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Please Read/Hear Me!!!

contestExpired

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#1 crabios

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Posted 12 June 2019 - 07:36 PM

Since middle of 2017-2019
I observe boring contests, there are no winners and only expired for a long long time!
 
to be honest designcontest.com I feel has lagged behind some of their competitors (99designs, crowspring, designcrowd, etc)
with the amount of Expired contest, it's same as client satisfaction lost. designer bored and leave here.
 
DC must evaluate, DC must maintain a designer because DC will stay alive if it has a high level designer still here.
start thinking about a good ecosystem between designer and client.
 
I care about DC and have hope that DC will not get worse.
see designcontest website, page looks OLD static does not have any update almost 2 years.
 
I'm sure if DC doesn't change., not fresh, not updated, doesn't care about ecosystem. DC are walking on death
 
 
Regards,
Stephanie

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#2 HerbertNordal

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Posted 12 June 2019 - 08:55 PM

She has a point...


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#3 PrismaCreative

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Posted 13 June 2019 - 03:17 PM

She has a point...

@Herbert, Oh yeah !

 

I do care too.

Btw, @crabios, It seems like you wrote this inspired by some of my posts !

 

Change is hard.. you know!



#4 HerbertNordal

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Posted 13 June 2019 - 06:08 PM

To be fair to DC, things are not all that glorious at other sites.

 

Abandon contests

At design crowd abandon contests are ignored. They expect designers to remove old unfinished contests from their watchlist.

At 99D, abandon contests are "locked" and disappear from the designers view.

Both sites have such a loose definition of "Guaranteed" that the word is near meaningless.

The workings of abandon contests are almost invisible compared to the obvious and open list of expired contests on DC.

I expect that the percentage of abandon contests is about the same across the board but DCs are visible.

All sites actively extend contests for CHs in the hopes of reaching a happy conclusion.

 

Quality and quantity of contests

All sites are thrilled to have paying contest holders.

Novice contest holders are a trial for all.

Indecisive bad choices contueuosly depress and amaze designers.

That being said, they are wonderful if they pay.

The low end of that market is being eaten by logomaker software, stock art, fiver, and other "race to the bottom" solutions.

The very low end of the market is competitive, so we should be happy when the work comes to DC.

Larger contest sites seem to have a bigger advertising budget and therefore more contests.

 

A change of dirction for 99D

This large site has been successful as a contest site. but they want to change.

They too have benn struggeling with piracy, theft, stock art, money laundering, and fraud of all sorts.

The ease of illicit activity has created a world wide problem for the entire industry.

Large and small sites together are in and endless fight against those who are too smart to be honest. 

There is little or no penalty for intellectual property criminals and the policing of it is increasingly demanding for contest sites.

Recognizing this, 99D wants to become the goto site for one-on-one work.

As you may be aware, high end commercial artist used representatives or agents to sell their services.

99D wants in on that market. It makes all those contest problems go away.

Their competition are the gallery/portfolio sites like Dribble, Pinterest and others.

Fakers can't participate in custom work.

 

To accomplish this, they are seeking brilliantly talented, expertly skilled designers and illustrators who can deliver complex and exquisite work on a deadline. Though these people are scarce, they are the bottom part of the very high end big budget market. These are people who have absolute mastery of the software and the judgement to use it.

 

It remains to be seen if they can succeed with this strategy. It may be out of the frying pan and into the fire.

 

How does DC fit in the future of contest sites?

It is hard to tell.

The abandonment of the blog is a continual reminder that management is unwilling to put more resources into the site.

The site feels a bit tired. A sense of excitement is missing. Has ownership lost interest?

The endless pleas for payment on the Forum are not helping this perception.

I suspect that the Administrator is overtaxed with a growing workload and dealing with the explosive growth of fraud.

Having to "do more with less" is not a healthy position.

If DC is not careful, they will lose a very valuable asset to burnout.

The number of active contests has shrunk from earlier years.

I have no idea how much effort is being put into marketing the site.

DC continues to be great site for novice designers to test their metal.

Novice designers are discouraged and dispareged at the other sites as being subprofessional and unworthy of contest participation.

DC offers great place for professional growth though sometimes a contest may be overwhelmed with unaccomplished design.

 

One thing for sure. The design industry is in a state of flux. There are major business model challenges on all levels. 

Innovative active management will be need to navigate hazards.

 

 

Sorry about the length of the post but I felt it needed saying.

Thanks


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#5 PrismaCreative

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Posted 14 June 2019 - 10:16 AM

I share most of this, @Herbert

You are one of the most people on the Forum I respect

 

Have you ever considered writing a book ..

I think it'd be of interest collaborating on a book which tracks back the history and evolution of the market and business of commercial art, before Internet, the 90s, crowdsourcing boom, social media era, and the future of the industry..

 

with Sharie and Liz would be great


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#6 HerbertNordal

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Posted 14 June 2019 - 08:17 PM

Thanks @nullobject for complement.

As you may be aware I have tremendous respect for Sharie, Liz, (and Bubba).

I suspect that Sharie is to busy to post much.

Liz posts little and is all but inactive here.

 

In case you don't know, Sharie has superwomen tenacity in dealing with a bottomless pit of raw septic sewage. Liz has talent but also magnetic personal charm. These are not things you can teach.

These are god given talents of real people (probably with excellent family support).

In looking back over many decades in this business, that is the kind of thing worth remembering.

 

Technology comes and goes, It is in my nature to be able to see the big picture and go with it, but the thing that I remember most are the amazing people I gave come across.

 

Technology is fast moving. 99D is promoting animation and movie production. The static graphic image is becoming passé. It is easy to imagine small restaurant menus on big tablets with moving images where you all but taste the food. New expectations of what constitute deliverables are near. Yet, the human experience of the many amazing people I have dealt with over the years is what persists in memory.

 

About change, get used to it.

A very old designer, with a fine arts degree, told me decades ago, that many illustrators who specialized in drawing hands were put out of business in the 1920s when clip art was marketed. The, clip art was literally that, line art printed on enamel stock in many sizes and orientations and could be cut out with scissors and glued on pasteups for print. It evolved but mostly went away by the mid 1990s. This service is what stock art sites offer today.

 

Summary: times change but it is people that count.

 

Yes, I am plenty old enough to write a memoir, er novella, mayby a short short story, at best a long post. This has exhausted me, I think I'll take a nap. 

 

( I will be 71 in October)


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#7 HerbertNordal

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Posted 15 June 2019 - 10:51 PM

A quick afterthought.

I think that if Liz were to drop graphics and take up selling real estate she would be wealthy in short order. It is a one-on-one business that pays order of magnitude better than design.

Sharie's tenacity is at once a soldierly and motherly virtue. Unfortunately, no one seems to pay much for either. She does get kudos for valor.


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