ShopForDesigns

There are many non-profit organizations which are working for greater causes with an aim to heal the world and make it a better place. The first things that startup non-profits need is a logo and a brand identity. This is because they have to raise funds to further their cause and in order to raise funds they need a very professional logo and a decent brand identity so that people aka donors take them seriously and donate generously.

Well budget in most cases for a logo or a brand identity for a non-profit organization is generally very minimal. They run by donations of their patrons and hence have little resource at their disposal when they are just startups. But they still need a logo and a brand identity to be designed in order to move on.

Come shopfordesigns.com their worries are put to rest. We have had the opportunity of interacting with a few such non-profit organizations who say that graphic design crowdsourcing provides the exact solution to this problem. They can now think of getting a very decent and professional logo at just 75$ which they can not even dream of if they were to hire a decent logo design company or a graphic designer in the US or UK. Within a day after posting a logo design contest at shopfordesigns, they get many design concepts which would otherwise not have been possible.

At shopfordesigns they can simply post a logo design contest project and wait for professional logo designs to flow in slowly. They rate them, comment on them and interact with the designers to guide them into what they are looking for.

At the end of the logo design contest duration which is normally 7 days they can pick up a very professionally designed logo and a brand identity and can go ahead to appeal to prospective donors to further their cause.

Hello and welcome again. We have been receiving queries regarding how to post projects at shopfordesigns. To help our buyers to post their graphic design job on the site we have decided to come up with a video to help you do it. Please watch the video closely and you shall not have any problem posting your next logo design or website design project at SFD.

Shopfordesigns wishes every member and associate a very very happy new year… may 2010 light up your life and fulfill all your wishes and desires.

Being a web worker myself, I firmly believe that working from home many times better than sitting in a cramped cubicle throughout the day and slogging out. Although it’s not without downsides but most would agree with me.
You would wonder to know that for the last few years working from home has really picked up. People from all specialities like web graphic designers, freelancers, internet marketers, salespeople have been convinced that much can be done from the comfort of their homes.

But if you are a new kid on the block and have just taken the plunge and decided to work from the comfort of your pyjamas then the initial struggle could be a bit tough. No! I don’t mean to discourage you and neither do I say that you can’t do it. But actually a complete change of lifestyle and the understanding of the fact that you are complete self paced boss of yourself could take some time to go down your brain. You shall face two main challenges as a web worker from home : a) pacing yourself and b) to discipline your own self and fight distractions. There are many more and I will deal with them one by one and tell you way to get over them.

However, for anyone who has just taken the plunge to web working from an office job, the initial days could be the toughest. There is a complete change of lifestyle and the realization of the fact that you are essentially your own boss and that nobody is cracking the whip to keep you moving could unleash more troubles and negatively affect a lot of things in your life including your health. In fact discipline and proper organization of work is a challenge which I think most of the web workers (or home workers) struggle with on a daily basis and hence I have decided to mention a few points which could probably help them to get over those issues.

Workplace organisation
It’s very important to designate a place or a room as your office and to give it the due importance. If necessary educate your family members about the importance of that room or space for you and let them not disturb you now and then while you are working. Also remember that it is very important to keep your home office clean and organized. This will help you concentrate and find motivation in your work. Specially if you are a graphic designer your creative juices will not flow if you are not sitting in a properly organized and clean work place.

Decide your hours of work
Imagine waking up to the sound of your alarm, the sound you hate the most on a weekday! Well you are saved from that if you are working from home. However it is seen that most people feel lazy and cant pace themselves when they don’t have a target to start their work at a particular time. Sometimes it so happens with people that they can never start their work the whole day and get involved in some kind of household chore. So you shall have to motivate yourself to hit your desk exactly at the time you have decided to. So you work when you want to work doesn’t matter day or night but once you have decided on the timing you have to maintain it, come what may.

Educate your family about the change in lifestyle
Every self motivated web worker working from home has to educate his or her family members about the importance of his or her work and working hours. This is not so much applicable for people who live alone. But most of us do not live alone and some even have kids at home. It is very important to make everyone at home understand the importance of your work especially kids and it should also be made clear that you should not be disturbed during your working hours. Since you are always at home does not mean that you are always free and available.

