Creating a logo is a difficult, intimidating decision and can be overwhelming. So today I am going to go through a step by step option for you to create your logo through a service called 99Designs. 

This is Bill Strand, you are listening to the Reptile Entrepreneur Podcast and we are in the middle of creating an e-commerce business by starting a custom printed products business with your logo. This can be a stand alone business or, what most of you will use it for, an income supplement to your current business. But the step many of the people who have contacted me after the last episode have said is that the logo design process is not straight forward. And, that is true. But it is one of those things that is complicated only the first time you do it. And this episode will get you past that hurdle.

There are a number of design services and freelancers that you can use to create a logo. They will be similar in how they work. The first decision you need to make is how much are you willing to spend for your logo. You can go as cheap or as expensive as you want and the quality of your logo is going to match how much you spend. Because the better the graphic artist the more they charge. If you just want something a simple $40 project on fiverr.com will get you something. If you want to start getting into some serious work on 99designs.com  you can start at $299 and go all the way up to $1299.

99designs is a service that runs a contest where you say you want to buy a logo for a set price and they will run a contest where artists compete for your selection. You can select a contest at $299, $499, $899, and $1299. Then you provide specifications for what you want and any artist can provide a proposal. I’ll go into the details for how a contest works, but we need to discuss those pricing tiers first. If you were a graphic artist, which of the packages would you spend your time bidding on. There is no difference in the amount of work for the artist between the $299 level and the $1299 level.  The only difference is which tier can your skill compete at. The top talent waits for the larger prize contests. So keep this in mind when you are deciding which package to go for. The higher the amount you pay the better the talent that will pay attention to you.

I have done both a $499 and a $899 contest and, although the lower tier artists always try for the higher pay out packages, the top tier do not waste their time with the lower pay out packages.

How important is this logo for you? And that answer will be different for everyone. If you are throwing something together just for fun then maybe it isn’t worth a whole lot. If you are just checking the to-do boxes then that $40 gig on Fiverr is probably enough. If this is a long term business that you will pour your heart and soul into then a logo is more of an investment. And I can tell you from personal experience, having the right logo can set the stage for how your company is viewed by both your customer and you. It is worth getting a quality logo. And the higher the value of the contest the more serious graphic designers you will attract.

Now, is it worth working with a specific graphic designer or opening up a contest to get multiple submissions? And that depends on whether you have a specific artist that you really like. I had Adeline Robinson on the podcast and if you like her style then between $600 and $1000 gets you a logo in that style with an artist that will work closely with you and make sure you get what you want. And, yes, it is worth it. Having one done by someone within the industry that has a recognizable name and fan base does hurt your business either. 

But if you would like to see what other styles are out there then you can run a contest for the same general amount.

So, I am going to go through what it takes to start a contest with 99Designs. I have the link to the website in the show notes. Just click that and create an account.

To start a contest you need to share what you are looking for. At this point you want to give your artists something to go off of. The more specific you are the more confident the artist will be that they can hope to give you what you want. At this point your main goal is to attract good designers. Your designers are scanning the contests and deciding which ones they will attempt. Since they know that there will be a slew of applicants clogging up the contest the good designers will only go for the contest they think they can win. It takes a great deal of time to think of a concept and make a design and they don’t want to do that unless they have any confidence this will be a good investment of their time.

A very good analogy you might be able to relate to is the crazy resume submission process for companies these days. You take your resume and submit in. Then you have a cover letter. Then you break up the resume and enter in everything they already have into their submission system. If you spend time doing each step diligently then you can easily spend 30 to 60 minutes per submission. After you get completely ignored without even an acknowledgement that a real person looked at it you start to become very picky which jobs you spend your Saturday morning applying to. And this is the exact same thing with the artists. If you say I breed geckos and want a logo then they know the chances of them deciphering through the tea leaves what you want is low and they will be investing a good amount of time going back and forth figuring out what you want with the very real possibility that someone else will swoop in at the last minute, benefitting from all the effort, and steal the contest away.

