The Creators Club

If you search across the internet you will find an abundance of companies and private parties looking for designers to help them with their creative needs. Often times companies post freelance projects seeking established designers to apply for but in recent years more companies are turning to design competitions for a variety of designers to submit their concepts for review. So what are the pros and cons between freelance work and design competitions?

To start, let’s conduct a poll …

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The poll above is an on-going survey to see how designers approach additional projects for their portfolio and income.

I am sure there are countless reasons why some prefer one over the other, but I think each have their own pros and cons that designers should consider when looking for their next project.

Freelance

Pros:

• Build your portfolio, resume, and list of references from specific clients and companies
• Work with large corporate consumer brands and products that get nationwide or even international exposure
• Usually projects only employ one designer at a time, per project
• Projects can last substantially longer and turn into part-time or full-time positions

Cons:

• Commissions/compensation tend to be based on a final approved concept, regardless of the number of revisions
• Project time lines fluctuate per client demands

Design Competitions

Pros:

• Competitions can range in size and scope which can help you gain experience in a variety of project types
• Typically new and emerging companies host design competitions giving designers the chance to get their foot in the door, which may lead to a part-time or full time position
• While it may be considered a “con” that other designers can compete, competitions typically allow you to review other submission which can lead to new ideas or perspectives for your own revisions
• There is usually a real-time feedback box for the competition hosts and visitors to leave comments for the designs they like
• If you win a couple of contests, your winning submissions can be great for a resume but make sure to include the number of votes and comments!

Cons:

• The name says it all … you are competing, and competitions always have 1 winner. Despite putting in all your energy and time, you still aren’t guaranteed the prize
• Competitions usually have lower prize commission that freelance, so it may take multiple “wins” to equal the same as one freelance contract
• Some contests might not be the best to showcase your talents, so choose them wisely
• Some contest cost money to enter, so if you aren’t 100% committed to the challenge DON’T ENTER

Both freelance and design competitions seem to be evenly matched as far as good opportunities for your design career. However, to me, I think a design competition gives you a slightly better advantage when it comes to boosting your career. With design competitions, if you know where to look, you can pick and choose from a handful of different competitions and start submitting. With design competitions you can also see what your competition has submitted to get a glimpse of their direction on the design. So, with all of this in mind, where can you find a variety of competitions to choose from?!

Design Competition Sites

99Designs – Companies of all sizes post various competitions ranging from Logo designs, t-shirts, to full website branding. It doesn’t cost you, the designer, anything to post a submission for any competition, but the host does pay a small fee to post the competition. There are hundreds of active competitions here!

Graphic Competitions – is an international art contest website. The website prides itself on having the most updated and most popular art contests from around the world. If you think you’ve got the “chops” for some of the bigger competitions definitely check it out. The prizes are typically much higher than your competitions posted in 99Designs.

DoNanza – DoNanza is a great one-stop-shop for all graphic design projects. Its sort of like your Monster Job search, but specifically for design type projects and postings. It searches all of the main sites for new postings and displays them in one specific spot. It also includes projects from various other types of “disciplines” and is a good site if you are looking to work from home.

There are plenty more out there, but these are a few good ones to start with. If you are interested in discovering more sites that post design competitions, here are a few posts to guide you in the right direction:

WalYou – 10 Graphic Designer Resources to Find Online Work
Why You Should Consider Graphic Design Competitions

With all of the new changes and features here at the Creators Club, I thought it would be important to highlight the best reasons why now, more than ever, is the time to join TCC. The site has come a long way from its original blog-only format and should provide a great resource for anyone interested in graphic/web design and digital media.

So, here are our top 5 reasons why you should join The Creators Club (besides being FREE!)

1. Networking

The most inspiring element of the online design community, at least from what I have seen, is that almost everyone who writes a design blog or who posts in forums, is willing to share their own experiences and expertise. There are countless step-by-step photo and video tutorials to teach you various techniques and tricks; limitless fonts and images to use, and tons of unique ideas and perspectives from experts around the world that are out their to motivate and inspire.

