18 and up
design and earn
Earn money designing online
How to make more money online with 99Designs and win more contests
Friday, July 14, 2017Teenchips
I've been playing with 99designs here, and there for the past 3 months, and have pretty much made a 5 figure income from winning contests, and having a few one-to-one projects.
99designs is for older teens, and adults (18+) so if you're not in that age demographic I recommend clicking here for my post on the best crowdsourcing contest sites (which includes a site for younger teens).
I'm not going to sit here and lie to you. You will lose a whole lot more than you will win with the contests at 99Designs. It's a contest. You'll be competing for money against hundreds or other 99Designs users.
It doesn't matter how great of a designer you are. A contest holder can pick a subpar design compared to your Picasso-like master piece.
If you're new (or not so new) to 99designs, and you would like to boost your winning chances I recommend you keep on reading.
Quick update: 99designs has implemented a new rule where their finalists get 15% of the price pool split among them.
Here are my tips and tricks to winning more contests, and making money online with 99Designs:
- Focus your time on "Guarenteed" labeled contests as the contest holders here are usually more serious, and aren't likely to scam you with a refund. Doing this has boosted my winning chances by over 70% and I did not have to deal with a "locked contest" that is due for a refund in the next few weeks.
Non-guarenteed contests will most likely waste your time.
- Before entering a 99Designs contest pay attention to how active the contest holder is at giving feedback. Little to no feedback = stay far away from this soon to be locked contest. A nonresponsive contest holder is one of the worst. When I enter a contest I always make sure that a contest holder is at least 70% responsive.
- Always, always, always stay away from copyrighted images. If you have to use images in your designs please make sure that you use stock images, and properly label them. Imagine that you created a design, worked very hard on it, and the contest holder loves it. Now imagine having your design being reported, and taken down right when the contest holder lets you know that they chose your design for their contest. Now the contest holder is irritated, chooses another designer, and you ultimately lose just because you used a copyrighted image (using copyrighted images can also get you sued as well as the contest holder so please keep that in mind).
- Make sure you sell your ideas to the contest holder when submitting a design. A crucial mistake that most designers at 99Designs make when submitting a design is leaving the comment area blank. Never do that. Communicate your ideas clearly, and efficiently so that they can understand the thought behind the process. When I broke down why I did certain things to the contest holder they asked questions, and gave compliments which ended up to winning the contest.
- Don't stick to one area of design. If you like designing logos that's fine but do not limit yourself to just logos. There are so many categories to choose from at 99Designs that many designers do not pay attention to. When you limit your potential you also limit the amount of money you can earn at 99Designs.
- Report other designs that violate the rules. So you're in a contest where the contest holder has to pretty much choose between you and another designer's design. You notice that they used a copyrighted image from deviant art (not the deviant art stock section, but the general ones that clearly state it is not a stock image), and they did not even link to it in their design (they are concealing the crime). It also happens that the image they are using is the main subject the contest holder likes. What should you do? Report it. An easy win.
The same applies if another designer copies your exact concept. If the contest holder asks for a small circle but you give them a glowing crystal heart in the middle of the ocean, and the next thing you know the CH loves it and everyone out of the blue chooses to have a glowing crystal heart in the middle of the ocean...
Report, report, report. It's against the rules to copy another designer's exact concept so report them all until you're the last one standing. Great designers do think alike, but not so randomly. It is not a coincidence that everyone else's design looks exactly like yours right after you got the highest rating. No, just no. This happens so much at 99Designs, and gets swept under the rug by newbies.
