Press Releases
99designs.com Offers One Stop Shop to Get Custom WordPress Themes Designed, Coded and Installed
Crowdsourcing custom WordPress themes produces significantly greater choice for each customer over traditional design models
SAN FRANCISCO—August 5, 2009—99designs.com, the largest
marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design, today announced that it
now offers a one stop shop to get custom WordPress themes designed,
coded and professionally installed. Starting at just $369, WordPress
users can have a community of over 41,000 graphic designers compete to
design a custom theme for their Wordpress powered site or blog, and
then select to add a professional coding and installation service that
would get their site up and running in just 5 days.
To launch a design project for a custom WordPress theme at
99designs.com, users simply create a design brief describing their site
and design requirements, including guidance on colors, styles or other
elements that they would like to see or avoid. They then set their
budget and choose if they would like to add the optional coding and
installation service.
The design community then begins submitting designs for consideration
as the project holder guides the process by providing the designers
feedback on their submitted work. Designers iterate and submit designs
until the project closes at which time the project holder picks a winner
and leaves with a finished custom WordPress theme.
“Now it’s easier than ever to stand out from the crowd with a look
that is individual and polished,” said Mark Harbottle, cofounder of
99designs. “With 99designs.com, you’ll have an abundance of custom
WordPress theme designs to choose from, as well as the convenience of
having your chosen theme professionally coded and installed in one fell
swoop...it couldn’t be easier.”
99designs.com connects clients needing custom design work such as
logos and websites to a thriving community of over 41,000 talented
designers who submit a new custom design to the site every 12 seconds.
To date 99designs.com has awarded over USD $6 million, with over USD
$400,000 being paid to designers in the last 30 days alone.
About 99designs
99designs is the largest marketplace for crowdsourced graphic design,
connecting passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients
who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual
risk or cost associated with professional design services. It has held
over 25,000 design contests to date with over 2,200,000 unique designs
submitted. For more information please visit: 99designs.com.
Contact:
Jason Aiken
99designs
jason@99designs.com
99designs.com Named as One of Australia’s Top Innovations
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA—April 24, 2009—99designs, the largest marketplace for crowdsourced design, has been named in the ‘SMART 100’ Index as one of Australia’s 100 most innovative products. The ‘SMART 100’ Index, co-created by leading business magazine Australian Anthill and market research leader Colmar Brunton, was selected over a six month process by 1,600 maven judges.
99designs enables businesses and entrepreneurs to quickly and inexpensively source custom designed logos, business cards, websites or any other graphical element by tapping into a growing community of over 32,000 graphic designers. Clients simply post a description of what they are looking to have designed, what they are willing to pay and how long the project will remain open for submissions. The average project sees 70-80 submissions from a dozen or more designers.
“Finding the right designer the traditional way is no easy task,” said Mark Harbottle, CEO and founder of 99designs. “By taking an innovative crowdsourcing approach through 99designs, you can literally be presented with 99 different designs from dozens of different designers, which vastly increases your chances of finding the right designer for your business. It’s a true honor to have our efforts be recognized as an inaugural member of the ‘SMART 100’ Index.”
“The SMART 100 aims to bring a greater commercial focus to the concept of innovation, returning ownership of the principles surrounding this important word to the private sector,” said James Tuckerman, Founder and Publisher of Anthill Magazine and founder of the ‘SMART 100’ Index. “Most awards rely on the expertise of a select few. The inaugural ‘SMART 100’ employed the knowledge and opinions of over 1,600 ‘maven’ judges.”
According to John Shanahan, CEO, Colmar Brunton, “The maven’s unique talent is his or her ability to unearth and identify, from all the new products and services available in the marketplace, the innovations that are worth propagating. A maven also generally has the ability to communicate the potential of the innovation to the broader public and, therefore, plays an integral role in the mass take-up of any innovation.”
About Australian Anthill
Anthill is one of Australia’s leading business magazines and online communities. It is dedicated to innovation, entrepreneurship and the commercial development of Australian ideas. Anthill is distributed nationally through over 1,200 newsagents, via subscription and through its recently re-launched website (http://anthillonline.com).
About Colmar Brunton
Colmar Brunton is one of Australia’s largest market research agencies, with offices in Singapore and every mainland state of Australia. Colmar Brunton stays at the forefront of technology by embracing new ways to gain greater insights from research. Colmar Brunton and Anthill have partnered in the development of a new methodology that combines traditional measures with new technologies and crowdsourcing techniques.
