Logo my Logo
So... Last year I I conducted a contest for a client, the contest was a design contest. The purpose was to come up with a logo. After sometime, we came up with the guidelines and requirements for the company logo. Shortly thereafter we started up the contest using a website called LogoMyWay. The service is pretty straight forward. You pick an amount as the prize, the website takes a percentage and you select the parameters of the contest. As the contest runs, designers all over the world are able to read your requirements, see any collateral you chose to share with them, and even ask questions. A designer can participate on any contest he or she wants and there are usually anywhere from 90 to 150 design contests going on at one time. To me it sounded like a great idea, and it turned out that I was right. My client received over 1000 logo submissions. From those I would say about 500 were really original, while the rest split somewhat unevenly between bad, copycats, or revisions based on feedback.
We ran that contest for 14 days and that was an excellent amount of time. It allowed us to give the designers constant feedback and it provided us with 1117 total submissions and a good 15 - 20 great logos, . After the contest was over, we received the vector files from the designer. We thanked all the participants and ranked all the remaining logos into the top 10 spots. We were able to get a lot of different options, all of them based on our requirements. The requirements can really be anything you want to portray on your logo. You could include keywords, objects, symbolism, special fonts, desired style. Express your business values, your target audience, your ideology or anything you would like to convey in your logo. Make the contest private if you would prefer.
Based on the success of that contest, I decided to run my own contest when it came time to get a new logo. As you might know, I have had a job for the past 10 years, and I've been an IT Consultant, and Systems Administrator for hire for about half that time. Recently, after quitting everything I had that was great I decided to pursue The dream, my own business, so I decided to officially launch my consulting services business. The name is pretty straight forward, Oscarstech. The logo had to contain that in the design and also have a symbol or bug as some call it that is unique and can symbolize the different aspects of my business. Or it an just be unique and eye catching.
After you're finished reading this post, feel free to rank the existing logos for my contest
Turns out that the contest has been a success so far, I ran a 5 day contest this time. In fact it ended today (Wednesday). One small problem is that a bunch of people submitted last minute designs, making it difficult to pick a winner. I asked the guys at LogoMyWay if they could extend the contest. They have obliged and I have until Monday to receive submissions and to give some feedback to the existing designers so they can make adjustments if they like. Something that is actually new this time around with the second contest I run is that they have a feature where you can share the contest out to friends and family or whoever you want so they can rate the submissions.
So far I like a lot of the logos I've seen but I'm glad I have some more time to make a decision.
My contest is going now until Monday. Then I have 14 days to pick a winner, but I think I'll pick the winner within a few days. If you want to see it, go visit and rate the contest here.