The Creators Club allows you to “connect” and meet new friends. When you complete your TCC profile you can select different areas of interest (such as photography or animation) and then connect to others who share your passions in those same fields.

2. Collaborate

As it was initially intended, The Creators Club has always been about collaboration. As you network with new people, it’s also very easy to collaborate on new ideas. Sending private messages to individuals or posting ideas across the entire club is sure to get a brainstorm started. You can even use the ‘groups’ section to start your own special project and recruit your friends to work with you.

3. Share

Found a helpful tutorial on Photoshop or Illustrator, post it! Took an inspiring photo of your car, house, dog; post it! Spent all night working on a new design concept for a local charity, post it! You can post almost anything right from within your profile to share with your friends, group members or the entire club.  You can also share things in any of the different forums. Being a member gives you access to share information as well as access others.

4. Discuss

Discussing various topics is a great way to get better informed as well as to share your own perspectives and insights. Sometimes you might be looking for some help as you troubleshoot using a new technique or maybe just want some quick feedback on an idea and being a TCC member provides a handful of different avenues to join a discussion.

5. Inspire

Sometime all you need to break through a wall is to see what other people are doing. Using the various features on the Creators Club, you have access to all sorts of things that may inspire you. You might get inspired by a new tutorial a friend posts that you want to use for your own project. Or maybe see a logo concept that uses an intriguing color combination you like. Creativity is only limited when you struggle to be inspired.

Hopefully these 5 points is enough evidence to show you all of the reasons and benefits of joining The Creators Club. If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Hope to see you soon as part of this expanding creative community!

We are excited announce the launch of our brand new Creators Club Forums! Forums have always been a great resource for people to join a discussion and connect with other people who share similar interests. Forums are also a great way to ask for help on specific problems.

To kick things off we have organized the first forum group dedicated to Graphic Design. We have also started 5 different sub-groups all pertaining to various elements of graphic design, including general interest topic, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, typography and general resources. While there are plenty more topics out there, I thought these could be a good place for new members and guests to get started with.

The forums are free and open to everyone, all we ask is you sign up to be a Creators Club member which will allow you to join any forums or post your own new topics.

The Creators Club Challenge is back! As you may remember, we initially started the ‘TCC Challenge‘ about a year ago with a new design challenge every week. With the new open community layout, we wanted to bring the challenge back and encourage everyone interested to post!

Every couple of weeks we will be posting new challenges to members as well as “opening the floor” for group members to propose their own challenges.

In the past, the challenge presented fresh project ideas to help break you out of your design mold and attempt something new. We often learned a lot about different design methods or applications (i.e. – wine bottles vs. magazine covers, etc.) It’s also a lot of fun to investigate new design techniques that you can apply in other designs and projects later down the road.

The biggest value of the challenges is the feedback. The art of design is constantly evolving and you can never know everything about it. The challenges are designed (no pun intended) to get your ideas out there so your friends, colleagues, and peers can give you constructive feedback that will hopefully make you a better designer. As more people give you feedback you will start to collect new perspectives you may not have considered before and these new perspectives can empower you and direct you down new paths for your own ideas.

All you have to do is JOIN the ‘Creators Club Challenge’ group and get started. Enjoy!

Welcome back to the brand new Creators Club. It has been a long time coming, but with some recent updates to the site, we can now feel comfortable in calling the site a “club”.

As you will see The Creators Club site is a little different than it use to be. We took it away from just your ordinary ‘blog’ layout and turned it into an open community format so you can make new friends just as committed to design and excited by imagination as you are! Create your own profile and connect with others talking about what’s interesting to you.

The Creators Club has always been about fostering new ideas and collaborating with one another, and now you can do just that!

In addition to collaborating with other creative members, we will continue to provide unique and inspiring information from across the internet to keep you up-to-date and informed on the major trends taking place everyday. But remember, these industry-wide changes are not only as important the the people who make them, but also those who talk about them. If you find something before we do, post it!

The Creators Club is here to help you find exactly what you need to stay inspired and to always continue reaching beyond the norm of creativity.