Customer FAQs

Pricing and payment

110Designs offers you to name your own price that starts from minimum very affordable cost for each design category. Check the pricing page.

The package amount that you enter will include the prize amount to the winning designer. Generally, the more you pay, the more designs you'll get to choose from and the better the quality of the designs you'll get.

An additional 14% of contest prize will be charged as all fees and commissions. For example, if you launch a contest with prize USD 100, then a total of USD 114 will be charged.

At 110Designs, you pay for your design contest at the start. This guarantees designers that you are able to pay your contest’s prize.

When you go through the launch contest process, at the last step you have to signup for your 110Designs account. Fill in the required fields, click on the Sign Up & Pay Contest button and you will be redirected to PayPal for secure payment.

Once payment has been made, You are done! your design contest will be live for thousands of design professionals around the world to submit their creative designs.

If for whatever reason you are not happy with the results of the contest, do not forget that we provide a 100% money back guarantee.

110Designs offers a 100% money-back guarantee within 60 days of payment on all design contests except:

  1. those that have a guaranteed prize
  2. those that have received 40+ design entries
  3. those that have a winner selected
Not satisfied with the designs? No worries!

We are definitely more than happy to assist you re-write your brief, re-open your contest to make sure you receive a good outcome, and help you choose a winning design. Contact us by filling a contact form or use our Live Chat / Email Us feature at the right bottom of the page – we are right here for you!

What happens to the designs?

Keep in mind, in case you request a refund on your contest, you are not legally eligible to use any of the designs submitted to your contest.

110Designs uses PayPal payment system to accept secure payments for your design contest. PayPal allows you to make payments using a variety of methods including:

  1. PayPal balance
  2. bank account
  3. PayPal branded debit and credit cards
  4. PayPal Credit
  5. debit card, and
  6. credit card.

The currency you will be charged in is USD.

Launching a contest

A private contest is the ultimate in privacy on 110Designs. They are not indexed or crawled by search engines.

Designers can’t add designs they’ve submitted in a private contest into their 110Designs profiles, and should not share designs from private contests anywhere on the web unless they have altered it to a generic business name so that it will not be linked to the contest in any way.

You can make your contest Private as part of the process of launching a contest, or using the Edit Contest button on your contest page.

In a blind contest , designers are only able to view their own entries, All designs from other designers are hidden to them. As the contest goes end, in deciding phase, all entries become visible to all designers.

Designers might prefer to compete in blind contests if they’re worried about other designers copying their ideas.

You can make your contest Blind as part of the process of launching a contest, or using the Edit Contest button on your contest page.

A guaranteed contest is one whose contest holder has guaranteed that they will select a winning designer, and pay out the prize in their contest. Guaranteed contests attract more designers — and more designs — than ordinary contests.

If you have chosen to offer a guaranteed prize, you are promising to the design community that you will pick a winner, so your contest won’t be eligible for a refund.

You can make your contest Guaranteed as part of the process of launching a contest, or using the Edit Contest button on your contest page.

No. 110Designs is a design marketplace. We don’t allow contests for the coding of sites or mobile apps, nor can you include coding in a website or app design contest at 110Designs.

Designing a website or mobile app and writing the code for it are two separate tasks, and each requires separate tools and skills. Your best place to find a website or app developer who can take your website or app design and make it into a fully functional mobile application is through your contacts and colleagues, or with some smart web searching.

No, adult content is not permitted on 11Designs. If we see it, we’ll take it down.

110Designs is a family-friendly community made up of people of all ages and walks of life. Our Terms of use specifically prohibit posting content which is “offensive, unlawful, harassing, libellous, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene, or otherwise objectionable.” As a result, we act quickly when we see something people are likely to be offended by.

Managing your contest

The key to a successful design contest is to stay active.

Log into your 110Designs account and view the contest at least once a day. While you review the new designs, you should provide feedback and interact with designers by giving the designs a star rating, commenting on the designs, updating design brief and eliminating the designs that aren’t what you want.

The most talented designers in our community are much more likely to enter a contest which is guaranteed and offers an attractive prize.

Although we encourage our designers to submit unlimited number of design concepts, using the following strategy may help you boost the number of designs for your contest:

1. Make your contest guaranteed

This means that you are guaranteeing that you will choose a winning design at the end of the contest. This will assure the designers that they are not wasting their time with drafts. A guaranteed contest also attracts more designers, and boosts the number of design drafts.

2. Write a detailed creative brief

The purpose of your creative brief is to provide information for designers, so they will understand your ideas and what you are looking for in their designs. By giving more details, designers will be able to envision your idea more clearly and be more aligned with your vision.

