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I need a flyer designed for a party.

I know about crowdspring.com for graphic design, but they have a minimum of $300 award per design, and I'm only looking to spend $50-$100 - it's a simple design.

Any suggestions for sites like crowdspring without a minimum award?

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11 Answers

Eh, guys before me have brought this up, but you absolutely get what you pay for. If the occasion calls for a designer in the first place, might it be worth the $300 to get some decent talent on the job?

If it's not worth it or not in your budget, you could use free vector graphics and/or do it yourself. All you need is to download some open source software and read a couple tutorial blogs.

Example

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+1 on all ez's points! – Jason Oct 17 '09 at 17:19
Open source vector graphics: inkscape.org – Clint Jan 23 '10 at 11:37

99designs allowed you to set your own price and you get results quickly.

Note that you usually get what you pay for...

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"You get what you pay for" - how true. I ran two logo contests. The first one produced two ok designs. The second, well that is still oing on and it is a horror-show. Absolute horror-show. – TimJ Nov 10 '09 at 14:56
"You get what you pay for" in my experience only is true when it's quite cheap. Unfortunately, I have paid medium or even high rates and didn't get what I paid for. – Hanno Fietz Nov 10 '09 at 15:16
Yes - I agree - I have also paid big dollars and gotten crap. This is not an easy problem unless you have a working relationship with a good designer already. – TimJ Nov 10 '09 at 15:52
Hmm, who said throwing money guarantees success? "You get what you pay for" is true at the lower end of the scale (pay little, get bad results), not necessarily at the higher end of the scale. – Gabriel Magana Nov 10 '09 at 15:59
2  
Suffice to say it's hard to find good people, ever... – Jason Nov 11 '09 at 3:01

You can hire a freelancer using sites such as www.getafreelancer.com and www.project4hire. You can post your requirements on these sites and various graphics designers will bid on your project. You can view their portfolios, and can select the one that suits your budget.

Joydeep

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You really shouldn't. Depending on what your priorities are, do one of the following instead:

  • get a good professional and pay what it takes (I did that with my website)
  • find an enthusiast, student, or hobbyist among the people you know who will do it for free, because they like it and it's not a huge project (I did that with a video presentation).
  • do it yourself (I do that a lot)

If you find volunteers: Don't pay them even if you'd like to, because you want to find someone who really just wants to do it. This also means they'll do it by their own rules and you'll have to accept. (In my case that involved hanging around for hours in the middle of the night watching some friend of a friend of a friend testdriving his brand-new Adobe software and then waiting weeks for him to send me the actual file)

If you're hiring a professional, "good" is - in my experience - quite independent of the price tag, although good professionals are rarely cheap (they are surprisingly often medium-priced) and always worth what they charge you. I went into more detail in this answer.

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Very good points... – Gabriel Magana Nov 10 '09 at 14:44

For really cheap stuff you can try the Digital Point forums: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=104

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1- Simple is a subjective term. If its really simple then you might not really require expertise of a real graphic designer. 2- You should estimate how long do you expect a real designer to spend time on your flyer and then how much are you willing to pay an hour. In another words I don't think you can get much quality creative with $50-$100. 3- Lastly I recommend you try your local Kinkos branch.

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Call up your local college, or art and design colleges that may not be local. Get the name of one of the 100 level professors and have them forward your request onto the students. Students are cheap, and often the professors know which students have a good talent and work ethic.

Alternately, decide where you're going to flyer, and check out the flyers already going in that distribution channel (bus stops, light poles, etc). Find a few flyers that are decent, contact whoever posted them and ask who they used.

Lastly, Craig's list it or use some other local willing-to-buy listing service.

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Be prepared that most professors (at least in my experience) are swamped with that kind of request. You might have to have something that's professionally interesting to them. For example, I once got a free usability testing by a class of software engineering students because the professor was looking for a real product freshly out of a real development phase. – Hanno Fietz Nov 10 '09 at 14:29

I've gotten good results with Design Outpost. Much cheaper than 99designs.

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Try LogoNerds. They worked for me and are in your price range.

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Design contests work well for getting lots of ideas - but they are not the best way to completely minimize your budget. Design contests provide maximum value for your budget but the budget needs to be big enough to attract and spread across multiple people (as multiple people - sometimes 10 or more - are submitting ideas). If you run a low budget design contest (

Cutting costs If you want to save money use 1 designer (as they take on less risk they are willing to get paid less). Our website DesignCrowd is an online graphic design service that offers both design contests (which start from $200) and 1-to-1 designers (which start from $120). Also, here are some tips on when to use design contests.

Alec Lynch DesignCrowd.com

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I've used oDesk to outsource graphics design work on a budget. You can see someone's portfolio before hiring. Sometimes it has worked out really well for me, sometimes I get junk. For the price (many designers in poorer countries are charging $5-$10/hr), it's worth trying.

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