How to Run a Logo Design Contest Successfully: Ultimate Guide

A logo is more than a graphic element; it's the visual identity of your business. Therefore, you should make sure it's professionally designed and versatile enough to communicate with diverse audiences.

While there are different approaches to designing a logo, like DIY logo design or hiring a professional, hosting a logo design contest is gaining traction. It allows you to tap into a pool of experienced and talented designers and get a variety of creative options to choose from.

Let's explore more about a logo design contest, its benefits, and how you can create one.

What is a Logo Design Contest?

A logo design contest is a type of design competition or project hosted by a business where different designers participate with their unique logo designs. Essentially, designers compete to design your perfect logo.

Designers follow the brief provided by the business owner and submit their unique ideas. Clients rate and provide feedback on designs, and then select the winning design. The winning designer gets the contest prize.

Platforms like LogoArena allow you to launch a contest and get instant access to a large pool of vetted and professional logo designers, making the whole process very easy. Launch a contest, get designs, rate, and select your winner.

Tips to Host a Successful Logo Design Contest

While running a logo design contest is overall very simple, by following a few helpful tips you can significantly improve your overall experience and ultimately the results you will get.

Submit a detailed brief

The first thing you need to do when hosting a logo design contest is to submit a brief. The brief helps align designers with your expectations and what you’d like your brand to represent.

When submitting the brief you’ll be asked to fill in details like:

• Your company name and slogan
• The industry you belong to, like tech, construction, medical, or education
• Your preferred logo style and colors
• Particular emotions or ideas you’d like your brand to represent

In short, you describe what you want to see in your design. For instance, you can list some animals or certain colors that you want to incorporate into your logo. Besides written information, you can also select inspirational images that help the designers better understand your requirements, or even upload your own files as references for the design (especially helpful when doing a logo redesign).

Things to Avoid with Your Design Logo Brief

If you are a startup or small business owner, you should consider avoiding making these choices when writing a design logo brief:

• Don't Follow Trends: A typical mistake brands make when designing their logo is following a specific hot trend. For instance, using extremely bold fonts, gradient color schemes, or mimicking popular app icon styles might be popular today but can quickly look dated over time. Instead, it’s recommended to consider the longevity of your business, aiming to create a brief that describes a classic logo design that doesn’t follow passing trends.
• Don't Add Many Colors: There's a famous saying that goes like "less is more." So, it's always ideal to direct the designer to use only 2 to 3 colors that truly align with your brand values to avoid complicating things. Some popular colors you can opt for include blue, which comprises 40% of all logos, while black is the second most used color. But the choice of color highly depends on your brand and industry.
• Avoid Strange Fonts:Typography is important, and poor font selection can undermine your logo's effectiveness. Therefore, it’s recommended to opt for timeless fonts that make your logo look professional and ensure readability.

2. Select the Right Prize

Next, select the right price for the logo designs. Just like the logo represents your brand's value, the prize you offer represents your appreciation for the designer's effort. You should make it enticing and high enough to attract top talent.

While contests at LogoArena start at $299, our competitions priced in the $399-$749 range often attract our best designers who may skip the lower prices contests. Think of a logo as an investment in your brand's future. A well-designed logo not only defines your brand's identity but also communicates its values and vision to consumers.

Essentially, a logo serves as a foundational element in all your marketing and branding efforts, helping to establish a recognizable presence in a competitive market. By investing in a high-quality logo, you are building a visual asset that will continue to add value to your brand for many years to come.

3. Contest upgrades

Contest upgrades are optional enhancements that you can select after choosing the contest prize. These upgrades are designed to optimize the contest experience, increase participation, and ensure you get the best possible designs. Whether you want more privacy, to encourage unique ideas, or to reward more designers, there’s an upgrade to fit your needs. Here’s what each one offers:

1. Featured Contest: Increase your contest's visibility to attract more and higher quality designs. This places your contest at the very top of our logo contest page so designers see it without needing to scroll down the page.
2. Fully Blind Contest: Keep designs hidden from other designers to promote originality.
3. Invite Designers: Selectively invite up to 30 designers whose style matches your project's requirements.
4. Private Contest: Keep your contest details and submissions confidential, ensuring that they are hidden from Google and the public. This option is ideal for maintaining privacy and protecting sensitive information.
5. Tips for 2nd and 3rd Places: Extend rewards to second and third-place designers to recognize their excellent work.

