Sad. I’m contemplating getting out of design entirely, im tired of hearing too many stories of custodians making 100 grand+benefits+pension. off tpic, but aghrrgh

Overnight we had someone presumably from no-spec posting propaganda in our contests. They posted their no-spec logo to 127 of our contests. Isn’t it ironic that a group which claims to be out to protect designers would make life hard for our design community who at the end of day are just trying to make a living like everyone else. Thanks to everyone who quickly reported this to us – it’s all sorted now. Apologies to any contest holders who were inconvenienced.

Cannot say I agree with the tactics, but I certainly agree with the sentiment. Though I find 99 Designs whining about being hard done by a little much. They entered the party claiming to be disruptive.

I just took a look at that site and the prizes are even less than on 99designs. I believe one was $300, most hovered somewhere around $100 and—even I was shocked at this—there were some contests offering $25. Um. . . OK.

I do like the unintentional humor though.

Like this contest for the gigantic sum of $100:

http://elogocontest.com/contes.....ontestid=6

If you read the design “brief” the second question is, “Do you want any slogans or taglines on your logo?”

The answer was, “You can’t put a price on beauty”

No you can’t but you can most certainly put a price on the visual identity that’s going to represent that idea. . . that would be one hundred dollars. Firm. Ha!

I also noticed that the Big Dog BBQ logo entry that was pinched from The Logo Factory has “mysteriously” disappeared.

The article states that the subject of the interview is “a designer who makes the majority of his living from 99designs.com”.

Well, as of this writing, this designer has won 39 contests. A quick look at the current logo contests running (102) shows that the low and high prizes being awarded are $100 and $500. Let’s do a little math shall we?

First, of his 39 winning entries it looks like 36 of them are for logo design. The other three are for stationery and the one stationery contest currently running is for $300 so I think I can safely apply these numbers to all 39 wins. Also, he has been a member of of 99designs since June 2, 2007. Exactly one year.

So if we use the high prize amount ($500), he has earned in that year from contests $19,500.00. Since this is the “majority of his living” it must be at least 51% of his total income. Therefore the maximum amount he could have earned in the past 12 months is $38,235.00. Divide that by a typical 40 hour work week and the guy is making $18.38 an hour.

Now let’s use the average prize amount ($300).

Total earned from contests: $11,700

Total 12 month income: $22,941.00

Average hourly rate: $11.03

I’m assuming American dollars. USD and AUD are practically a 1 for 1 exchange rate.

Wow. 11 bucks an hour. And that assumes that the contests are only 51% of his income. The hourly rate goes down as the contest income percentage goes up.

If he can live on that, more power to him but I can’t provide for my family on that amount where I live in the US. And I’m pretty sure that the cost of living in Australia is higher than it is here. And let’s not forget that that is Freelance money. There isn’t any health insurance, vacation time, or other benefits that would fill in some of the gap for the lower wage earned.

-Rod

99 Designs is sponsoring a free pdf version of the book, “The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques.”

The book looks more like for newbies. This is their way of suckering newbie designers into their Spec Contest web site!

In order for you to get the download link. You need to enter your email address. Yet another way to get you on their mailing list.

- Cal