Intellectual property

I appreciate the give and take of the contests that allow designers to improve our designs by feedback from the contest holder.

This is all good, except when a theme is submitted early on in the contest, and the contest is then extended for several more days.

Case in point: early on in a recent contest, I labored over a theme and developed an idea that I have never seen before. The idea came to me in the middle of the night, of course! I submitted my idea a few days into the contest.

Later, after the contest was extended, I found the same words on someone else's design. What should I do? Just let it go and assume perhaps we will neither one be selected?

Either way, I think that this is a concern to DC because it leads designers to wait until the last minute to enter a design.

It is also a very discouraging situation personally.

Thoughts?

This happened to me recently. I came up with a unique phrasing for a design, and some other designer went ahead and used the exact same wording. It can be frustrating for sure.
And I have noticed that there is usually a flock of entries that are submitted near the end of a competition... not to sound too cynical, but in many cases it's pretty much just designers gathering all the info they can from the comments section and the top entries. One perspective can say this is just smart thinking — gathering all the info you can to come up with a design that fits what the CH is looking for. On the other hand, another perspective can say that this degrades the efforts of all the other designers who have been building up their designs from the beginning.

Edited by HappyGD, 26 October 2012 - 07:13 PM.

HappyGD

What in the world are you talking about?!! where did you get such stupid information? >But I just found this out, that in blind contests the CH is forced to offer a lower valued prize. I'm not sure why this is the case.<

We do not force our contestholders to choose any prize. you had better have your information straight before publicly announcing something! We have a minimum prize amount and NO contest holder can go lower than that minimum .... why would we make a ch choose a lower dollar amount? get you facts straight!

HappyGD

What in the world are you talking about?!! where did you get such stupid information? >But I just found this out, that in blind contests the CH is forced to offer a lower valued prize. I'm not sure why this is the case.<

We do not force our contestholders to choose any prize. you had better have your information straight before publicly announcing something! We have a minimum prize amount and NO contest holder can go lower than that minimum .... why would we make a ch choose a lower dollar amount? get you facts straight!

Sorry, my diction may have been inaccurate. English isn't my first language, but I guess my phrasing could have been worded better. I'm just basing it on what a contest holder mentioned in a current contest: "I'm afraid we can't make it blind. Doing so will reduce the prize size"

this is completely wrong nothing reduces the contest prize amount. I think... this ch was saying he doesn't want to "pay" to make the contest blind. Sometimes these clients only have a certain budget amount for a design

I've edited my previous post; I didn't mean to give any false info. My apologies for my misinterpretation.