Business FAQ

DesignBay is an online marketplace for logo design, web design and almost any other type of graphic design you can think of. Businesses/people that need a designs can use DesignBay to run a Design Contest and get the best design possible or Request Quotes to save money.

We have hundreds of logo designers, web designers, graphic designers and brochure designers from the USA, the UK, Europe, Australia and India. You can harness the collective creativity of these designers, and find best design available, by running a Design Contest on DesignBay. You might also use DesignBay to Request Quotes to help you save money or find the best designer available by Requesting Quotes. Requesting quotes can help you find a student, offshore or work-from-home designer (so you save money) or you might select a premium design studio / freelancer with a strong reputation.

When you use DesignBay to get a design, you manage the whole design process, end-to-end, through the DesignBay website. From brief definition to communicating with designers, from to receiving your designs to payment - the DesignBay marketplace is all you need. In summary, use DesignBay as your agent to help you find the best design possible, reduce your risk and provide protection.

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DesignBay is better than alternatives because you can get hundreds of designers working for you from around the world and you are given protection when dealing with them. These designers compete with eacother on DesignBay which gives you a better, cheaper and faster result. With a DesignBay Contest Open Brief you get unlimited designs, you set your own budget and you minimize your risk. When you Request Quotes you save money and you (and your payment) are protected against unprofessional practices.

When you use DesignBay you can:

Get Unlimited Designs
When you run a design contest there is no limit the number of designs you can get! Because DesignBay has 100s of designers from around the world, and we invites them all to compete, you will get tons of designs for your budget!
Set Your Own Budget
You get to set your budget when you run a Design Contest so you are in control. If you want lots of ideas and the best designers set a higher budget. If you have a small budget, only pay what you can afford. You offer your budget and the marketplace will respond accordingly!
Minimize Your Risk
When you run a Design Contest all you risk is your US$30 posting fee. If you don't like the designs you can walk away or you can provide feedback and get more designs.
Get Protection
Furthermore you are using DesignBay your agent/buffer with designers. You get the correct file formats because we require designers submit certain file formats. We don't do designs in-house so we're not biased about the work - we're on your side!
Save Time
You get access to designers from around the world and there is always someone ready to start work. When you run a design contest, there is no quoting - designers start designing immediately.
Save Money
You save money when you use DesignBay because: we don't employ designers in-house, many of our designers are freelancers, work-from-home, student or offshore designers and the whole process is online (so everyone has low overheads).

By using DesignBay you are accessing a virtual design firm that is larger than any other traditional firm. Harness the collective intelligence and collective creativity of 100s of people. Get diverse ideas and maximum creativity!

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Businesses use Design Contests to get many creative designs from multiple designers while Requesting Quotes is used to find one designer. See the table below for a comparison of Design Contests and Request Quotes.

Table: Comparison of Design Contests and Request Quotes

Item	Design Contest	Request Quotes
Initial cost	US$30	Free
Project budget	Set by you	Agreed by you and your designer
# of designers	Unlimited	1
# of designs	Unlimited	Normally <5
Process	Post a project Watch designs come in Select your favourite design Pay	Post a project Watch quotes come in Select your favourite quote Deposit budget Get designs Approve work and release budget
Best used for	Med complexity jobs / jobs requiring creativity	Very low or very high complexity jobs
Benefits	Unlimited designs: there is no cap to the designs you can receive Low risk: only buy a design if you find one you like Get the best design possible: get 100s of designers working on your project and get unlimited designs Faster: there's no quoting, designers start working straight away	Save money / find the best designer: designers submit competitive bids and show you their portfolios so you can find the best value offer or the best designer Protect your budget: deposit your budget Build a relationship with a designer

Businesses use DesignBay by posting projects on our website. These projects are then published for designers to respond to.

You can choose from two types of projects:

A Design Contest project; or
A Request Quotes project

Running a design contest allows you to get designs from multiple designers and only buying a design if you like one. Requesting Quotes helps you find the cheapest offer or the best designer available.

For more information read How do Design Contests work? or How does Request Quotes work?

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To get started you need to post a project. Select the "Post a Project" link from the menu.

You need to complete four steps to post a project:

Select the type of design you want and the type of project (Request Quotes or Design Contest)
Complete the project brief
Register your business / personal details with DesignBay
Pay any posting fee (if applicable)

You only need a few minutes to complete these steps and you can do it all from your desk!

