Just realized I wasted $300 on a logo from a contest site

I needed a logo for my small coffee cart and thought a design contest would be cheap and easy. I paid $300 for the 'premium' package on one of those sites, got over 100 entries, and they all looked generic and low effort. The winner I picked looked okay as a tiny file, but when I went to print it on my cart and cups, the lines were blurry and the colors were off. The designer couldn't provide the right file types and basically ghosted me after winning the prize money. Had to pay a local designer another $400 to fix it from scratch. Anyone else get burned by these contest platforms and have a better way to find a good designer?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_gray5d ago

Tell me about it, I got the same blurry print mess from a contest site. You're just gambling on some random person who might not even know how to make a real logo file. Paying a pro directly is the only way to get something you can actually use.

dixon.nathan5d ago

Ever feel like you paid for a fancy steak and got a mystery meat patty? I did the same thing for my buddy's podcast logo. The winning design looked cool on screen but the file was basically a postage stamp. My guy tried to blow it up for a t-shirt and it looked like a sad, blurry potato. Lesson learned the hard way.