About 99designs
99designs is the leading online design contest marketplace, connecting passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual risk or cost associated with professional design services. It has held over 20,000 design contests to date, awarding over $4.5 Million USD to its design community. For more information please visit: 99designs.com.
99designs Contact:
Jason Aiken
99designs
press@99designs.com
SMART 100 Contact:
Lachlan Wharton
(03) 9428 3777
To Stay Competitive, Businesses Can Tune up Their Look and Feel with a Fast Turnaround and Set Budget
SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—99designs, the largest design competition marketplace, today announced that more businesses are leveraging its community of over 21,000 designers for professional design work on logos, business cards, websites and more to take advantage of the ability to set a firm budget and ensure a quick turnaround. By controlling both the timeline and the costs, businesses can rapidly use professional design to get a polished look and competitive edge.
Finding the right professional designer is often a real challenge for businesses. It takes a lot of time to vet candidates and engage in a negotiation process where the designers ultimately have greater control in setting the budget. Often the project takes longer than anticipated, the budget escalates, and in the end the client only gets a handful of designs to choose from.
Using 99designs, businesses can leverage Web 2.0 crowdsourcing capabilities to take control over both the budget and the timeline. Clients simply post design requirements including: the nature of the design project, specific qualities desired, the amount of money offered for the completed work and the number of days the project will remain open. Designers can then immediately begin competing for the work by submitting designs for consideration.
Tapping into the online community of over 21,000 designers at 99designs greatly expands the number of finished designs clients have to choose from. Clients provide feedback on the work submitted to help guide the process and clarify what they want to see in a finished product. After the competition ends, the client picks a winner and leaves with a finished design project.
“Businesses of all kinds are looking for ways to be competitive in today’s economic climate,” said Mark Harbottle, CEO and founder of 99designs. “99designs makes it easy for the start up looking to get off the ground quickly or the established company looking to rebrand to reap the benefits of professional design. On any given day, law firms, dental practices, technology companies, non-profits and more are using 99designs to sharpen their professional image, put their best foot forward and stay competitive.”
99designs connects clients needing design work to a thriving community of over 21,000 talented designers. In under a year, 99designs has held over 13,000 design projects. For more information please visit: 99designs.com.
About 99designs
99designs is an online design marketplace and community that connects passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual risk or cost associated with professional design. It has held over 13,000 design contests to date with nearly 1,000,000 unique designs. For more information please visit: 99designs.com.
SMBs Source Designs Quicker, More Inexpensively and With Greater Choice
SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—99designs, the largest design contest marketplace, announced today the opening of its US headquarters. The company was created to enable SMBs and nonprofits to quickly and inexpensively crowdsource custom designed logos, business cards, websites and more; while at the same time creating a level playing field for designers to showcase their work and win new clients. The new office, located in San Francisco, is a result of 99designs’ rapid growth – the site is now reporting that a new design is uploaded every 30 seconds.
99designs brings the power of crowdsourcing to custom design. Using online design contests open to its design community of over 20,000 designers, 99designs greatly expands the number of creative minds working on a design project. Not only do clients benefit from the abundance of choice, but the design process itself is streamlined saving both time and money.
To begin this process, clients simply post design requirements and set a budget. Designers can immediately begin submitting their designs while clients guide the process by commenting on the submitted work. After the contest ends, usually in about a week, the client picks a winner and leaves with a finished design project.
“Crayons without Borders needed a logo so we could begin our fundraising efforts and 99designs was recommended to me through a friend. I honestly could not believe how many design options I got and how quick and painless the whole process was,” said Karen Kahn, founder of Crayons without Borders. “The community was the amazing aspect, because you essentially get your own focus group. I could read what the designers were saying about all of the designs and it helped inform my decision. Using 99designs was an incredible experience; I would use it again in a heartbeat.”
“Finding the right designer for your business the traditional way is often a long and complicated process leading to frustration and escalating expenses,” said Mark Harbottle, CEO and founder of 99designs. “What’s great about 99designs is that you can literally be presented with 99 different designs from dozens of different designers, which vastly increases your chances of finding the right designer for your business. Designers also benefit because they now have a place online where they can demonstrate their talent and build relationships with new clients. For designers, 99designs is the perfect marketing and lead generation tool.”
99designs connects clients needing design work to a thriving community of over 20,000 talented designers. In under a year, 99designs has held over 12,000 design projects. For more information please visit: 99designs.com.