Receive Designs

As soon as you launch the logo design contest, designers will start submitting their design ideas. A typical contest will see anywhere between 10-50 designers participate, and ~100 designs but this number can change based on your budget and other factors.

For example, our Pro accounts often attract more designers since designers know they are repeat customers. Also, our Featured contests typically attract our best designers, since designers earn double the ranking points on our platform when winning a feature contest.

Either way, with every contest you should be prepared to receive plenty of designs from our professional community, reflecting the creativity of the designers.

As you can imagine, this is a very exciting phase of your project, when you start seeing your brand identity come to life, with creative ideas that you may have never thought of. With our global community of designers, it’s fascinating to see how all our designers bring their own perspective and touch on your brief, making the crowdsourced brainstorming effect fully come to life in front of your eyes.

Tip – On LogoArena, every logo design contest includes a 24-hour phase where all submitted designs remain hidden from other designers. This initial phase encourages unique and original submissions, as designers are unable to view others' concepts. After this phase, the designs become accessible to all participants.

This visibility allows designers to understand which logos you prefer, enabling them to refine their next entries to align more closely with your tastes. But for those seeking even greater creativity and unique concept development, our Fully Blind Contest upgrade keeps all designs hidden from competitors throughout the contest, establishing an entirely independent creative process.

Keep Giving Constant Feedback

Once you receive all the entries, you should take your time to carefully review each logo design and give feedback to the designers. Your comments will help them shape their concepts and come up with a logo design that perfectly represents your brand ideology.

On LogoArena, there are a few ways to engage with designers. Ranking designs, adding private comments, and adding public comments.

How to engage with the contest designers

To create a collaborative environment in the logo design contest, it's important to stay actively engaged with the designers. Your engagement will keep them interested and excited about your project, leading to better and more creative designs.

• Rank Designs: Evaluate each design based on criteria such as creativity, relevance to your brand, and versatility. Then, rank them to provide designers feedback on their efforts that can help guide your final decision.
  
  It’s also recommended to start ranking designs early on, even if you haven't found the perfect one yet. This provides clear feedback and shows designers the direction you’re aiming for. When no designs are ranked throughout the contest, designers may feel disengaged and less motivated to tailor their submissions to your needs.
  
  
• Provide Private Feedback: Use private messages to give specific feedback directly to individual designers about their contest entries. This personalized communication can help refine their designs more closely to your expectations without influencing other participants.
  
  
• Make Public Comments: Post general feedback visible to all designers. This allows you to address common themes or issues and set expectations, which can help elevate the overall quality of submissions as designers incorporate your global insights into their work.
  
  
• Boost Contest Prize: Consider increasing the prize amount of your logo contest to attract top talent. Remember, a larger prize leads to increased competition and uplifts the overall standard of your logo design contest.
  
  
• Tip Designers: Show your appreciation for top-performing designers with a direct financial reward by using the 'Tip Designer' button next to their submissions. This feature allows you to recognize and reward exceptional creativity and effort, encouraging a higher standard of work and boosting overall engagement in the contest.

Receive final files

Once you've selected the winning design, you should promptly claim ownership and ensure all legal aspects are addressed. Simply discuss the ownership terms with the platform where you are hosting the contest to avoid any confusion and misunderstandings later.

Benefits of a Logo Design Contest Over a Traditional Designer

The benefits of a logo design contest over a traditional designer are given as follows:

Budget

If you are tight on budget, logo contests are the perfect option to get your logo designed. You can simply post a contest on any platform like the LogoArena for a minimal amount. Then, hundreds of designers will submit their designs, and you can pick the logo that best aligns with your business goals.

In contrast, working with a traditional logo designer often involves higher costs, including consultation fees, hourly rates, and potentially additional charges for revisions or iterations. This can strain your finances, especially if you're a small business with limited resources.

Diverse Range of Ideas

Hosting a logo design contest allows you to tap into a pool of international designers coming from different cultural backgrounds. Each designer brings their unique style and design, giving you a broad spectrum of creativity to choose from.

On the contrary, working with a logo designer, especially a local logo designer, means limited creativity. They don't have a rich cultural experience and may design a logo that fails to communicate with a diverse audience.

