Should I use crowdsourced design?

If you are thinking of using crowdsourced templates and freelancers instead of a professional designer, read on.

What is crowdsourced design? 

Whether you need a logo or a brochure designed, it’s never been easier to go online and find a group of freelancers on sites like Dribble and Fiverr. Many of them offering cheap rates and very quick turnarounds. So, should I use crowdsourced design? … well below are a few things an agency can offer that you might have overlooked or not considered.

Template v’s Bespoke.

Say you’re looking for a logo, and you go to a crowdsourcing website, sounds simple. Many of the designs on these platforms are old works from a designer’s portfolio, or even worse borrowed designs from elsewhere. The problem with this is your design won’t be unique, original and on-brand. Not to mention if your unlucky and get a borrowed design, copyright laws catch up with you, you’ll end up with a hefty fine! Because of the lack of insight, many of the designs provided will be very generic. Instead of getting down to the requirements of your brief and designing something that represents you and your company, you will end up with something that doesn’t stand out from the crowd.

An agency will go through the whole process with you from start to finish from mood boards to artwork. If you are lucky the agency will provide hand-drawn ideas based around your feedback from the mood boards, allowing the greatest range of ideas to be created quickly and efficiently. Concept development, follows, where your favourite sketches are worked-up on a mac. By the end of the project, you will get a bespoke logo, in several colourways suitable for print and web and also a simple guide with instructions for future logo use.

Maintaining brand consistency.

Using a variety of templates, with different colours, fonts etc. will make your marketing and design look inconsistent and dilute your brand. Templates don’t offer a lot of freedom and using various different design styles can look unprofessional.

A professional designer with a thorough understanding of your brand will act as a brand guardian, ensuring every project completed benefits the brand adding to the suite and not contradicting it.

Scams, doubts and bad reviews.

If you search for reviews on the most popular designer-based platforms on Google, you will find an overwhelming amount of negative reviews from customers who have been scammed. Although most of these sites will do their best to get you refunded and help find you another designer, this can be a lot of hassle and a huge waste of time.

The benefit of using a professional design agency with a studio is that you can pick up the phone and talk to them, and also drop by to discuss the project if needed.

Good communication is key.

Many of the designers on these platforms are only available via email, and due to time zones can take a few days to get back to you. You may have to wait even longer for them to receive your feedback and put it into action. That 3-day deadline becomes 4 and so on and so on.

Should I use crowdsourced design? Ultimately, it is your choice and the sites wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a need, but if you are looking for design that truly reflects your (and no one else’s) brand, your values and engages audiences effectively there is no quick/cheap fix that replaces a trusted design agency. If you are looking for ways of spending less on your design or making the most of the budget you have, why not consider new ways of engaging your agency such as our range of design subscription packages and start saving today.

If you need help with your next project get in touch with Toast today.