Blog

Hello- 
In this blog we'll have talented and up and coming innovators in the music, fashion, film, tech, and art industries discuss all that is cool in their worlds, as well as anything else we think is interesting to share with you about college life. 

 
But before we launch the blog, I'd first like to discus the concept of "crowdsourcing design" and our design contests in general.  There has been a heated debate since 99designs launched in February of 2008 and I'd like to share Vote For Art's perspective on the issue..  

There are artists in the graphic design community who believe that 99designs's methods are unethical, and we understand that those same critics might view what we are doing as unethical as well.  They believe that graphic design contests encourage designers to do work without any promise of getting paid for their time and effort.  These artists could potentially work for many hours in the hopes of becoming a winner and getting paid, and be rewarded with nothing.  They believe it takes advantage of designers and gives employers incentives to pay less.  

While these arguments aren't without merit, at Vote For Art we believe that graphic design contests create an opportunity for any artist, regardless of where they're from or how connected to the design world they are, to earn money and get national exposure.  
We believe that contests level the playing the field and gives all artists a chance to get their work seen and payed for. 
Our contests give artists the a chance to enter an industry that might otherwise be too competitive, and to reach an audience that would have been otherwise too large and fragmented to reach by an individualartist's means.  
 
And, yes, we understand that artists may work long hours to create a design that doesn't win, but that does not mean that their work went to waste. It was still seen by thousands of voters, they were able fine tune their design techniques, and they have gotten exposure to a large audience that could potentially hire them for other projects.

In addition, graphic design may be slowly becoming no different than many other types of industries: Home builders build houses before they have buyers, car manufacturers build cars before they have buyers,  designers, PR, and marketing agencies spend countless hours writing up detailed proposals in order to land a potential client, and authors spend years writing books in the hopes of getting it published. 

The idea of doing work on spec is nothing new.

While contests do have their disadvantages, we believe they are doing the design community a great deal of good and we look forward to helping young designers grow and get recognized for their talent. 

 
Sincerely,

Jeremy Parker

President, Vote For Art