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A brief (sometimes called a 'creative brief') is a document or web page that describes requirements for a particular piece of design work. Briefs are written by a client and provided to creatives / designers to guide them in completing a piece of work. When you run a project on DesignBay, you are required to complete a project brief.

Your brief may include the following elements:

A description of what is needed (for example, "a logo with the name ABC Company"). Note, you may provide a lot more detail for a website or brochure design brief.
A description of where your design will be used (for example, "on outdoor signage and staff uniforms")
Objectives of (for example, "to persuade people we are the market leader in leather manufacturing")
The themes of your design (for example "premium, classy, exclusive")
A description of your target market
Background about your business, product, competitors
Additional information (such as links to your website or marketing documents)
Examples of other designs that you like and dislike (for example, competitors' logos or logos from other industries)

When you use DesignBay, you fill in an easy-to-use form that will guide you in writing your brief. When you publish your brief, designers will ask you questions to clarify what you've provided and 'flesh out' more detail.

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You should start a Design Contest if any of the following is true:

You want creativity or lots of choices;
You are not sure what you want your design to look like and you are open to ideas; or
Your design task is of low to medium complexity and just 1 or 2 files (such as a logo, a business card design or a website design mock-up)

You should request quotes if any of the following is true:

Your design task is a very simple, specific task where you have a definite view of what you want (such as, "a vector file with the name Steve Smith in Verdana font and the color yellow");
Your design task is very complex and you don't want to pay the world for (such as a custom, very detailed illustration or a large completely functioning website);
You are really unsure how much you should pay
You need a website that requires special functionality or programming (such as accepting payment or recording customer registrations); or

You will receive different files depending on the type of project you run and the type of design you are requesting. DesignBay has Minimum Design Standards that specify certain required file types (see the lists below) that you will receive for each type of project. You will receive these file types unless you specify otherwise in your project brief. You may also receive some additional files ('source files') depending on the designer who submitted the design.

Table: DesignBay Standard Files by Type of Design

Type of Design	Files
Logo Design	1 EPS file vector file - fully scalable and editable for use with printers 1 Large JPG file - for use in high quality documents 1 Small JPG file - for use on the web (Additional) Original source file - normally an AI or CDR vector file also used with printers
Web design (HTML & Layout)	1 or more HTML files (Additional) 1 or more images files - JPG, GIF or PNG files
Web design (Layout Only)	1 JPG preview file 1 source file - a PSD File or other source file (Additional) 1 or more images files - JPG, GIF or PNG files
Other graphic design	1 JPG preview file 1 Source file - EPS, PSD, AI, INDD, CDR, HTML or a ZIP file containing these files (Additional) 1 or more source files - JPG, PNG, GIF and/or a ZIP file containing these files

For Design Contests you will, by default receive these files unless you request other file types in your project brief. For Request Quotes projects you will by default receive these files but you may receive more files depending on your project and designer.

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How much you pay will depend on your project type and what budget you set. You will need to pay the amount you budget/agree upon to the designer(s) and you may also need to pay a posting fees to DesignBay if you run a Design Contest. The budget you set should be different depending on the type of design, the complexity of what you require, the quality of design and the creaitivity. The more you pay, the more designs you will get and the better designers you will attract.

The cost for:

A Design Contest project = Your Budget + Posting Fee (US$30)
A Request Quotes project = The Budget You Agree on With the Designer

View DesignBay Fees for more information.

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When you buy a design from DesignBay, ownership of that design transfers to you. Note that you do not own all the designs submitted to a Design Contest, only the design that you eventually select, purchase and download. Note that before you select a design, the copyright of the designs is held by the respective designers.

Web, brochure and other non-logo designs may include components/artwork for which the copyright remains with the original designer. These designs may include photos, icons or artworks that the designer has purchased the right to use (i.e. they do not own the copyright) or that the designer owns but publishes elsewhere. The copyright of these components may remain with the designer or the original 'third-party' designer. In such a case, the designer is contracted with DesignBay to ensure you have the right to and you will be granted a right to display those designs.

Logo designs should not include third party stock components or vector works and DesignBay designers have entered a contract that binds them to this. Any fonts used in logos should be owned by the designer or the designer should but the ownership of these fonts may not be transferred to the client as part of the purchase.

