Winning Logo of MCPC 2011 Crowdsourcing Competition – My Experiences with CrowdSPRING

Here is the new MCPC 2011 conference logo … to get it, we did what we preach and started a logo crowdsourcing competition at CrowdSPRING, one of the leading places in the internet to run design competitions.

I hope you like it … the logo will be used for the conference design and the final invitation brochures etc … I like the way how it connects the different backgrounds of our conference.

It was interesting to actually run such a contest. Here are my personal experiences with CrowdSPRING:

1. It is quite easy to launch a new project, even if you have never done this before and do not know anything about writing a briefing.
2. It is more expensive than often said. In some blogs or reports, crowdsourced graphic design competitions are said to be very cheap. Well, compared to hiring a design company for a new logo, CrowdSPRING is very affordable. But the average award is much higher today as it used to be in the past. As a non-profit conference and taking everything from my research budget, I decided to go low and just awarded $375 (The average contest is $1000 or more), On top, you pay about $150 transaction fees to the host (and expect to pay much higher fees if you want to have your contest promoted).
3. This is not much money, but for $500, you also will find many designers who will take such a job on a traditional contract base. But when you are new to the area and have not many great designers in your contact list, this is a great way to connect.
4. When you run a contest, reserve some time. Don't do it when you have a very full agenda. Participants expect instant feedback, and indeed your submissions get better when you give feedback just after every submission. I totally underestimated this.
5. You will not get better results when you keep the competition open longer than a week. Good entries only come in a few days before the closing deadline.
6. Get a few friends or colleagues involved helping you with the final voting. In the end, however, as usual, my wife made the decision for me :-).
7. The post-processing of the contest is very easy and well organized. Just a few clicks, and you have your files and the contract. This is where CrowdSPRING really provides value as a broker.

The winner of our contest was an experienced graphic designer who actually lives quite close to my German home, Raoul Camion. Raoul is a Belgium graphic designer who has specialized in logos projects. Without knowing, we selected a highly professional user: Raoul has participated in about 1000 projects at CrowdSPRING, and has won 87 of them. Sounds little, but is a lot given the large number of entries that are submitted for each contest.

So, we hope that you like the new MCPC 2011 logo!