I have been using 99designs since 2018, and there is no doubt that this platform helps me make some money and practise my design skill.
Anyway, in these three years of journey, I had suffered through lots of problems with the clients on the 99designs, and with the platform itself, I am sharing my honest review for the 99designs.
If you are a client and read this, take the below points seriously and try to improve those things!
The client doesn’t know about the UX.
Don’t get me wrong! But this is true with almost 90% times. I am saying this because I have seen in many scenarios if you tell the client that this will be a better and usable version of your design and your “customer” will love to use it.
They will think that you are trying to sell them or trying to win the contest and they will completely ignore you. What client only care is how something is looking visually and nothing else.
I agree that design should also look aesthetics pleasing but tell me one thing “If you make your product beautiful while ignoring usability” will someone use it? You know the answer!
Real example: Many times you will see a design in which font are not even redable properly because white text is layed out on yellow color. But, still client like these types of designs.
They always try to save money.
I want to start talking upon this topic by a real example, I was in a final contest of $379(not sure about the price), and I was about to win the contest.
But Suddenly, the client asked me to create the design’s mobile version as he did not already mention it in the description. I refused, and then client eliminated me from the finalist.
Let face the truth, We all know that getting a website on $400 bucks is already very cheap and not according to the market but even though client always tries to get as much as they want from the designer.
This is not a right thing and client should stop doing things right now
There are lots of free works included
This one is based on my personal opinion, even though 99designs is a good platform to earn money and sharp the skills, but when you lose the contest.
Your 3 or 4 hours of work get wasted. There is some gold contest in which you get some bucks when you lose the contest, but the condition is you have to be a finalist.