Convey a message to your friends too
After a few days your neighbours and friends will understand that you work from home but what they will not understand or what they will not seem to understand is that you ‘work’ from home! So it will so happen that a friend will drop by when you are least expecting him or maybe they shall give you a call and ask you out for some coffee or beer. Convey clearly to them that you are BUSY and that you are not available during your working hours. Even if they come knocking at the door be tactful and convey to them that you have work to do and that it is your working hour. They will slowly learn to take the hint and will not disturb you any further.

Prioritize your work
Prioritizing your work is absolutely necessary. If you don’t prioritize your work then you shall end up wasting your time in unnecessary activities and will engage in a lot of activities which will not help you make money. At the end of the day you have to keep in mind how much you earn working for the whole day. So you first decide what work you need to do and in what order you need to do them. Then do them one by one and go on ticking your to do list.

Distractions – liability or asset?
We are not saying that you need to remove all distractions or avoid all distractions. Distractions will be there and each distraction has a significance in its own. If you consider watching a movie stored in your hard drive in between work then let me tell you that watching a movie refreshes your mood and helps you perform better. It reduces your stress and makes you live longer and better. Say you are a logo designer and you love to watch a movie in between work. You might as well get a brilliant idea from a movie. If you are a copywriter then you might get brilliant inspirations. Remember tom hanks in forrest gump : “Shit happens !!” I hope I have been able to get my point across to you. You have to learn to manage your distractions and give maximum time to your work.

Don’t be stressed . . . .  avoid burnouts !!!
The whole idea of working from home is to reduce stress, get more freedom and enjoying life. Stress is always greater in working from home. You will have more deadlines to meet than you would had you been on a normal 9 to 5 job. But if you are well disciplined and are able to pace yourself then I am sure you will emerge as a winner and enjoy life more than ever. That’s why you left your 9 to 5 isn’t it…

If you want your business to be noticed, then a professional graphic design is your best bet. But the main problems that a startup has in creating a great web design or logo design by a great professional is financial budget. The solution to this is hiring freelance graphics designers some of whom are really good and are much cheaper. But then again not all the freelance graphic designers are equally good. Some are hugely experienced in designing while some are straight out of design college. Now the problem becomes whom you should hire? How do you know which designer is great and who is not? What if there could be an option like this : Many designers would work for your project and you will choose the work you like. In this case you never need to worry about how good a graphic designer is! You pay for the work you like and not commit to any one designer in particular! Sounds great isn’t it?  But where will you find so many designers and such a forum that will help you to do this?

With an aim to make this happen, and to provide a forum where freelance graphic designers and startup owners or someone in need of any graphic design job, can work together, ShopForDesigns, an online crowdsourcing website that creates a forum for designers to showcase their work and win new clients was made. The Omaha, United States based crowdsourcing website was built.

The best part about ShopForDesigns is its abundance of choices or options. The concept is wonderful since it eliminates risk for both the parties. Many argue that the crowdsourcing model is killing the design industry since designers not always get paid for their work. At ShopForDesigns this risk is eliminated. All the contests are prepaid. We hold the money. After the contest is over the winning entry gets paid.

One might argue that there is no surety that my design will win. Well yes there is no guarantee that you design will win. But let us just compare this system to the conventional system of graphic design project. Suppose you want to bid for a graphic design job for some company. You have to supply them with a portfolio of your designs to convince them about your designing capabilities. Graphic designers then have to write a proposal for the job at hand. They have to prepare graphic design concepts also called mock-ups and if the client is a local one then designers might even require to visit their offices for the final negotiation. Sometimes even several times. All these cost you time and money my friend. At shopfordesigns you just make up a concept and submit. If you get a good rating you negotiate with the buyer and proceed accordingly. And if the client really likes your concept you win. It has been seen that many designers use this website as a lead generation website. More than 80% of works done on shopfordesigns lead to consequent work for the graphic designers.