Please read our User Agreement for more detail on copyright and site usage.

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DesignBay offers three types of protection to customers:

Payment Protection
Whenever you make a payment to a designer, DesignBay acts as your intermediary and provides payment protection. You deposit your money with us and this money is only sent to a designer once the files containing your designs have been transferred to DesignBay and are ready for you to download.
Risk Protection
When you run a Design Contest you are protected by the DesignBay business model. You only pay for a design when you like what you see. This minimises your risk.
File Quality Protection
When you purchase any design on DesignBay, we check that design to make sure it is in the file format that you require and that the files meets our Minimum Design Standards. This involves checking that file contents match and that vector files are scalable and editable. You do not get this type of protection when you use traditional graphic design firms or use designers directly. When you use DesignBay, you are using us as an independent third-party for quality control.

Yes of course! Revision requests work differently for Request Quotes and Design Contests. Here's an explanation of the difference:

Design Contest Revisions
There is no cap to the number of revisions you can request for projects over US$200 in value. There are three types of revisions:

Free Minor Revisions (Any Project)
You may send messages of feedback and requests for revisions to designers. Designers are almost always willing to make minor changes (to color, layout, font and the words used) to the designs they are submitting. If designers do not want to submit revisions you may need to guarantee them that you will award them the job (see Guaranteed Revisions below) or need to pay them for the revision work (see Paid Revisions below).
Guaranteed Revisions
For projects over US$200 If you are sure you want a particular design you can guarantee that you will select that design if a certain number of revisions.
Paid Revisions
Designers of projects where you do not want to guarantee revisions may request payment for the revision.

Request Quotes Revisions
When you run a custom Request Quotes you will be given an automatic 2 revision rounds. You may agree with the designer on more (or less) revision rounds before the project commences and designeres might list a different number of revisions in the Conditions section of their quote. It is the responsibility of the designer to give unlimited revisions until of their submissions so that they fully meet your requirements that you listed in your project brief.

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Design Contest

Design Contests help you get the best design possible and minimise your risk. A Design Contest involves explaining your requirements for the design that you want (such as a logo for your new business) and setting a budget (such as $500) in a 'project brief' which is then published on the DesignBay website for a small, flat-fee of US$30. You then sit back and watch tons of designs (created by 100s of designers from around the world) pour in! You select your favourite design and pay! If you don't find a design you like, you can just walk away!

There are four steps to running a Design Contest:

Post your project - you can start a by selecting the Post a Project link from the menu. Fill in our easy to use project form and then pay the contest posting fee.
Watch designs pour in - hundreds of design firms, freelance designers and student designers registered on DesignBay will read your project and then begin designing straight away. You don't spend time reading quotes.
Select your favourite - look through the designs, show your friends and pick your favourite. The great thing is you haven't committed to any one designer so you will have a diverse range of designs to choose from.
Pay - you then pay the budget you set via PayPal or credit card and DesignBay passes this money on to the winning designers (less a small commission).

Your budget may be 'split up' on some projects. Depending on the size of your budget, we may use 1st, 2nd, 3rd base payments. We may also offer minimum base payments which designers can reserve as incentive to encourage designers to respond.

Keep in mind that you will probably need to interact with designers during the process and their may be some other steps (like revising designs) somewhere along the way. Sending designers feedback on their designs (whether you like the designs or not) and responding to their questions helps you get the best result.

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You can just walk away or you can try and get more designs! That is one of the main benefits of using DesignBay over a traditional graphic design firm - you minimise your risk. You will forfeit your project posting fee (which is only US$30) if you walk away, but that is all you risk.

Keep in mind that you should communicate clearly what you want in your project and give good direction to designers. If you do this, and the designers don't deliver you have the right to move on. You are not allowed to use DesignBay with the intention of getting just the ideas. You should only post a project with the intention. To post a project with no intention of purchasing a logo is a violation of the DesignBay User Agreement.

If you are unhappy with the initial results, the best approach is to extend your deadline, provide feedback to designers and/or post more information. Working and communicating with the designers always achieves the best results.

