ShopForDesigns – Logo design marketplace, website design, corporate identity design, banner design, crowdsourcing.

Designing a logo for an educational or academic institution can be a subtle task. This is because mostly educational or academic institutes are non profit organizations, yet the objective of the logo that is to be designed for them has the same motto as any other organization whether profit oriented or not. The primary objective of a successful logo is to promote a brand and establish its authority amongst its competitors. Hence the task is subtle. Let us take a look at what we need to keep in mind while developing or designing a logo for an academic institute.

A good logo design or a good corporate brand identity is instrumental in selling a product or to ascertain its legitimacy in the eyes of the prospective customer. In the graphic design world flexibility and scalability are the key factors which determine the success of a particular logo design. A logo should be beyond the barriers of cultural diversity, language, its mode of transmission media and colours. Let me elaborate on this. You might need to transmit a logo via fax or email. It might be printed in a newspaper, published in a website in black and white. So a logo has to be a timeless, durable and universal face of your brand which is scalable.

We find so many companies re-designing their logos and brand identities. It’s not for nothing. They have felt that their logo does not comply to the above guidelines and they took decisions to redesign their logos. A change in brand identity is not an easy thing to carry out. It costs the company a lot. Apart from the direct cost of designing a logo or brand identity, they have to change their letterheads, visiting cards, envelope, and any pre-printed stationery that they might have with the new logo. They also have to spend a lot in advertising by which they can let people know about the change of their brand identity. Still companies change their logos and brand identities when they find that the current logo is not good enough.

I am generally on the internet for about 14 to 16 hours a day. Various logos have been my area of interest since the last 10 years or so. I do not know if I can call myself a logo expert but people won’t object if I say that I have fair exposure in logo design.

During my quest for best logo designs, I have come across some great logos and some awefully ill designed logos that break all barriers and norms of logo design dont’s.

So in a nutshell I would like to advice you to steer clear from naive designers who claim to make great logos for peanuts for your brand. Remember my friend there is nothing called a “Free Lunch” in this world. Good things always come for a price.

Say you are competing for a logo design contest at ShopForDesigns. You could use the message board in our site to your advantage and ask questions to the buyer in order to get an edge over others. If you understand pretty well what the client needs then you will not have to look around in the dark. We have seen from our experience that communicating with the buyer well is a contest half won.

By way of conversation try to find out what the buyer has in mind and what is he or she looking for. Remember that every buyer has a picture in mind when he is asking for a logo or some other graphic work. So if you can find out what the buyer has pictured in his or her mind then your work boils down to just putting that imagination into a design.

So now that you have won your logo design contest what comes next is preparing the deliverables for the contest holder which you will need to upload to the website. Here a very helpful tip that we can give you is that if you want the contest holder to give you future work, and most cases we see it happen, then you need to please him with your professionalism. Sending him great deliverables could really be your first step in winning your next graphic design project.

All said and done let us get into the details of planning your deliverables folder. Well now that the battle is won and you emerge victorious still its only a journey half done until you get the client to say the real “wow” in your favour.

Here we outline the tricks and techniques that will help you do it. We would say that as a logo designer or a graphic designer it is your responsibility to get across the proper files to your contest holder even if he has not asked for it.

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.

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.

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.