The design process begins when some startup or a business owner / entrepreneur wants a graphic design job to be done and posts it on shopfordesigns forum for submissions. As soon as the listing comes alive, top graphics designers from around the glob read it and start drawing up concepts for submissions. The startup owner can expect to receive concepts in about 6 hours or so. Then designs start flowing in steadily.

It is very important that during the lifetime of the contest the startup owner converses with the designers to tell them what he likes in the submitted design concepts and what he doesn’t. This will help him to get what he is looking for in his designs. There is a message board on site to do just this. Another nice feature is the star rating system. Business owners looking for designs, need to rate the submitted design concepts in a scale of 5 stars. This helps the graphic designers to understand if they are moving in the right direction or not.

In this way we have a winner in about 7days. His design concept gets paid. It has been noticed that once the startup business owner chooses a winner, he generally hires that same designer to do his business card, his website etc. So designers win additional work. So shopfordesigns work also as a graphic design lead generation site.

Works at shopfordesigns generally come from small businesses and startups. They have low budgets and are looking for good designers to do their corporate brand. Until recently this was a catch 22 situation but not anymore. ShopForDesigns helps you launch your contest in a jiffy and you get quality concept designs within hours from ace designers from around the globe.

Hence shopfordesigns is the one stop solution for new entrepreneurs or startups with low budget looking for quality graphic design or web design work in low budget.

ShopForDesigns has always been open to comments and suggestions from its users (both the project posters and graphic designers) who think it’s a great place to buy quality logo design, website design, or for making their corporate images even more appealing, attractive and persuasive. Moreover brand building is immensely important if you want to build your credibility in the corporate world. Startups with low budgets always come to us and praise the graphic designers on board for their excellent skills and fast turnaround time. What they like about our graphic designers is not only their patience in building a logo or a website template but also their exceptional skill and eye for detail. With their ‘requirement analysis’ skill and professional eye for detail they turn a seemingly boring company logo into a lively, vibrant, appealing work of art that even the best of professional graphic design houses envy… and that too at the most affordable price under the sun! Well enough of beating the drums of our designers… we believe good things don’t need to be highlighted.

What I am here to talk about is that we have already started a free listing of contests and we already have done a blog posting about it. Now what we are here to say is that we have reduced the promote costs of the graphic design projects.

It is a proven fact that a graphic design project draws more entries if it is highlighted. A logo design project of the same value draws more entries if it is listed in Blue colour and is bolded. If you look at the statistics of any freelancing / auction graphic design website you can find this simple fact out. But to avail of this benefit buyers have to shell out a little bit more from their wallets. Previously they had to shell out a bit more but nothing extraordinary. But now, under the new pricing structure, we have made things very cheap and affordable so that lots of startups who are coming to us with their logo design or website template design projects can avail of this feature. Let us elaborate… Our previous pricing structure was like this :

Design Project listed in BOLD : 10USD

Design Project listed in Blue : 20USD

Design Project listed in Blue Bold : 30USD

Design Project listed in Blue and Bold and Highlighted : 40USD

Well we thought that we would give our buyers even a more compelling offer keeping in mind the festive times just ahead of us. Yes we are talking about the Christmas and the New Year that are just round the corner. Keeping in mind the festivities and as a gesture of gratitude to our loyal buyers we have reduced the cost of promoting the projects to an all time low. Promoting your graphics design project has not become even more affordable. The new pricing structure is as follows :-

Design Project listed in BOLD : 5USD

Design Project listed in Blue : 7USD

Design Project listed in Blue Bold : 10USD

Design Project listed in Blue and Bold and Highlighted : 15USD

So now there is nothing to hold you back from promoting your logo design project or website design project. Make your graphic design projects stand out of the crowd in just a fraction of the previous cost! Try posting a design project now!

www.shopfordesigns.com opened its doors in September 2009 to the public and is slowly gaining popularity amongst the crowdsourcing community. It has all the features that a normal crowdsourcing website has to offer and more.