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You get a number of unique benefits when you run a Design Contest:

You get unlimited designs - you may get 20 designs, 30 designs or 100 designs to choose from - there is no cap! You set your budget and the market and creativity of designers decides how many designs you will get. When you run a contest you are inviting all designers, design firms or creative people in the world to respond.
You minimize your risk - you are allowed to walk away without buying a design if you don't like any of them. You only pay US$30 to run a design contest and that's all you risk!
You get the best design possible - when you run a design contest you get multiple (normally at least 10) designers working for you. This has two benefits: 1) they are competing with eachother so they work harder and 2) you will get diverse ideas as designers come from different countries (such as Australia, the US, the Ukraine, Singapore and India) and are not vulnerable to 'group think'. You are getting the maximum number of ideas and value for your money as the number of designs you can get is unlimited, and anyone can respond,
You save time - there is no quoting, designers get started straight away! We have designers all around the world so you will often get your first designs overnight!

In summary, design contests are faster, cheaper and better.

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If you receive no designs for your design contest we will refund your US$30! Note that this has never happened. DesignBay has a 100% record of projects receiving designs and the average number of submissions is over 30! If you get no submissions, or if you get a low number of submissions, it probably means the amount of money you are offering is too low and you should increase your budget!

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All designers on DesignBay have agreed to strict Terms and Conditions that require them to submit completely original work for some types of design and partially original work for other types of designs. Designers are required to submit unique designs, but not neccessarily a unique typeface, for logo designs that they submit on DesignBay. Other designs (such as websites) are required to be partially original but may include stock photography, stock graphic art (such as icons), a template structure or a template color scheme. If you do not want any templates or stock components in your web or brochure design, just specify so in your project brief!

There is a risk that any designer you use (whether it is a designer on DesignBay, a freelance designer in your local area or a design firm) may use artwork that is not unique or artwork that they should not be using. Using DesignBay gives you an extra layer of protection against this behaviour. DesignBay can help you spot unwanted template designs. We are independent from our designers and are interested in protecting you. As designs submitted are viewed by 100s of designers (experts in their field) they are also able to report non-unique designs and unprofessional behaviour.

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It's up to you! You do need to pay a posting fee of US$30 to run a Design Contest but you set your own budget before the project starts. In summary: Total Cost = Your Budget + Posting Fee (US$30)

You pay the posting fee at the start but you don't pay the budget until the end! We charge designers a commission. View DesignBay Fees for more information.

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Minimum base payments are guaranteed incentive payments that designers can reserve before entering a submission to a Design Contest. If designers that reserve a payment submit a design, they are guaranteed to receive a small payment (regardless of whether their design is selected by you or you walk away without selecting a winner).

DesignBay will use a small part of your budget for these payments. However, you have no obligation to pay extra for these minimum base payments. If you don't buy any of the designs, we will use your project posting fee to cover any base payments or we will pick up the tab ourselves.

Note that as these payments can be reserved, so you may see them going down (and perhaps reaching zero) before any designs are submitted. Don't worry, it means there is work in progress. If a designer doesn't submit a design after reserving a base payment (or that design is of poor quality) that base payment will be offered to another designer.

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The best answer is: as much as you can afford. View our Recommended Budgets as a guidline of what you should offer but remember, the more you pay the more designs you will get to choose from, the better quality and more creative those designs will be. Getting the best design possible design is important so you can market your business, organisation, product or event with confidence. If you set the largest budget you can afford, the DesignBay marketplace will get you maximum value, quality and creativity possible!

Your budget should vary depending on the type of design and the complexity of what you want. If your design is more complex (for example a poster including an original illustration or a website with 10 different pages) you may need to pay more. If your design is easier to do (for example a text only logo) you might be able to pay less.

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Your project budget will determine the number of designs you receive. The exact number of designs will vary from project to project and other factors like the complexity of your request and your project deadline will also affect the response you get. Extremely long deadlines (greater than 4 weeks) or very short deadlines will reduce the number of designs you will receive (unless you have a very large budget).

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Yes, there are two types of web design Contests on DesignBay 1) HTML Design Contests and 2) Layout Only Design Contests. You select the type of contest depending on the type of website you need.

Low to Moderate Difficulty Websites
If you need one of the following, a HTML Design Contest is a good idea:

An information only website with 10 pages or less

HTML Designs are fully functional and include menus and links as well as the buttons and graphics required. Contests are not setup to take any designs with programmed functionality. However, if you do require a complex website you can use a Layout Only Design Contest to get the 'front-end' designed on DesignBay and find a web designer or programmer to build the 'back-end' functionality (see Complex Websites below).

