Logodesign contest

LogoTrader is an online community where businesses can host their own design contest in order to finally get the design they’ve been hoping for. LogoTrader makes it possible for businesses to receive loads of different ideas from different designers – far more than going with a traditional design firm.

First, check you junk / spam email folder, as it could have been routed there by your email program. If 10 minutes go by and you haven’t received the confirmation email, go to the forgot password page and request the confirmation be sent again.

The allocated budget you have decided to spend on the design will be transferred to an escrow-account, this is to guarantee that the designers signed up with Logotrader will actually get paid when a a winnner of a project is announced.

Don’t worry! If your project gets less than 5 designs sent in, we will extend the deadline with 7 days (free of charge) And if there are still less than 5 designs after the second 7 day period – which is very unlikely – we will give you a full refund.  Our customer satisfaction rate is more than 99%. The chances that you won’t find your desired logo with Logotrader are very slim.

Our procedure to start a project is very transparant and we invite you to take a look at some of the running projects and designs. We find there are several reasons why you will find the design you are looking for here at Logotrader:

• The many designers that are signed up with Logotrader grant you access to an almost unlimited pool of talent and ideas
• The extended questionnaire is based on the daily activities within the design sector and most likely will provide you with excellent results, regardless of the amount of design and marketing knowledge you posess.
• On average each project on Logotrader will yield 10 to 20 designs.
• Your project will be automatically extended with 7 days if you have received less than 5 designs. 

If none of the designs appeal to you, we will offer you a full money refund, minus the service fees. In order to receive this refund, all you have to do is send us a message stating that you wish to receive a restitution.

Of course. During the competition phase as well as the evaluation phase (total of 14 days) you will be able to communicate with the designers. We advise you to request revisions during the competition or in the evaluation phase.

As soon as you have chosen a design, the designer will send you a .rar file with eps/ai vector files of the design, including jpg/gif files with various dimensions. If requested, the designer is obliged to send the following variations on the design: white background, coloured background, black and white, transpart, and plain colours. You can contact the designer and report your wishes.

After selecting a design and approving the files that you have received, the copyrights of the winning design are transferred from designer to customer. (you) The designers of the losing designs will remain owner of their own designs.

WinRAR is a free powerful archive manager. It reduces the size of the designs dramatically. More info at http://www.rarlab.com/

The two most common vector file types are EPS and AI. We elected to use EPS as our preferred format, because it is the industry standard. You can easily obtain free EPS viewers on the internet.

Unless you do design work or have a print shop, you probably won’t be able to view the EPS files with software you already have. However, you can download a free eps viewer and use their basic EPS viewer. Please note that we are not responsible for content on third party sites.

There is probably no single reason, but many factors influence the number of entries your contest receives: The complexity of your logo requirements / Your level of interaction with contestants / The length of time remaining in the contest / ...

In general, simple, icon-based designs receive the most entries. Designs that are very complicated – such as character illustrations – take more time and may result in fewer entries. Contest Holders who participate in contests by providing daily feedback and rankings generally get far more entries than Contest Holders who provide no interaction during the contest. Often, contests don’t receive a lot of entries until the final two days or so, once the energy gets rolling. Your best approach is to continue a high level of interaction and be patient. Have a look at the current Contests Page, and this will probably help ease your fears

The extension for 7 days IS FREE if you have no more then 5 entries in your contest. Use the Contact Us form, and put in a request for an extension. We’ll process your request within one business day. If you have more then 5 entries and still want to extend the contest with 7 days you can click on the paypal button within your contestpage at anytime. Cost are 9€ per extension.

Yes, After payment you can download your legal invoice (full company-details) in a PDF file immediately. You can alo find an overview of all past invoices in your personal controlepanel. Note: 21% is included in the total price (For more info regarding VAT: http://www.tmf-vat.com/vat/belgium-vat-registration.html )

The price award you set contains 21% VAT. Logotrader is a recognized european based company that has to pay taxes like any other company.  The award the designers can win is the initially award minus 21% VAT

No problem. After you registered as a client you will have asscess to more Q&A. Also you can always leave us a note in the popup (left side of the window) or chat with us live.

As a designer you have more chances to earn money with Logotrader then anywhere else as you don’t have to pay any commission (!). Also the contestholder can choose a top 3 of most creative designs. This means that the award will be divided between the 3 designers (more winners):

- Winner gets 70%
- 2th place gets 20%
- 3th place receives 10% of the reward

If only one designers is selected as a winner then he will get the full award.

