DesignCrowd – an international crowdsourcing marketplace for design outsourcing and creative services
Posted on March 9, 2010
Filed Under Startups
Graphic design service DesignCrowd.com is an international crowdsourcing marketplace for design outsourcing and creative services.
DesignCrowd turns the graphic design process inside-out by helping businesses harness thousands of creative people (brains) in a few days. Businesses can use DesignCrowd for any design related project from custom logo design to web page design. Here’s how it works:
1. You post a project on DesignCrowd and set a budget
2. Scores of designers from around the world submit creative designs
3. You select and download the best design
DesignCrowd eliminates the risk of not getting the design you want by letting you tap into over 10,000 graphic designers on every project – if you don’t get the design you want, you extend your deadline and get more designs. The business model is called ‘crowdsourcing’ and the average design project receives close to 100 custom designs. DesignCrowd’s process offers a refined, fairer form of crowdsourcing by allowing designers to reserve participation payments so that they can guarantee themselves income regardless of the client decisions.
On the other side of the marketplace, graphic designers can use DesignCrowd to market themselves internationally, find clients and earn money with their spare time. It’s free for designers to register, submit designs and quotes but they pay 10% commission on anything they earn.
The site was originally launched as ‘DesignBay’ in January 2008 by Alec Lynch. Lynch, a former management consultant, raised capital from investors in late 2009 and adopted the name DesignCrowd when they acquired freelance marketplace www.designcrowd.com. Currently DesignCrowd is based in Sydney Australia, has the backing of 4 private angel investors and is run by Lynch with Adam Arbolino a former IBM consultant.
DesignCrowd operates in a highly competitive space. Competitors include other online marketplaces (like Elance), other online design firms (like Logoworks) as well as a long tail of traditional design studios and other emerging crowdsourcing sites. DesignCrowd’s competitive advantage is its business model, process and higher quality designers.
