New Book – New Logo

I wrote a book. Now that’s either really smart or a big waste of time. I guess if people buy it, that will tell me if it was worth my time. Anyway… I needed a logo for my new book. I also needed it for the book website – WPStew.com. I’m not a graphic designer so I needed help.

99designs.com is a website where you can set up a design contest for a logo, stationery, brochure and website graphic designs. Take a look at their site for a complete list of design categories. Even though I’ve purchased many products and services on the Internet, I was a bit reluctant to undertake this adventure.

Go For It!

Once I got my gumption up, I created an account and set up the contest. Setting up the contest doesn’t take a whole lot of information. You’ll want to explain to the designers what you want and why you want it. For example, if you owned a pizza store and wanted a new logo, you would describe the location of your store, the décor, the staff, why you’re in the pizza business and of course you would describe why your pizza is the best in the area. You also might provide colors that you’ve used in advertising or the décor of your restaurant.

After the contest is set up, you just wait until designers start submitting designs. It may take a couple of days as it it did with my contest. I thought nobody was going to submit a design. But then designs started appearing. Each design is submitted in expectation of you providing feedback. Do you like the design? Is the designer on the right track? Are the colors right? Providing feedback results in more designs being submitted. The process of submission, feedback and submission continues for several days.

Guarantee the Prize

At one point, 99designs.com asked if I wanted to guarantee that the contest prize would be awarded to someone. Previously, I had only committed to holding the contest. Now I was being asked to guarantee the award to one of the designers.

The designs that had been submitted at that point were good enough to make me agree that I would be happy with one of the designs. So I went ahead and guaranteed the prize. 99designs.com indicated I should expect more submissions after guaranteeing the prize. I’m not sure that I saw new designers enter the contest, but the designs that had been submitted were great.

After a week of providing feedback on the submitted designs I had to select the finalists. The finalists were easy to pick from the submitted designs. The designers have varying levels of design skills. My design included a character and drawing human faces is one of the hardest things to draw. So the people good at drawing faces were included with the finalists.

Select a Winning Design

Selecting a winning design from the finalists wasn’t easy. Many more designs were submitted over the next few days. Again, the submission, feedback and submission process refined each design. The finalists are eager to make modifications because they know they’re close to the prize.

The process to get to the final design took about two weeks. My first experience was a good one with 99designs. I did discover, with the help of one designer, that at least one design was not original. I was surprised that someone submitted a design that wasn’t original. But for the most part, the designs were original, fun and well done.

The cost for my logo was $295.00. I know there are other sites that produce logos for a lower price. I like 99designs.com because you get to see the designs before you pick the finalists. You pick up to 6 finalists and then work with the finalists to refine your logo. If you’re not seeing designs you like, you don’t have to guarantee the prize.

New Logo for WP Stew

Here’s a link to the contest I held: The WP Stew Guide to HTML + CSS + WordPress Logo Contest

I expect to finish the WP Stew site in the next couple of weeks. The book should be available within two weeks as well.

Have you ever had a logo designed?

Tags: logo, web site help, WordPress help, WP Stew