I think the "taboo" in this case is the same way some people feel about sites like rentacoder or guru where the programmer (in this case designer) has to work their tail off trying to land a paying job where as the client pays next to nothing comparative to how much spec work they are getting done for free.
Although in my opinion, no one is forcing either to work with those sites and in fact a lot of top designers stay away for just that reason. It devalues what they think their time is worth...
So, some people who work in a similar contracting style field feel it's taboo to hire someone in another field using a process you think is exploitative in your own field.
The designers only get paid if their design gets chosen. On top of that, you have clients that name their price, so you end up having races to the bottom for people trying to support themselves in their profession. Furthermore, the client has the last say in the design (they pick the winner), so instead of trusting a designer to create a solution that's the best for your business, you're going with your own (untrained) eye without any regard to what makes a design successful (a lot of people are incorrect in assuming that good design is anything that just "looks good", that's only part of it).
Well sorry, but if I'm the client then I will damn well choose whatever design I like. It's not like a logo is only going to be seen by 'trained designers' who can 'appreciate' it.
You call it a "race to the bottom." I call it a functioning market. Lowering prices for a product isn't a bad thing. It's effectively what we're all in the business of doing.
I used to try making money as a designer on 99Designs. Basically, it's taboo because designers get paid like $2 an hour there. It's a business model skewed completely towards the clients.
Can't blame 99 for it, they're not forcing any designers to keep working at trying to win these contests, but the way they advertise all the money being made in large sums makes it feel like there's more of a chance of making solid money than there actually is.
Of course I never was the best anyway, many others had more success than me. But it's still a very bad average pay-off for the designers.
>"Basically, it's taboo because designers get paid like $2 an hour there"
There are places in the world where it may be nigh impossible to get work as designer, and where the "low" wages of sites like 99designs are considered good wages.
U$2 an hour is really bad, even by my country's standard (I live in Uruguay, South America).
A salaried wage for a designer would be about U$5/hour. At my company they're paying a good designer U$ 25 an hour for freelance work, but of course they don't hire as many hours as a fulltime salaried employee would do.
I think the OP was being facetious with the $2 per hour comment. In my experience with 99designs, the winner gets a few hundred dollars. Taking into account the fact that a designer may have to enter quite a few contests before he/she wins, that prize pool gets diluted for sure, but I'm sure the wage works out to a value greater than $2.
It depends a lot on the designer/buyer relationship. For example a friend of mine had for example his logo done through 99Designs but ended up getting the whole CI for his business done plus keeps coming back for follow-up orders. Therefore I would reframe 99designs as a way for designers to get clients without having to find cold-leads while at the same time being able to practicing their skillset/portfolio on real-world designs.
Not at all. I think with every creativity centric professions reaching true mastery is a long process. If a designer is not able to attract clients by previous work this can have many reasons, but improving the ability to produce work suited for professional use might be a great step.
Sounds like you'd have a hard time changing your price in the event a 99designs client becomes loyal to your work.
> Therefore I would reframe 99designs as a way for designers to get clients without having to find cold-leads while at the same time being able to practicing their skillset/portfolio on real-world designs.
That sounds great for a college student, but not for anyone actually trying to make a living.
I have no idea if it would work, but what if a site was made where you could hire designers that you knew were quality so you wouldn't waste the time of people that weren't likely to get their design chosen?