3. Give feedback and get involved

Being involved in your contest by providing constructive feedback helps give designers direction. They will provide better quality designs that meet your specifications.

4. Increase the prize money

The greater the amount you invest, the more designers will be interested in competing in your contest. In the end, there will be more concepts submitted for you to choose from.

5. To attract better skilled designers

you can browse through our designers and their past work. By checking out their profiles and portfolios, you may get an idea of their design style, which may better match what you are looking for. You may invite these designers to participate in your contest.

That relies how you deal with your contest.

we estimate about an average of 35 design entries per contest. But there aren’t any guarantees with regards to how many designs you’ll get. The volume of designs will be based considerably upon you. Here’s some suggestions for increasing the quantity of entries in your design contest:

  1. Raise the prize amount you offer to designers
  2. Write a very clear brief
  3. Provide feedback and communicate with designers
  4. Guarantee the prize for your contest

For all design categories the contest will usually run for 7 days and after that you have up to 2 weeks to review the submitted designs and select a winner. If you’re happy with a design before the contest finished, you can end your contest at any time by declaring a winner.

You can also set your own duration from 3 to 7 days for free depends on how urgent the design is needed.

Contest holders who need more time in selecting the winner at any stage can contact our support team.

If your contest is ended and you want designers to submit more design concepts or submit revised versions based on your feedback, you can also extend your contest from 2 to 6 more days in a little cost of $14 by clicking on Edit Contest button on your contest page.

If you’re not getting entries to your design contest, ask yourself these questions.

1. Is my contest attractive to designers?

Designers in our community are less likely to enter a contest which isn’t guaranteed or offers only the minimum prize. Consider increasing the prize on offer to attract more designers.

2. Am I giving lots of detailed feedback?

Designers love feedback. Your brief acts as a starting point, but your feedback is vital for designers to create a design you love. Keep on top of feedback: eliminate designs and designers that don’t interest you, and leave comments and ratings for designers who do.

3. Have I waited for long enough?

The more complex your design contest is, the longer you may have to wait for entries to start appearing. Designers can start to knock up simple logo designs within a day, but complex web page designs or illustrative logos may take at least a couple of days to start appearing.

4. Are my contest title and brief clear and to the point?

Make sure that your contest title is clear and eye-catching. Also check that your brief is clearly written, and that you’re asking for only one category of design.

Inviting designers to your contest will help you connect with designers whose work you like, and encourage them to submit designs to your contest.

Go to our Designers page. Check designers' statistics and portfolios. Invite them to participate in your contest from top right link on their profile page that says Invite.

You can give designers feedback in a number of ways:

1. Leave comments on designers’ entries page

This is the most important and productive way of leaving feedback, as it allows you to interact with the specific designer and provide guidance. Tell designers if their design is going in the right direction, and how they can improve their submission. Comments on designer’s entries page are not visible to other designers except that particular designer.

2. Rate the designs

This gives designers an indication of what you do and don’t like. Just roll your cursor over the stars above each design thumbnail image, and click the rating you’d like to give.

At the start, it’s usually a good idea to not rate designs above 3 stars—this keeps your contest competitive. The 4- and 5-star ratings are the highest possible ratings that you can give, so new designers might be discouraged from entering a contest where designs are already getting ratings at that level.

3. Eliminate designs from the contest

This lets designers know that the specific design wasn’t what you were looking for, as well as the reason it’s not being considered. To eliminate a design, simply click the Eliminate link appears below the entry.

4. Contest discussion board

Leave public comments in the contest Discussion area.

Private messages are messages exchanged between members of 110Designs. They aren’t public, like design feedback is—no one can see them but the sender and the receiver.

To send a private message, click on Send a message link on user's/designer's profile page.

To read any private messages addressed to you, click on the Message link in the top right-hand corner of the site. If you have any unread messages, the link will show the number of messages waiting for you. You will be also be notified via email when you receive a new message.

To get an extension during any period of your contest, click on Edit Contest button on your contest page and follow the process. You can extend your contest for more 3 to 7 more days.

No, we can’t "open up" a blind contest. Designers enter blind contests knowing their designs won’t be visible to competing designers. To suddenly change these rules would be unfair to the designers who have already invested time competing in the contest.

As a contest holder, the onus is on you to take reasonable steps to check that the winning design in your contest is original and won’t land you in hot water. We recommend that you take the following steps in the latter stages of your contest:

1. Listen to the designers in your contest: They can be some of your best helpers in identifying copied or unoriginal designs. They’re the design experts, after all!

