Dropped $1500 on a logo contest and got 300 versions of the same swoosh
I needed a logo for my pressure washing side gig and thought a design contest site would get me the best deal. I paid $1500 and got 300 entries, but 280 of them were literally the same generic blue swoosh with a water drop. The winner turned out to be a traced clipart from a stock site and my client in Dallas said it looked like a plumber's van from 1998. I ended up hiring a real designer for another $800 and learned my lesson about crowdsourcing. Has anyone else wasted cash on those contest sites, or did I just get unlucky?