So, how to you attract the top talent? You need to show that you are serious about this and you have a clue about what you want.

Let them know that this logo will be digital on your website, but also printed on a T-shirt, etc… Wait, isn’t that obvious? Well, kind of. But being thorough gives them confidence that their assumptions are correct. It also lets them think about the design they make. If you want it to be able to be embroidered on a cap then the design may look much different than one that needs to look smashing on a T-Shirt. 

Other things you should think of are content. They have Google so you can give them species to look up. You are also able to load up images to the submission. You can share logos that have caught your eye and poses of your gecko that are attractive to you.

The more effort you put into figuring out what you would like to see the more professional you look and the more serious you appear.

The first round is the four day qualifying round and you can pull out of that round and get your money back. If nothing appeals to you then you are gone. So every artist knows that at the start they all could lose out! Your approach gives them an idea of the chances that you will actually go through with this contest.

Now, this doesn’t mean you have to have it all figured out. If there is an area you just don’t know about – and this is fine – say it up front. If you don’t know whether you want it in red or blue you can say you would like their opinion as to which would be best for their design. And this is perfectly acceptable because if you knew everything then there wouldn’t need to be a contest. But the fact that you know what you are not sure of lets them know that you are willing to be there to support them as they try and figure out the solution.

So, that is just the submission to start the contest!

 The official start of the contest is the qualifying round which is going to last four days. During this time you will see an inordinate amount of garbage. Every artist is trying to give you some rendition that gives you an idea of what they have in mind without them investing a lot of time into fleshing it out. Remember they see an enormous number of contests and they can’t spend a day on each. And you have to be careful. Many of the artists will just grab art off of Google and tweak it a little. These are not the serious artists. They are hoping that you are fooled and they get a quick buck. I use the google reverse search to check any design I think I like. Remove copying artists from the contest. 

The most important thing about the first couple days is that you are ultra responsive of any serious submission. Say what you like and what you don’t like. Make suggestions. Give ample feedback. Do not be discouraged by the first submissions. Your serous designers are still watching how you handle things. Because all the back and forth is public. You are able to privately discuss things, but you want your feedback to be as public so everyone can benefit and you don’t have the same things needing correction. 

And you are still being evaluated as to whether you are worth their time. The better they are as artists the more they are confident that they can become a finalist on the last day. They are looking for someone who communicates and is seriously engaged. They want to know that you will make a good partner in this. They are okay with being in a contest, but there needs to be confidence that someone will win! So when you spend three days showing you are engaged and active and serious don’t be surprised if some very good stuff suddenly appears on day four. And the reason why it is such good stuff is because you set it up to be good. When you were giving feedback on all the submissions you were mainly communicating to the serious artists that had not yet submitted. And keep that in mind with every chance you get for feedback on the art submitted. Yes, you are talking to the artist, but you are also talking to the artists waiting in the wings to really impress you. Give them as much to work with as possible knowing that as soon as they have a good idea what you are all about they will submit. 

Because now you have to select finalists to go to the final round. You have four days to select up to six finalists that you will work with in the final round. During this finalist selection round you need to be strong in selecting what you like. This is not the time to beat around the bush trying to save people’s feelings. This is a business. You come right out and say what you like and what you want changed. Of course, I am not saying to be rude or insulting. Be direct. And I know the people pleasers are cringing because you don’t want to tell someone who made 6 changes for you that they just aren’t getting it. Do not lead them on. If there is potential in what they made then develop it and see where it goes. Give them feedback as to how they can make it a winner. But as soon as you determine that it just isn’t what you are looking for you tell them that. Here is your script “I thank you for working with me on this, but I am wanting to go in a different direction so I am going to save you the time and stop developing this idea.” Yes, they might be put off, but neither you nor they benefit from time spent on something that won’t go anywhere. You need to focus on the ones you like and they need to move to another contest.