It has all normal categories like :-

• Logo design
• Website Design,
• Corporate Identity Design
• T-shirt Design
• Twitter background design
• Wordpress theme design

It has thousands of talented graphic designers on board who are passionate to their task from the core. These designers use the message board on ShopForDesigns to converse with the buyer and give them exactly what they want. In one word what they produce is marvelous.

ShopForDesigns.com is already getting lots of hits and has created a buzz in the graphic design outsourcing world. Some of its loyal users are really happy with the output and quality of delivery of the top notch designers that are on board…

We are also seeing the number of people registering on this website by the hour. We have also seen a sharp climb in our alexa rank in this month and it is really giving us a kick.

ShopForDesigns.com also boasts of lowest promote value and it really fetches a lot of design submissions. Ask AK KIDS our contest poster and he will vouch for the leverage that we get by submitting a logo design project which is in Blue and Bold. It immediately catches the attention of the best graphic designers and draws amazing submissions. The difference is very noticeable when you see same priced projects getting different submissions. You immediately understand that it is due to the only reason for the project being highlighted.

Upcoming Attractions : Shopfordesigns.com CEO says : “We are coming up with customized christmas card design category very soon. This is a result of a survey we carried out amongst our buyers who are looking for customized Christmas and new years card design. It is a very good novelty product for corporates. It gives businesses a personalized touch and helps develop a warm bondage with its clients.”

To wrap up ShopForDesigns.com is all geared up for a graphical Christmas and New Years bash with all its users!

We at ShopForDesigns have thousands of talented designers on board but there are some who are just beginning their career and are straight out of college. They do not have so much experience in the field of designing. Logo design is one of the toughest arena in the designing world. While designing a logo you have to know where to stop. Designers generally learn from their mistakes but to save you some time and to make you learn from others’ mistakes we have compiled a list of 10 tips that might help you in a big way.

1. A logo doesn’t need to say what a company does
It is not always a good idea to put tools of the trade you are depicting into your logo. Meaning :
Don’t show a plate or food in hotel logos, doctor’s logo or a hospital logo does not necessarily need to show a stethoscope or a red cross. Just because it’s relevant, doesn’t mean you can’t do better.

Nike logo does not show a shoe neither the Mercedes logo shows a car.

2. Not every logo needs to be an artistic marvel. Simplicity speaks a lot.
Its not always true that a logo has to be an artistic marvel. Sometimes all the client needs is their logo to make a statement and identify their business. So its best to talk to your client and ask them what exactly they are looking for.

3. Two-way process
Sometimes a client may disagree with your ideas and might not like the logo you made for them at all or may reject the direction in which you are aiming. They might go as far as requesting diametrically opposite. First, give them what they want and thereafter show them what you think would work out to be a better idea. If you idea has food for thought then is highly probable they will like it and take it up. This is passive persuasion. They will definitely come back to you when they need any artwork in future knowing the potential you have.

4. Use sketches wherever possible
Sometimes a little sketch can work wonders in a logo. For a change try using a sketch and see if it goes with the theme of the company you are making the logo for. Line drawing can also be considered.

5. Under-promise, over-deliver
This applies for all kinds of design work and not just a logo design. Try to ask for more days and then deliver before time. Never ask for little time and then take more time under some plea. Its always better to ask for some more time. Design projects are like artistic work, you never know how your thought process will work.

6. Don’t be afraid to be non-conventional
Don’t blindly follow what others are doing. Stand out. Don’t be afraid to go out of the lot. If you go beyond the normal tastefully then surely your creativity will be appreciated.

7. Try out black initially
Best is to make our design in black first. If your logo looks good in black then it will definitely look good in good colours. Conversely a poorly designed logo will never stand out even if beautiful colours or gradients come to its rescue.

8. Keep in mind the mood
Designing a logo for a hospital? Forget funny approach. Be serious and try to represent wellness with colour and shape. In other words try to be appropriate and try to keep with the mood of the organization or individual. Designing for a kids school would definitely involve a lot of colours and shapes like cartoons.

