Comments on: 420 Design Blog on Design Contests

By: Tere

Tere — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:02:41 +0000

Check with a copyright or trademark attorney on this. The last time I heard, all contract or freelance art, designs, illustrations, etc. are the property of the artists/designer indefinitely, unless there is a signed written agreement by both parties that the artist relinquishes those rights (but I wouldn’t without a premium price). Otherwise the artist retains the copyrights to all art. If there is an update on the law here, I’m not sure, but worth checking out.

By: graphicartist2k5

graphicartist2k5 — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:41:11 +0000

i’ve never liked the whole “if you enter our contest, then your design doesn’t belong to you anymore” type of crap. how in the blue hell does something that I design not “belong” to me anymore, when I know that it’s something that I designed, and it’s sitting on my computer’s harddrive, and I was paid to design it? that’s an EXTREMELY presumptious thing to say: “we appreciate your submission to our contest. your design submission no longer belongs to you, but to us. nya, nya, nya, nya frickin’ boo boo.”

By: Natalie

Natalie — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:25:35 +0000

There’s another design contest doing the rounds now - this time they’ve tried promoting on the Red Bubble forums! (http://www.redbubble.com/groups/redbubble/forums/4/topics/17790-funkd–label-competition?page=1#posts-265493)

http://gogetfunkd.com/
Not only do you not get paid, you don’t get to keep your copyright!

By: no-spec

no-spec — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:42:24 +0000

SKBill, seems no-spec.com supporters are not the only ones NOT reading our protocol.

http://www.no-spec.com/what-you-can-do/nospec-protocol/

And if you seriously think about it for just one minute, you’ll figure out that:

1) Spamming contests sites are mostly a waste of time.
2) There is not enough time in a day to spam all the cacca sites out there, so why bother.

So no, we do not advocate spamming. Nor do we have the time or inclination.

I’d rather spend my free time travelling, site seeing, shopping, etc. Oh, and of course, spending all this wonderful money we are making supporting the no-spec.com site.

By: SKBill

SKBill — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:54:54 +0000

I love how you all think you’re so high and mighty, contests are ruining our business, etc, yet you lower yourself to spamming in contests? http://99designs.com/contests/8018
A lovely piece of spam advertising from a “professional” designer, haha it’s laughable.

I think it’s a cute site (I have to say the design is outstanding, a design contest couldn’t possibly come up with something as good as this!), I got a laugh out of it (so thank you for that =]), but I can’t really see it getting you anywhere.

By: BR

BR — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:23:58 +0000

Email just like a hard copy letter is your physical property. I expect you could post the text of your original comments with their response in various groups.

Funny thing about the internet nothing ever goes away.

By: Alissa

Alissa — Wed, 28 May 2008 17:31:06 +0000

A few months ago, the musician Butch Walker posted a contest on his MySpace bulletin for his “fans” to design his new band’s logo-gratis of course. if you won, you didn’t get paid, but had the pleasure of knowing that you designed the logo, without any compensation or credit of course. Oh yeah-all submissions were property of Butch Walker.

When I commented back and called him (or whoever answers the mail) on this “contest”-I was told it was “for the kids” and I was treated like a scrooge. My comment was also deleted. While the comment was in place, different people who received this bulletin emailed me and told me how right I was and how wrong he was.

The keyword here is “email”. They privately emailed me-they did not comment back in the public forum. What a bunch a wimps! They knew he was in the wrong, but would not publicly comment for fear that he would see it and not look favorably on his doting fans!

By: no-spec

no-spec — Sat, 24 May 2008 01:00:32 +0000

Very sad. I used to admire Dieline.

And I wonder if they realise the legal rules they’ll need to follow …

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:05:22 +0000

A package design blog called The Dieline has just launched a contest to rebrand and redesign a bottled water pack for a Norwegian national brand.

http://www.thedieline.com/

The Dieline website says it was founded by Andrew Gibbs, a senior packaging designer in Southern California and its contirbutors include several senior professional designers and design educators, journalists and consultants. So you would think they would all know better, but it appears they’re either all ignorant or they’ve ditched any ethics they may have had.

The contest’s text originally said…

“So put your skills to work! Weather you are a working pro looking to add some variety, or a starving student looking for your big break, you may end up with a trip to Norway and a fabulous addition to your portfolio!”

…but they have since changed the wording, possibly because I posted a comment saying what nonsense it was and included a link to the NO!SPEC website. My comment wasn’t published though.

The contest also asks the entrants to be deceitful…

“You will be rebranding and redesigning the 5 Liter Bag In Box concept, formerly known as Icebox. A new name is needed that conveys an environmental message.”

…which won’t be an easy task since we all now know the damage that consuming packaged water has on the environment.