Going to the finalist round is a big step because this is where you are guaranteeing that you will finish the contest. This means your credit card is charged and one of the artists is getting paid. So this is what you do when you recognize that there is at least one that will work for you. You can select up to six, but you are now heading into a very intense stage of the contest. When you guarantee the contest you will notice a distinct change in your artists. You have now put your money on the table and they know one of them is going to get it. So you have just upped the ante. You now have their full attention and you need to be ready to give it. When I did my Dragon Strand logo I went into the finalist round with three artists. All three were amazing and I could have gone with any of them. It was very difficult. I even seriously considered purchasing an additional logo, which is an option for you. Everyone is on high alert because you all have three days to finish up the logos to the point where you will make the decision as to which one you go with.

After the three days of the furious last changes you go into the choose the winner stage. They give you 14 days for this. You can ask around and see what people think. You can sleep on it, you can mock them up and try them out on your website or anything that would help you make the decision. But eventually you have to make the decision. You can’t have changes made during this phase, but once you make the decision and go into the Handover stage you can make minor changes in the final winning design design. You have five days to do this and then the final files are sent to you.

This entire process can be streamlined or drawn out. When I did my Dragon Strand logo I struggled between three designs and I took all the time in all the stages and was all over the place giving feedback. I needed a vacation once it was over with. But the logo was incredible.

For my Chameleon Academy design I was much more prepared I selected one design from one finalist and we went through the rest of the contest like greased lightning. And, I am very happy with the design.

Now, I talked a lot about how you need to show the artist how serious you are so that they are interested in working with you. The reverse is true as well. They need to be responsive to your feedback. They need to be pleasant to work with. Sure, this is a short sprint so you don’t have to be best friends, but you want a designer that will still care that you are getting exactly what you want at the deepening levels of commitment you go through.

This is how it went for me.

On my first contest I was just figuring it all out and so there was a lot of back and forth. I kept way too many artists strung along because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. Although I was giving true feedback so that is what the finalists used to make their submissions really hit the mark. So that turned out to be good, but my second time around went much better. 

For my second time getting a logo from 99Designs I came in with ample details of what I wanted to see. I needed a logo for the Chameleon Academy so I let them know that it could be stylized and creative, but it has to be anatomically correct. No Jackson’s horns on a panther body! I quickly told the people who had interesting ideas “let’s flesh this out” and I used the people who ignored my directions as communication tools to the ones who were watching everything I said. I was able to go straight into the finalists round with the design I wanted. Yes, it is good to have time to make decisions, but once the decision is made there is no reason to sit around. And the better you are at directing what they do the quicker you will get to the end result. And that is what they want. They are not trying to express themselves through their art. They are making a design for you and they do not care if they like it or not. They only care if you like it enough to pay for it. So be direct and get what you want.

99Designs is good about allowing you to see previous contests so you can follow along some them and see how they went. You can review the styles of artists on the platform. You can specifically request an artist bid on your contest if you find one you like. Do as much research as you like to feel confident. There are other platforms that do design contests, but artists are on many platforms so there may not be a whole lot of difference. If $299 is on the expensive side for you then you can find a service that offers a lower entry tier or just go on fiverr.com (that’s fiverr with two rs)

I went into both of my logo design contests not sure what I wanted. I did know I wanted something outside of my abilities as an artist. And so I brought in experts. And that is how we build a successful business. Bring in people whose strengths are your weaknesses. Even though I had vague ideas of what I wanted I was able to partner with the graphic design artist and find something that I liked very much.

To open up that print on demand store we talked about in the last episode you need a logo. And I will share that the biggest response from last episode was the difficulty in getting a logo. It was just so intimidating to have to think up of a logo! Yes, I know exactly how you feel! My solution was to do some design contests at 99designs. If you would like to go that direction the  link is on the show notes for this episode on reptileentrepreneur.com

Thank you very much for joining me here. Let me know how your logo design contests go! And send me a link to your print on demand store! You have a month or so to pay around with it before we get into what may be the meatiest quarter of our year. This is where we talk about starting a podcast or Youtube channel. It is a huge outreach step for your business and could be the entire business for some of you. So get your logo out of the way and get your shop up because we are barreling into the way you are going to market that logo and your apparel store!