All creative people (16+) with an extensive knowledge of Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop can sign up as a designer. As a designer you are obliged to know what vector files are, as well as the terms CYMK, RGB, raster and bitmap.

First, check you junk / spam email folder, as it could have been routed there by your email program. If 10 minutes go by and you haven't received the confirmation email, go to the forgot password page and request the confirmation be sent again.

VECTOR FILES. When sending a file in you are obliged to add a EPS or AI file. And next to the vector file there has to be a JPG and a transparent png/gif file attached. You are free to add black/white and other files. In the final design the fonts have to be converted into outlines and the Font has to be included in the package.

NO CLIP ART. This means no iStockphoto, Shutterstock, etc., even if you have purchased a user license.

NO TRACING OR VECTORIZING INTERNET CONTENT OR PHOTOGRAPHY. There are two exceptions: 1) You must own FULL copyright to the image, must not have used it before, and must agree not to use it again and 2) The Client is given FULL copyrights to the image.

IMAGE DIMENSIONS MUST BE 500X300. Or they must have a width / height ratio of 1.25 to 1 in JPG, PNG, or GIF format.

ONE CONCEPT PER SUBMISSION. This means that if you want to show a logo design in 3 different colors, you need to create and upload 3 separate files.

NO WATERMARKS (whether your design firm or any other’s).

IMAGE MUST BE CENTERED. Both horizontally and vertically, with sufficient surrounding space.

NO BORDERS. We want to build a clean and consistent portfolio of our community’s work.

BACKGROUNDS. White, black, or otherwise solid backgrounds are best. Complicated or elaborate backgrounds are allowed, but not recommended because they do not show up as well on buildings, vehicles, and other media. Moderators may choose to remove designs that do not look professional.

The staff and moderators of LogoTrader may remove entries without notice if they violate the submission rules.

First, double check your image size. Your images must be exactly 500x300 pixels. Sometimes programs exporting to JPG, PMG, or GIF will occasionally miss a pixel width or height because of compression. Try changing your DPI setting to 72, or 96 and exporting again. Often this will solve the sizing problem. Check the default DPI value for your art board and be sure you export at the same DPI setting. In Windows, you right click on the file, then view “Properties.” You can make quick edits with a program like MSPaint or something similar.

We made our policy to only accept vectors for clients’ logos because vectors offer the most versatility and the most consistent high-quality look across applications. Designers on our site use the popular programs like Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, FreeHand, and others open source vector programs and submit the final files as true EPS vector files.

Congratulations! All prices are pre-paid through Paypal, which we choose because it is the largest online payment system in the world. Your next step is to upload the final files and wait for the client to approve them using our system. You may want to follow up directly with the client to see if they want any last-minute revisions. Once the client approves your final files, your award will be converted into EUR and added to your balance (minus commission – see above). Once you reached 50€ or more in your balance account you may make up a paypal invoice to credits@logotrader.com and we will pay out this amount within 1-2 days.

We decided to not pay the award immediately just for administration purposes (less paperwork). But don’t worry, we always payout the award till the last penny when you don’t want to be a partner of Logotrader anymore even if it is below 50€(!)

If you have a balance of 50€ or more we ask that you (as designer) send us a paypal invoice including your designername and 1 line: “Payout ID: ###”. We don’t want to receive paypal requests… we need paypal invoices including your (full) company info which means: Company name / full address / Vat number. If you are not a company you need to place your contactdetails there (name/address). As a company you may also send us your company invoice aswell (instead of a paypal invoice). More info: https://www.paypal.com

First, try to contact the Contest Holder by PM to ask if there is any help you can provide. Sometimes a Contest Holder has to involve several people in approving the final logo design. If 7 days have passed since you uploaded your final source files, use the support page to let us know. We will investigate, and if necessary to resolve the situation, we can release the price money to you.

If you see a contest with a little lock symbol beside it, it is Private and is only viewable by designers. Some clients choose this upgrade if they don’t want search engines or the general public to see their contest. Designers can only view designs on the contest page. Entries you submit to private contests are not viewable anywhere else on the site, including in your portfolio.

Submissions to Private contests (the ones with a lock icon next to them) do not show up in your portfolio. This is due to the Contest Holder upgrading and requesting that a contest be made Private.

Trophies, wreaths, and site rankings are updated once every 24 hours, so give it a little time.

The Contest Holder awards points at the end of the contest as follows:

1st place – 50 points
2nd place – 20 points
3rd place – 10 points
4th through 10th place – 2 points each.

The overall site ranking is calculated once a day and is simply a total of all points received.