If you need one of the following, a Layout Design Contest is a good idea:

A website with an important role within your marketing plan (i.e. it needs to look very good); or
The layout and images of a website (a mockup) but not the functionality or content.

Layout Only designs do not include the HTML code but focus only on the way the site looks and the graphic art it uses. If you choose a Layout Only project you will receive more responses (because they are easier to create) but you will then need to create the HTML code (or get a programmer or web designer to do this for you).

Complex Websites
If you require complex website functionality that requries programming (such as a shopping cart or user registration), you could run a Layout Only Design Contest and limit its scope to the 'front-end' (i.e. the way it looks) of your website. Once you have the layout and the way it looks you could then find a programmer (through DesignBay or another means) to turn that design into a working website. Alternatively you could Request Quotes on DesignBay to get all the work done together! Although you miss out on the, you'll get lots of.

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Request Quotes

Requesting Quotes helps you find the best available or cheapest available designer anywhere in the world and gives you protection when dealing with designers. Requesting Quotes involves you explaining your requirements in a project brief and inviting designers to give you their best quote (price they would charge you and pitch) for doing the job. You then select your favourite quote/designer, deposit your budget with DesignBay and watch the designer get to work!

There are seven steps to running a Request Quotes project:

Post your project - you can start a by selecting the Post a Project link from the menu. Fill in our easy to use project brief and follow the instructions. It's free to request quotes and you have no obligation to select a designer so there's no risk!
Watch quotes pour in - hundreds of design firms, freelance designers and student designers registered on DesignBay will read your project and then submit their best quote.
Select your favourite quote - look through the quotes, the designers' portfolios and their history and then choose your favourite. If you don't find a designer you like, you can just walk away.
Deposit Your Budget - pay the agreed project budget via PayPal or credit card to DesignBay. We hold your budget until the designer completes the work. By paying DesignBay (and not the designer directly) you are protected and the designers know they will get paid.
Receive Designs - watch the designer begin work and submit designs online. Receive email notifications as the designer submits their designs.
Revise Work - you can request changes to the designer's work (by default you receive 2 revisions)
Approve Work and Release Budget - once the designer completes the work and you are happy with the design, you approve the work and download your designs. Once you have done this, your project budget will flow through to designers.

Unlike with the Design Contest, request quotes does not give you unlimited designs and you do not get designs from multiple designers. Using request quotes involves running your whole project - from finding a designer through to payment - on DesignBay and working with 1 designer. You are using DesignBay as your agent and are protected if something goes wrong. Request quotes works better for very simple tasks or very complex jobs. Keep in mind that you will probably need to interact with designers during the process. Sending designers feedback on their work (whether you like the designs or not) and responding to their questions helps you get the best result.

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Requesting quotes is better than finding a designer directly because:

It saves you money - when you request quotes you are asking designers to compete with eachother. Market forces will dictate that they offer you the best price they can. Designers will offer you the best deal they can because they know it is competitive. If you were to contact designers (outside of DesignBay), they will probably try and charge you as much as they possibly can. But when you contact them through DesignBay they will try and charge you as little as they possibly can.
You are given protection - when you use DesignBay your budget is protected. you don't pay the designers upfront and then hope that they deliver. You deposit your budget with DesignBay and we act as an intermediary that protects the rights of both parties. If the designer does not complete the work, meet deadlines or meet your requirements your budget will be returned to you. Designers can be confident that you will pay and you can be confident that the work. Normally, when you work with a designer directly they will require upfront payment. But what happens if they don't do the work? What happens if their work doesn't match what you asked for? You are protected against this when you use DesignBay as we act as your agent
Designers are accountable - You can provide honest feedback on designers that do work for you. This keeps designers accountable and gives them a further incentive to do their best, communicate regularly and meet deadlines.

If the designer doesn't do the work you can get a refund immediately or try and use an alternative designer. You will also have the right to provide feedback about the designer that will be published on DesignBay for future customers to view.

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It is free to start a request quotes project, the only cost is the budget you agree with the designer to complete the design work. Note that you need to deposit this budget with DesignBay before the designer starts work.

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Easy! When you deposit your budget, you pay DesignBay using your credit card or PayPal. We then pass the budet onto the designer once they complete the work and you approve what they've done.

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