2. Search for similar designs: To confirm the originality of your top designs, it’s a good idea to use image search sites such as TinEye, Google Images or PicScout.

We take copyright infringement very seriously here at 110Designs, so if you discover that someone has stolen a design let us know and we’ll look into it ASAP.

A contest is closed when:

  1. it violates our community guidelines
  2. the contest holder hasn’t declared a winner two weeks after the end of their contest
  3. there’s some other issue with the contest

To have your contest unclosed, please contact customer support.

Designers might withdraw designs if they think they’re no longer in the running for your contest prize, or they don’t want to be involved with the contest for some other reason.

There are plenty of reasons designers may not want to be involved in a contest:

  • they might feel out of their depth
  • they may think they’ve been unfairly treated
  • they might feel that the contest holder isn’t running the contest particularly well.

If you find that one of your favorite designs has been withdrawn, feel free to contact the designer who made it.

If you find that designers are withdrawing their entries from your contest, it’s a good idea to brush up on our guidelines for running a successful design contest.

We offer a 100% money-back guarantee in case you’re not satisfied with the designs your contest receives.

To ask for a refund, please contact us.

We can’t refund guaranteed contests. If your contest is guaranteed, please contact us, and one of our design consultants will personally help you make your contest a success!

Choosing Winner and get files

To award a winner in your contest, follow these steps:

1. On your contest page click on Nominate link beneath the design you wish to award the prize. It will change the link to Denominate (if you want to denominate the design, simply click on Denominate link).

2. Go to Design Nominees page by clicking on View Design Nominees.

3. Select the prize rank and confirm the winner.

When you confirmed your winning design, the winning designer will be notified via email to provide you the design files.

You can also award multiple winners if you like more than one design.

Usually, yes. Designers typically provide minimal revisions for free and will be happy to do more detailed revisions for a reasonable price.

Your best bet is to ask the designer directly if they can make your changes using a private message, or during design files handover.

Note that designers aren’t obligated to make any changes to their winning designs, so if you want to ensure your changes will be made, ask for them before you declare the contest’s winner.

For logo design, icon/button/banner design contests, the winner will provide the following file formats

  1. .AI: Adobe Illustrator – PMS/CMYK
  2. .EPS: Encapsulated Postscript - CMYK
  3. .SVG: Scalable Vector Graphics
  4. .PDF: Portable Document File - CMYK
  5. .PSD: Photoshop Document - RGB
  6. .PNG: Portable Network Graphics - RGB
  7. .JPG: Joint Photographic Experts Group - RGB
  8. .GIF: Graphic Interchange Format - RGB

For website & app designs, or print design contests

  1. .PSD: Photoshop Document - Fully layered (Website & app: 72dpi, Print: 300dpi) or
  2. .PDF: Portable Document File (which is a universal file format that can be used with any image editing software) or
  3. .AI: Adobe Illustrator file, or .INDD: Adobe InDesign file

It’s always a good idea to ask your printer what file formats they’ll need.

PSD files are only required for custom website designs that will then be coded by a web developer.

Don’t ask the designer to provide any of the files for the font they used in your design, since font licenses are usually non-transferrable. But do ask the designer for the name of the font so you can buy a license if you need to.

You have 14 days after your contest ends to pick a winner. If you don’t, your contest will be closed, and you’ll need to contact us to get it unclosed.

If for some reason you can’t select a winner within 14 days of the contest ending, you can have more time — just ask us.

If you decide you’d like to take ownership of more than one of the designs, you can award upto 5 ranks with the prize you want for each rank.

You can set multiple prizes at the start when launching your contest or during the contest or after the contest (before winner selection) by clicking on Edit Contest button.

Once you have confirmed the winner, the winning designer will be notified via email to upload the design final files to their account and as soon the designer will upload the files, you will get an email with the download link. Click on the link and log in to your account to download the files instantly. This may take from 1 to 24 hours for designer to upload the files.

To ensure the process is complete, 110Designs also send you email with your design files attached.

You should take the following steps to ensure a design is based on 100% original work and doesn’t incorporate any clipart, stock imagery or, in the case of logo contests, licensed fonts:

  • First, ask the designer. Designers must declare any non-original work used, or risk account suspension.
  • Try a reverse image search engine such as TinEye. This will look for similar images on the web. You can also upload the image to Google’s image search.
  • If you’re running a contest, listen to the other designers participating in your contest — they’re the experts, and can often spot a plagiarized design in moments.