel Jackson
I have had a very poor customer service experience from Design Crowd and did not pursue with using their service. they are based in Australia and seem to a bit deceptive with their true pricing and payment operation.
Nathaniel,
Thanks for the heads up! Sorry you had a bad experience with Design Crowd. If you have logo needs in the future, give 99 Designs a try. We have used them for multiple design contests and have been very happy with our experiences overall!
Jason
Dylan Robertson
I wanted to share my experience with crowdSPRING for naming contests.
MY PROJECT
I did a naming contest to come up with a brand name for a new website that I’m planning.
NAMING CONTESTS
The concept of crowdsourcing brandnames in general is definitely effective and worthwhile. There is no way I could have come up with so many names by myself.
PACKAGE CHOSEN
I chose a platinum package, which only allowed “Platinum Creatives” the option to participate. I’m not sure, but, apparently this keeps out a lot of noise from the project.
GETTING BEST RESULTS
In the end, the results you get depend on how clear and well thought out your brief is and how much feedback you give:
– I feel that my brief was clear and well thought out. I also worked with a professional naming consultant who helped refine my brief.
– According to the system’s ratings and the feedback from crowdSPRING staff, I gave an unusually high level of feedback to the creatives, which I believe is what resulted in my getting so many entries.
CROWDSPRING PROCESSES
They have two ways you can buy an entry:
– Awards: this is a one-way transaction.
– Offers: you give the Creative an offer and they have the option to refuse or negotiate. Offers is where things get messy.
crowdSPRING rules are such that you are not allowed to register a domain name for a brandname that you want to purchase until the transaction is done. This puts you in a very precarious position because they seller could theoretically snatch it and try to sell it to you at an inflated price.
So, if you go ahead and register the domain, this is grounds for crowdSPRING to terminate your account.
Due to these rules, I had one transaction pushed off the platform and we eventually did the deal, but it would have been so much easier and cheaper if they had just let us do it on the platform.
CROWDSPRING UI
The crowdSPRING UI was buggy, clunky, and missing basic functionality such as the ability to search among the naming entries. It needs a lot of work and doesn’t seem to have evolved much since I first used it in 2009 for a logo project.
If your credit card has reached its limit, the crowdSPRING UI will not allow you to change or update your payment details. You have to call their support and get them to do it manually.
Apart from the top page, the site is not responsive, so you might want to go elsewhere if you are a mobile device user.
CROWDSPRING SUPPORT
They only offer support during Chicago business hours, so this meant that I had to wait up to three days sometimes for a response if I sent them a message on a Friday.
I cooperated with their support reps and gave them a lot of detailed feedback (actually wrote up and sent them two documents with details on what they need to improve). I believe I was polite, professional and clear in my communications. I was, however, very vocal about my frustrations both via support tickets and on Twitter.
In the end, they decided that I was too much trouble and terminated my user account.
Furthermore, they posted a tweet about my personal financial status. I had properly paid all fees and feel this was a violation of my privacy and trust as a customer. You can see the tweet here (unless they delete it):
crowdSPRING on Twitter
Thanks for sharing your experience with crowdSpring. Their behavior was very inappropriate. Best, Marc
Mike Samson
A smart business person knows that some customers are simply not worth the trouble. They end up costing your company much more than they provide to you, drain your capacity, drive your team to distraction, and have the ability to create long-lasting damage in an online community. Mr. Robertson is such a customer, and after the completion of his most recent project on crowdSPRING we informed him that his business was no longer welcome. It appears that this upset him greatly, and his review here is a reflection of how agitated he became.
On May 24, Mr. Robertson posted a Naming project on crowdSPRING. The project received over 1,300 INDIVIDUAL ENTRIES submitted by DOZENS of writers. As our online help content and instructions make abundantly clear, the names submitted to a project remain the intellectual property of the writer until they are purchased at the close of the project; this is true for both the initial award offered as well as any subsequent offers on other entries. We have this policy in place to protect our users and combat theft and fraud.
