How is crowdSPRING different from other marketplaces?

From the start, we designed crowdSPRING to be a better marketplace and community. crowdSPRING has the largest creative community on the planet (100,000+ designers and writers). crowdSPRING offers more choice per project (an average of 110+ concepts per project). We let you set your own price and your own schedule. We handle all the details, including escrow and payment, project management tools, and even give you a free customized legal agreement to protect your purchase. We have custom project briefs in every category on our site - to help you write a strong brief to guide the people working on your project.

Thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses from nearly 100 countries have leveraged crowdSPRING's creative team for custom logo design, web design, other types of custom graphic design, and writing projects. And you won't worry about quality. In fact, here's one difference that truly sets us apart: we've been fortunate to work with the world's best agencies and Brands, including Philips, Starbucks, LG, Barilla, ConAgra, Forbes, Tivo, and many more. Some of the best entrepreneurs in the world, including Guy Kawasaki, Tony Robbins, and many others rely on crowdSPRING for their creative needs. There's a reason we're the most trusted crowdsourcing marketplace on the planet - we've won WIRED's Small Business Award, have been nominated for a Webby for best services each year we've been in business, and won American Business Award's Stevie award in 2009 for Best Product/Service (we were a finalist, with four other companies in 2010, for best e-commerce site).

Is crowdSPRING's creative community sophisticated and experienced?

Yes. crowdSPRING was the first marketplace in the world to move beyond the design of mere logos and t-shirts. While the crowdsourced design of simple items like logos and t-shirts is undoubtedly popular, we are the only marketplace that has advanced the tools of our trade and pioneered this model in countless other areas ranging from packaging design and actual industrial (product) design to 21 different categories of copywriting, including company naming, taglines, technical writing, website, blog and even newsletter content. While this may sound like a trivial and simple expansion of categories, the truth is that it's not - and is precisely why we're the only site that covers this breadth of work. The recruitment, cultivation and retention of a group of talented creatives across this many fields has been years of work and we have no intention of stopping now. We hosted a product design project to design an actual cell phone for electronics giant LG. We hosted two industrial design projects to design both pasta and food packaging for Barilla. We hosted a project for Doritos to design the tractor trailers that they use to deliver their chips. We even hosted a writing project to craft the new safety message to give to passengers over the intercom of outgoing Air New Zealand flights. These projects and thousands like them have shown that we continue to innovate in areas of the creative community that no one has ever attempted before.

What are PRO projects?

Almost from the day we launched, many companies, brands, and advertising agencies have asked us if we can give them privacy features and greater control over projects. If you are an agency, you’re worried that your campaign may leak out before its time. If you are a brand, you’re worried that the competition may get a peek at what you’re up to. Pro projects offer a great way to crowdsource product design or packaging design, or a way to leverage our community without letting the general public see what you’re up to until you’re ready. Pro projects are automatically added to our robots exclusion list so that they are not profiled in search engines. We’ve built a dynamic system of non-disclosure agreements to let you screen creatives before they are permitted to participate in your project. Creatives will see a public description of the project and must agree to a non-disclosure agreement before they are permitted to see the full project brief and materials.

Buyers have full control over access to their Pro project. They can admit participants automatically after a non-disclosure agreement is signed or can decide on a case-by-case basis. And once participants are admitted to a project, they can be removed by the buyer and added back at any time. Buyers can decide whether creatives can see one another’s entries and comments (including the buyer’s comments to other creatives). Pro projects can last up to 30 days. And Pro projects have all of the great features we offer in standard projects, including: customized legal agreements, full project management tools, robust notifications, great customer service, etc.

How does crowdSPRING help me communicate with designers?

We’ve built useful tools to help you communicate with the crowdSPRING community. After you post your project, we list it on our site, send emails, and inform people via RSS. You can public or private message any user or group of users in the community, and will be able to communicate with anyone either publicly or privately. We’ve also built tools to let you communicate with everyone participating in your project. And each step of the way, we inform others when there’s a comment or message waiting for them (each user can set customized notification preferences).

Does crowdSPRING provide tools to manage my project?

The entire project is fully managed right on our site and we give you the tools to make this easy. You can easily sort or filter the entries as they come in, provide feedback and score, ask for iterations, send public or private messages, create updates to your project brief, upload files to share with the participating creatives, ask your customers to come vote for their favorites, and much more. Even the project wrap-up takes place on our site. At the end of the project after you pick your winner, you’ll complete the project on our site. The winning creative will upload proofs for your final tweaks/comments and then will upload the final files with your favorite designs. We even take care of paying the winning creative(s) on your behalf after you approve the final files.

Does crowdsPRING have a reputation system for designers?

We’ve developed a two-way reputation system with relevant information to help you decide whether to work with a particular creative or buyer. At the end of every project, we ask the buyer and designer to rate each other on a variety of factors and to provide a short written narrative about the project. This reputation system helps buyers and creatives on crowdSPRING to make informed decisions.

Should a logo be simple?

Yes. Simplicity is vital. A complex logo will be difficult to print and reproduce and may not fully engage your audience. Take a moment and think about brands that are successful and/or famous. Most likely, you've thought of companies like Nike, Apple, Volkswagen, Target, McDonald's, etc. What do they all have in common? They all have logo designs that are simple and easily recognized when printed by themselves, and when printed in solid black and white.

Should a logo be memorable?

Your logo does not always need to describe what your business does. Have you ever seen a car manufacturer with a picture of a car as their logo? How about a shoe manufacturer? It would look silly to have a picture of a shoe….on a shoe. When using icons in your logo, consider icons that could communicate your brand without the company name. (examples: Y! for Yahoo! or the Swoosh for NIKE). This will allow you to use the icon as a stand-alone image (on package graphics, for example). For a person to retain and identify with a mark (your icon), a little mental tennis match must be played with it. If an icon is too blatantly obvious or easy to 'read,' the viewer often feels no sense of discovery or personal equity with it. But remember that too much abstraction can be dangerous because your message can be lost.

Should a logo be timeless?

Trends are good but innovation is better. (And fads are often deadly). A logo should have a long life expectancy. It will evolve and change over time, but the longer it stays the same at its heart, the better brand recognition you will get over time. Examples: Coca-Cola, Dior, Rolex. A good logo design will have a sense of timelessness about it. A logo that feels anchored in a certain time period is more likely to feel outdated or need substantial repurposing fairly quickly. The best logos change very little yet feel fresh and vibrant every time. (Nike, IBM, Apple).