Design contest?the debate rages on - UPDATE 2
by Rob Mason ~ June 16th, 2008 Filed under: Strategy, Work.
More information on my “Design contest debate” following on from last week’s post. So here goes:
- Entered one extra contest above and beyond the ones already entered into. Lesson learnt - too many contests = bad! Essentially I took too much on and ran out of time and focus which affected all of my entries (of which none won!).
- Content holders and/or clients seems to like lots of generic and cheesy stock imagery. Lesson learnt - use more images in my designs.
- Logical structure and layout don’t seem to play a part in winning designs. In fact the more you cram onto the page navigation and content-wise the better your chances of winning! Also contest holders are not always the end client, in many cases they are another design agency. No lessons learnt, just observations.
So carrying on regardless with a few more entries, but the main thing against me at the moment is time. Balancing a full-time job and family life against contest entries is affecting the quality of my work and the amount of polish I’m able to give it. So less is more when taking on new contests. I’ll be focussing on one per week I think and see how that goes.