In this DesignCrowd customer case study, entrepreneur and author, Dane Pymble of Small Business Wizardry shares his experience of crowdsourcing design for his new eBook, 'Start Your Small Business - A Step By Step Guide' published in 2013.

Numerous small businesses find success in using DesignCrowd for crowdsourcing different brand and product designs, and one small business owner from Australia is no exception. Dane Pymble, owner of Small Business Wizardry, an Australian small business community, recently used DesignCrowd to crowdsource an ebook cover design for his new book. He graciously agreed to describe his process below:

I was writing an ebook and needed a book cover design, I got the cover designed through DesignCrowd and I thought readers would benefit from a blog post about my experience of going through the design process.

The DesignCrowd team were a tremendous help through the process, offering to help me through what was my first project with DesignCrowd.

Having never had anything graphic designed before beyond my company logo, which was done by a good friend of mine, I was excited to start the process of launching a design contest on DesignCrowd for my new ebook 'Start Your Small Business: A Step-by-Step Guide'.

If you are considering crowdsourcing one of your business design elements, then you may find his process helpful. In fact, below we have compiled his process into a checklist you can use to make sure your crowdsourced projects go as smoothly as possible.

1. Select the Type of Design

After perusing the menu of options to choose from when posting a project I settled on 'Book Cover Design' as the right choice.

DesignCrowd has every type of design project that a small business could possibly need, so select "Categories" from the main menu at the top of the Home page to choose which design project you need to create.

2. Choose a Budget Package

I selected the “Most Popular” package because hey everyone wants to be part of the crowd (isn’t that why I came to this site in the first place!). The $400 price seemed a reasonable cost to get a quality selection of designs without breaking the budget. I was also comforted by the fact that if I did not like any of the designs there was a money back guarantee.

As Dane points out, the best way to get a professional design without breaking your budget is to choose a package that fits within your budget but also will be reasonable enough of a price to attract quality designers. You can also choose to add a money back guarantee to your design if you are nervous about the results.

3. Stay Local or Go Global

As I am Australian based I had the choice of choosing local or International Designers. I went with “Worldwide Designers” which still included local designers but in my opinion would give me access to a larger pool of talent to pitch for my project.

Dane is right in that a worldwide selection of designers gives you a much better chance of getting the design you envision. Some small businesses enjoy supporting fellow local freelancers, which is why DesignCrowd offers this option.

4.Get Noticed: Write a Great Headline for Your Project

I named the Project 'Small Business Ebook Design Project'. I thought this succinctly explains both the type of design project I am looking for and what the ebook is about.

Make sure your headline accurately describes your project. For instance, Dane included the words "small business" and "ebook" to better catch attention of designers when they are perusing through projects.

5. Write the Design Brief

In the project description I outlined why I needed the design, including a bit of detail about my company & what the ebook’s content includes and who it is pitched to.

Make sure that your brief gives information about your company to give designers an idea of how to best represent your brand in the design. You will also want to describe your target audience (who will be viewing your product design) and the product the design is for. If you have any examples, critical information to be included, or any other design specifics, be sure to include this information as well. The more detailed you are with your brief, the more likely you are to get a design that fits your vision. If you don't have any ideas for your design, just include the basics of company, target audience, and product descriptions.

6. Set a Deadline

I set the project date at 15 days being the maximum as at the time of launching the project I had yet to complete the ebook so time was not a critical factor.

DesignCrowd allows project creators to set a deadline. Weigh this with how complicated your project is, the price you are willing to pay, and when you absolutely need the design finished. If your price is on the low end but you need the design in a hurry, you may not get very many responses nor the best results.

7. Set the "Look and Feel" Sliders

Not having launched a design project before I wasn’t really sure what I should or shouldn’t have in the design so went in with an open mind to see what the designers could come up with. I played around with the look and feel slider but once again having not done this before I only made a few subtle changes from the defaults.

The sliders help businesses better refine their design brief for designers. If you are unsure of the results you get, you may want to stay close to the default settings like Dane did. The closer the sliders are to either end, the more extreme the designs will be.

8. Pay and Watch for Submissions

I then proceeded to the checkout, paid and my project was launched!

DesignCrowd makes checking out easy. For one, you pay upfront so that you don't have to bother with this step later. And remember you can add in the money back guarantee if you are unsure about project results. Once you pay, your project is live and you can start viewing results as they come in.