In spite of this clearly stated rule, Mr Robertson informed us that he wanted to make an offer on an entry and that he had, “just bought the domain in order to avoid them scamming me by buying it and selling it to me at a high price. So, I’d like to give them an offer of $100.” Mr Robertson went on to make offers on other entries and ran into errors with our payment system, when his credit card was declined (of course). This is not unique to our payment system: if a customer can not pay for a product or service due to insufficient funding, it should come as no surprise when they are required to speak to customer service to resolve the issue.
It is true, that Mr Robertson did sometimes have trouble reaching us on the phone: he is in Japan and the time-zone difference can be a challenge as we offer phone and live chat support only during US business hours. However, Mr Robertson received prompt online support via email in the evenings and on weekends as well as the multiple calls that we placed to him in Japan.
In addition, Mr Robertson asked our community members to wait weeks for payment for their intellectual property, and during this time filed dozens of frivolous complaints with our customer service team. Members of our community were rightly upset about this – they work very hard, with no guarantee that they will win the awards offered and it insulted them when Mr. Roberson not only violated our policies and Standards of Conduct for Buyers (http://www.crowdspring.com/standards-of-conduct-for-buyers/), but also demanded constant attention and feedback to his many complaints and “suggestions.”
As the other ratings and comments on ResellerRating.com make clear, crowdSPRING is a company that takes great pride in our service, our support, and our product; our customer service team handles thousands of requests and has an overall satisfaction rating of over 97%! In spite of Mr Robertson’s opinion that our site is “clunky” and our customer support is “poor” we have received numerous awards for our design and interface including multiple, prestigious Webby Awards, the ABA Stevie Award, and the W3 award for web businesses. crowdSPRING has tens of thousands of very satisfied customers around the world and we are proud of our team and our community!
Mr Robertson, we thank you for your prior business and wish you the best with your future endeavors.
Pabs Mill
LOL Very biased review…
99Designs is rated very well. Out of 39 user reviews on TrustPilot, 37 of them were 4 stars or above, with only two reviews in the 1-2 star range.
DesignCrowd also has very high ratings on TrustPilot, 146 out of 148 reviews were 5 star, with only 2 reviews in the 1 star category.
With this statistics, how come that 99 designs were much better than designcrowd???
Pabs,
I understand your skepticism. Let me explain a bit. When we write reviews, our goal is always to recommend the best option for small business owners. We have several things to go on, personal experience with the product (if we have used it for our business), testing (actually using the product if we are not familiar with it) , user reviews, and just general research around the web.
If there is an overwhelming winner in all of the categories, then our job is easy. But, when things are close, we have to make a judgment call as best we can. In this case, there were several key reasons for my recommendation. First, I read through hundreds of user reviews for both 99 Designs and DesignCrowd. The general consensus was that both are good, as you saw. But, after reading through each review individually, it was pretty clear that 99 designs had a higher quality and more extensive designer network. Second, we have used 99designs ourselves and have always had great results. It is hard to argue with personal experience. So, when we believe in the quality of a product or service and have seen it for ourselves, we recommend it. Third, 99Designs has a little better selection at varying pricepoints, from their $99 template + customization package to their $1200+ design contest with all the bells and whistles. So, for those reasons, we recommend 99 Designs over designcrowd. I hope that helps clear things up!
Jason
Roger
I agree with Pabs. 99designs seems to be overpromoted and overrated all over the internet. I also would not have my logo designed on either logo garden or Design Crowed, simply because logos of both companies are among overused logo designs. How can you hope to get a quality design there?
Roger,
We have run multiple logo contests with 99 designs for Fitsmallbusiness, always with great success and a positive experience, which is one of the main reasons we recommend them. We have had experience with them and know their service to be helpful and valuable. Any service is going to have some flaws here and there and some glitches, but 99 Designs was very useful for us and feel would provide great value to other business owners as well.
Logo Garden’s logos are certainly a little more generic and Crowdspring does not have quite the reputation 99 designs does. Thanks for the comment and I hope that explanation sheds a little light on the matter.
Jason