Our Experience with a Logo Design Competition

Ambient DJ Service’s original logo was created in 2003, and while it’s served us well, we were overdue for an upgrade. Several respected DJ colleagues of mine suggested a logo design competition.

There are numerous online sites that host logo design competitions. After some research, we decided to go with the service at www.logomyway.com. Attributes that we liked about Logo My Way included:

A wealth of positive testimonials and design samples;
A money back guarantee in the event that our contest did not attract at least 40 logo concepts;
The fact that the service was featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and on CNBC.

Here’s how the service works – you select the cash prize for the contest (minimum $200 and maximum $1,000) and provide detailed instructions on your design concept. The cash prize selected is the amount that is actually paid to the designer. There is an additional fee paid to LogoMyWay for hosting and administrating the contest. This fee was reasonable. As a part of the service, you also have access to a product specialist who checks in with you periodically to make sure that the contest is on track and that you are totally satisfied.

Our contest ran for 10 days and offered the winning designer a prize of $325. Over this time, we received 114 submissions from designers all over the world including the United States, Iceland, Brazil, Indonesia, India and various Eastern European countries. The submissions with just a couple of exceptions were good to excellent. The logos were also incredibly diverse and produced design concepts that we never would have thought of. Graphic art is a specialized skill, and clearly logo design competitions are attracting top level talent.

Another great feature of the process was that we could rank the designs each day and provide feedback. Designers were quick to provide variations based on our suggestions.

Selecting a Winner

At the conclusion of the contest, we began the difficult task of selecting a winner. The three big picture design concepts that we asked to be reflected in our new logo were:

A music-centric, artistic approach
Sophistication; and
the concept of musical ambience or ‘vibe’

We short listed the 114 submissions to half a dozen finalists, and then debated the designs both internally and with our clients and networking partners. Bad news – people were very much divided over their favorite design!

In the end, reflecting that we are more a boutique style wedding shop than nightlife club DJ, we went with a design submitted by Indonesian designer “Oin” – this design featured a fashionable font for “Ambient DJs” with the word DJs contained in a circle (the circle was a feature of our prior logo). We asked Oin to create two variations: 1) for the circle, make it black and add very subtle record grooves, and 2) create versions of the logo in gold, blue and hot pink. Oin was quick to make these changes.

We received our final designs in various file formats, including a super high-res .eps file that can be used for posters, t-shirts and mugs.

Sponsoring a logo design competition with LogoMyWay.com was a great experience! The process forces a business owner to think carefully about his or her brand. In our case, we received an outstanding logo design that properly communicates our brand attributes, also reflecting our past, present and future.