If you are an entrepreneur who owns a small business or startup company, you’re probably watching your budget closely. Still, your biz needs a brand that is recognizable and memorable. Any small business can increase their visibility with an excellent logo and well-designed graphics. Contracting with an exclusive design house can be a pricey proposition. What if we told you that there’s a much simpler, more affordable way? A crowdsourcing platform like DesignCrowd is the ideal solution for small businesses that need excellent artwork while staying within budget.

The first step is to crowdsourcing a project is to understand what crowdsourcing is. As you might infer by the name, crowdsourcing involves a ‘crowd’ of numerous people. When a small business goes the crowdsource route for their graphic arts projects, artists from around the globe submit designs for client approval. When a number of freelance artists and designers compete in this manner, it’s called a ‘contest’. A small business that runs a successful design contest on a crowdsourcing site is sure to come away with full rights to a great design that can be used in a variety of ways. There are several fine crowdsource platforms out there, and DesignCrowd is one of the best.

Crowd design contests are the ideal way for a small business to hook up with artists around the world. The freelancers who work through DesignCrowd have successfully completed thousands upon thousands of first class design projects including but not limited to:

• Logo design
• Webpage graphics
• Menu design
• Business cards and stationery
• Vehicle graphics
• Advertising graphics
• Decorative T-shirts
• Product packaging and label design

A local design house might have only one or two designers, whereas a platform such as DesignCrowd puts your project where hundreds of thousands of talented artists can find and work on it. When freelancers participate in a small business design contest, they submit their best work for client approval. Why work with one high-priced graphic artist when you can have instantaneous access to hundreds of thousands of freelance designers?

Starting a design contest is easy. If you choose to use DesignCrowd, all you have to do to begin is register a free buyer account. Once you’ve done that, you will be taken to a page where you will describe your project. The more information you provide, the likelier it is that one or more artists will come up with a great design the first time around. If you want to share files with the artists, you can do that with a click. Select a package, choose a deadline, make your payment, and it won’t be long before the ideas start rolling in. Choose the ones you like best and request revisions if needed. As soon as you fully approve a design, pay for it and it’s yours to keep forever.

The internet changed everything about the way the world does business. Nowadays, design contests make it quick and easy for small businesses to find and hire freelance artists who are ready and able to produce high quality work for very competitive prices.

Written by Clancy Clarke on Friday, June 27, 2014

Clancy is the Organic Search manager at DesignCrowd. Clancy has over 7 years of online marketing experience and a passion for analytics. Get in touch via Google+.