About 99designs
99designs is an online design marketplace and community that connects passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual risk or cost associated with professional design. It has held over 12,000 design contests to date with nearly 1,000,000 unique designs. For more information please visit: 99designs.com.
We’re delighted to announce that on Friday night 99designs.com took out the “Top Website Award” in the 2008 SmartCompany Awards which honors the fastest growing and most innovative companies of Australia in 2008.
The top website award was judged by the SmartCompany team in conjunction with David Trewern, the founder of DTDigital, one of Australia’s leading web design and development businesses. David is not only a judge for the prestigious International Webby Awards, he’s one of Australia’s most well known and respected designers.
Here’s what David had to say about 99designs.com…
“99designs.com is extremely simple and reasonably well executed, evidenced by the fact that a large number of quality connections have been made to date. Being a trained designer, this site received my full attention. It has the potential to deliver value to buyers, but perhaps also commoditise design in the process. It could be viewed as a piece of destructive technology.
In a very ‘web democratic’ way, the long term impact of this website will now be decided by its community of users. My view is that any website that has the potential to create a paradigm shift should be recognised as an important contribution to progress and innovation.”
FULL credit goes to the entire 99designs team. An amazing amount of work has gone into this site — they thoroughly deserve the recognition.
At this point in time there is over $90,000 USD in open prize money on 99designs. Around $13,000 USD of new cash is offered every day. This is not only a record for 99designs, we believe it’s a world record — we don’t know of any other site like 99designs.com anywhere that offers that kind of cashola to designers on a daily basis. That makes 99designs the #1 design contest marketplace on the Web.
Why am I telling you this?
Well, if you’re going to invest your time building a profile on a site like 99designs.com (either as a client or a designer) you want to make sure you’re getting maximum bang for your buck — more clients means more opportunities for designers to win new business, and more designers means more choice for our clients. Everyone wins!
We get a lot of email from clients and designers encouraging us to keep up the great work. We often circulate these messages amongst the team — it gives us a real kick. Here’s one we received earlier this week that really resonated with the team…
Hello,
I just wanted to write you and say “Thank You” for developing 99designs. It has been truly a life saver for me. I would say that most of the designers are young an upcoming, while I am old enough to be their mother. I started studying art and design in high school many years ago. Because of family commitments, I wasn't able to pursue my dreams of becoming a graphic artist. I still tinkered with web design whenever I got the chance between being a parent, full time professional, cooking, cleaning, children activities, etc., etc.
Now that my children are grown, my husband gone, and I’m disabled, I found my true passion again. I found SitePoint by chance and started entering contest. I started with logos, but found that wasn’t my forte. Then I started entering web design uncoded contest. It took awhile but I started winning contest. I even won 5 contests for the month of February. I was even getting invited to enter contest.
I couldn't believe how well this was working. Because of 99designs, several design firms noticed my work and I now have more offers than I can handle. In the last 4 months, I have made over $20,000 from designing websites outside of 99designs. I haven’t had time to enter but a couple of contest on 99designs because of the outside offers. I owe this all to SitePoint and 99designs.
Being disabled, I am unable to go out and chase down new clients. I depended on word of mouth and clients viewing my designs on 99designs. I understand a lot of designers feel that sites like 99designs undervalue their work and talent. I have to disagree. Sites like 99design give individuals with talents, whether young or old, able or disabled, schooled or unschooled, an opportunity to display their art and demonstrate their abilities. It isn't easy. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and patience.
Again, Thank you 99designs. Through your contest my dream is finally coming true. It may have took 25 years, but better late than never.
Kindest regards,
Sheree
It’s easy to get caught up in the technology and the business of making things bigger and better, and forget about the people who are actually using your site…
We try to stay as connected as we can to our users, we talk to you regularly via these blogs, private message, email, and of course our user voice page, but we never expected that this site could have such a profound impact on one person’s life. It made our day!
One of the little known benefits of design contests is the ability for winning designers to pick up direct work from clients once a contest has been won. It makes sense when you think about it...
Run a logo contest to find yourself a designer, then rather than go through the whole design contest process again, simply ask the winning designer for a quote to do your business cards and stationary in a similar style.
Our top designers tell us that as many as 25% of all contests they win result in future work. Andrew Angus from switchmarketing.com who runs several design contests through 99designs.com said for him it's as high as 50%.
Andrew has documented his recent experience with a design contest in this video which shows the great result he achieved with a $220 prize offered on 99designs.com plus $1,000 of follow on work for the winning designer. Check it out!