9. Refine Project After Launch for Improvements

Dane wisely talked with Nathan once more after he submitted his project to see what changes he could make to his brief to make it more successful. He discusses why he decided to remove the money back guarantee, add in an image of his logo, and include a profile picture:

I then checked back in with Nathan to get his feedback on my project and how I could improve its success. He suggested that whilst the money back guarantee is certainly an option that I would get more and better quality designers if I removed that option which committed me to funding the winning designer. I was comfortable enough to proceed along those lines. He also added that it might be useful to upload my logo so I did so along with a thumbnail of the logo & profile photo of myself. I then proceeded to amend the project details to make reference to these images. I wasn’t sure whether it made sense to include them or not so left it up to the designers to decide.

10. Don't Choose Until Project is Done

Designs started to roll in quite quickly and within 24 hours I had 5 or 6 designs to choose from. Can I say at this stage that readers should wait until the design contest has run its course before choosing a design. You might like a design you see straight away but as I discovered my preferred design came right at the end of the contest at which point I had many more to choose from.

While checking on the submissions can be exciting, you may find it less time-consuming to just wait until the deadline is up as Dane suggests. Or you can take note of the ones that strike you to review a second time when the project is over.

11. Designers are Deadline Driven

A week or so went by with no new designs coming in. I started to get a bit twitchy as I hadn’t really settled on a design I was happy with but the DesignCrowd team assured me that what often happens is that you will get a flood of designs right near the end of the contest and that is exactly what happened. In all, I received 42 designs.

Don't get nervous if you experience a slow period in the middle of the design contest. Some designers like to submit at the beginning of a contest just to make sure they don't miss the deadline. Most, however, wait until closer to the deadline. In fact, some of the best designs come right at the end, although this is not always the case.

12. Choose the Top Winner

After a thorough review of the designs I decided that designer 'smart' had come up with the design that best matched what I was looking for...I liked the design and thought long and hard before choosing smart’s design as the eventual winner. In the end I went with the design that drew out the qualities of both my company’s brand and the theme of the ebook itself.

DesignCrowd contest award most of your budget to the first place winner that you choose. You do not have to use this design for your project, but you do have to pay the winning designer of your choosing if you didn't select the money back guarantee option.

13. Choose the Runners Up

With that out of the way it was then on to the job of awarding the minor placings. As 2 of the three $20 awards were allocated to designers who participated through the “paid invite” system I was left to award the final payment to designer 'mindbrand' who came up with a unique design.

You may not have to choose all of the runners up if any are paid invite designers, but a portion of the budget always goes to 2nd and 3rd place winners. Simply choose those that were close second and thirds to your favorite design.

14. Final Tips from Dane

Dane graciously summarized his process to help fellow small business owners in their own crowdsourcing processes:

The key points I would suggest to readers thinking about launching a design contest through DesignCrowd are:

1. Set an appropriate budget. I recommend following the guidelines suggested by Designcrowd but at the end of the day you need to match the contest with your budget. Just understand that obviously the better designers will compete on the higher budget projects.


2. Be strategic. Spend some time outlining exactly what you want in your project, including any logos or images you want included.


3. Guarantee your project budget. Whilst having the money back guarantee option available is reassuring you get a much better result from the designers by removing it as they then have the confidence that they will be paid should their design come out the winner. The more detailed your description the better your design result will be.


4. Be patient! Let the design contest run its course. You may find the best design comes in on the last day of the contest.


5. Give designers feedback. You may be very happy with a design but there might be some tinkering you would like done to it. Don’t be afraid to suggest changes (I requested my website address be added to the winning design) to get the perfect result you are looking for.

Dane is founder of Small Business Wizardry, an online business community that gives you the tools and resources you need to start and grow your business and author of ebook Start Your Small Business: A Step-by-Step Guide.

For more examples of book cover design project examples read, 10 Awesome Crowdsourced Book Cover Design Examples on DesignCrowd.

Want to get awesome crowdsourced design? You might like: 4 Tips for Better Designs and How To Write a Design Brief in 10 Steps from our blog.

With special thanks to Dane Pymble for sharing his experience.

Written by Jo Sabin on Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Jo Sabin is Head of Designer Community at DesignCrowd. She's led the company's public relations and social media programs since 2012. With more than ten years' experience working with Australian and international tech startups in the creative industries, Jo has been instrumental in meeting DesignCrowd's objectives in Australia and abroad. Get in touch via Twitter.