24/7 Availability

Traditional logo designers work for specific hours, often during regular working hours, that may not align with your specific or urgent project needs. These availability issues can lead to delays in effective communication and revisions, prolonging the overall design process.

But it is not the case with a logo design contest platform! You can host and manage a contest anytime and have immediate access to various designers. Not only this, but the designers participating in the contest are also mindful of feedback and make quick revisions. So, you will have your dream logo ready in no time.

How to Launch a Logo Design Contest

LogoArena is an incredible platform with access to top-notch designers with excellent expertise. If you are going to host your logo contest, there are various steps to follow. These are:

Go to LogoArena Website

First, you should open any search browser on your device and search "LogoArena.com."

Launch Your Contest

Next, you should hit the "Launch Contest" button. You'll be asked to give information about Logo Style, like the colors you want, the typography, and any inspiration you want to provide to the designer.

Provide Business Information

Now, fill in the business information to help designers better understand your business goals and services. For instance, you'll need to submit your website name, the industry you work in, and any social media links that can further guide designers.

You'll also need to provide information about your brand slogan and description. Don't forget to mention those things you want to communicate through your logo to get high-quality designs.

Select Your Package

Then, you'll need to select your package. At LogoArena, there are three packages: 3 days, 5 days, and 7 days. The 3-day package is priced at $299 and involves the following perks:

• 35 to 50 entries
• Request unlimited revisions
• Get full copyright information
• Free 7 days extension

The best part of working with LogoArena is the guaranteed satisfaction. This means if you get entries lower than 35, you get a full refund. Some additional services you can subscribe to include:

• $20 for keeping the contest blind, which means all the design entries are hidden from designers for the duration of the contest.
• $30 to feature your contest at the top of the page to get the attention of the maximum number of designers and to receive maximum high-quality entries.
• $50 to hide your contest from everyone, including other visitors, the public, competitors, and search engine listings.

Once you've picked everything you want to include in your package, proceed to the payment section and pay via your preferred method.

How to Choose the Right Logo Design Contest Platform

Choosing the right logo design contest platform requires careful consideration. Here are some factors that can help you in this:

Quality of Designers

The first thing you should look at when picking the right logo design contest platform is the quality of the designers. To do this, visit the official website and check the ratings and portfolios of different designers. You can also go through the review section, where previous business owners have shared their experiences, to get an idea of the quality of work you can expect.

Transparency in Pricing

You need to make sure the platform you choose is not only excellent in terms of quality but also offers transparent pricing that fits your budget. This involves going through the various pages listed on the platform along with their key features. Ensure that the platform offers you copyrights, revisions, and more than 50 entries at least for a contest.

Customer Service

When selecting a logo design contest platform, also look out for their customer service. Check if they are reachable through multiple communication channels, such as email, live chat, or phone support. Evaluate their responsiveness by seeing if they are available 24/7 to entertain your queries and provide solutions promptly, as it significantly affects your overall experience.

Timeline

Most importantly, consider the minimum duration the logo contest platform requires to bring you exquisite logo designs. Opt for the one that considers both the creative process and your project timeline. This will ensure that you get the logo design in a timely manner so that you can publish it on various social media platforms and e-signatures and make a lasting impression on your target audience.

Conclusion

Running a logo design contest is an incredible approach to getting diverse logo styles that communicate your brand message effectively. Compared to a traditional designer, contests involve various designers competing to get the top spot, ensuring you receive high-quality logos.

LogoArena is a prominent name in the world of best logo design contest sites. We offer transparent pricing and allow over 110 entries in a contest. Until now, we have partnered with more than 750 designers and featured 1 million plus entries.

Contact us today with your design brief, and let's create the perfect logo for your brand!

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About LogoArena Team

We're the LogoArena Team, a squad of seasoned logo design enthusiasts. With a wealth of experience, we're all about creating logos that grab attention and leave a lasting impact.

Your brand's visual identity is our playground, and we're passionate about crafting logos that resonate with your audience. Collaboration is key; we work closely with you to produce distinctive and effective logos.

In our blog, we dive into the nitty-gritty of logo design, sharing tips on color psychology, typography, logo trends, and more. So, whether you're a startup or an established business in need of a fresh logo, trust us for logo excellence!

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