9. Make it scalable
While designing a logo keep in mind that it might be printed on an envelope or a hoarding. So it should be scalable. It should be recognizable in any background or any colour. Though a logo has a particular colour but experience says that you sometimes might need to print it in grayscale or various backgrounds. So keep that in mind while designing a logo. Also remember that your logo should even be able to scale down to half an inch without total loss of detail. Look at giants like FedEx, Nike, Reebok. Their logos are simple and hence recognizable!

10. One thing to remember
Do not make a jam packed logo. Make it simple. Simple things make a long lasting impression.  Give people one thing to remember in your logo design work.

Just One.

How much money should be appropriate for my design projects?

If you study the model as to how www.shopfordesigns.com operates, you will find that it follows a marketplace model. Buyers like you are looking for good quality graphic design and graphic designers are working on your projects to offer you the best deal for the price you have to offer for their work. Now before you decide the project valuation you have to consider certain things like :-

• What is my budget for the project?
• How many quality designers to I want to attract?
• Do I need entry level designers to work for me or do I need ace and experienced designers?
• What are my competitions offering? What is their price range?
• How much details do I need to provided in my design description?

If you need a logo then its best for you to study other logo design projects on the site and see what others are paying. Also to get good number of submissions you have to remember to feed your design description with fair amount of details about your project. Your requirement details, your likes and dislikes etc.

How do I get more submissions for my projects?

Amongst a lot of factors involved in determining the number of design submissions in your project I would like to outline a few important ones.

• Clear and to the point project description.
  • A clumsy and vague design project description will give you lower number of submissions since designers will wonder which direction to head. If you yourself do not know what kind of logo (say) you want then surely your designers wont. So our tip is be very clear and form a vision in your head before you submit a project and describe exactly that in your project description.
• Browse other projects in the same category and find out some designers you like.
  
  • Another trick is to go through other design projects in the same category and send private messages to good designers to work on your projects. Suppose you like the work of a particular designer in website design category. So if you are submitting a web design project then feel free to send him or her a private invite to work on your project. You can do this by sending a private message to that designer by going to ‘contact’ link in his or her profile.
• Provide constant feedback during the course of the work
  • Maybe feedback is the next big motivator after project value. If you are in constant touch with your designers and constantly guide them with feedback then they feel more involved with the process. They feel that they have a direction and move towards it with conviction. We also advice you to use the star rating system judiciously to motivate the designers. Also remember to give complements to designers using the project message board.

Hi friends. After maintaining a low key for sometime now, we are making a gala return with some very exciting and new features at shopfordesigns. We have made the website more attractive even for people who are not graphic or designing professionals. Even they can make money by referring friends and family to our website. Here is how :-

The affiliate program is simple. The first thing to do is sign up as an affiliate with us. Once you have registered as an affiliate with us, you will be given an affiliate code. An example affiliate code might look like this “SFDAF00008”. If you are referring project buyer to our site, give them your affiliate code and they can put that code in the project registration area of the site. For the referral, you will receive 3% of the project value as a commission. The buyer you just referred will also receive a 2% discount on the project as well for using your affiliate code so there is incentive to both of you for using the referral system. Affiliate commissions are paid out once you accrue $100 worth of commission in your account and can either be paid to you through paypal or by check – whichever you prefer. If you have any questions on this you can email us at admin@shopfordesigns.com

Frequently Asked Questions

How much commission to I receive for making a referral?
Answer: For referring a project to the site, you will receive a 3% commission on the total project value. The design buyer will also receive a 2% discount for using your referral code so there is a referral incentive for both of you for using your affiliate account.

When will commissions be paid?
Answer: Commissions will be paid on a quarterly basis when your total commissionable dollars have reached $100 for the previous business quarter. We are on January – December fiscal year at SFD.
1st Quarter runs from January to March
2nd Quarter runs from April to June
3rd Quarter runs from July to September
4th Quarter runs from October to December
If your commission dollars were $100 or more in the previous quarter(s) we will pay the commission out in the next available quarter.