Newly registered designers on DesignCrowd undergo a review process called quality verification.
During this process design submissions are reviewed by our quality team before they are sent to customers to ensure designs meet our Design Quality Standards.
Designs are reviewed by our team within 48 hours and either accepted or rejected. Accepted designs are visible to the customer. You will be sent an email advising of the outcome. The verification approval process typically takes 1-2 weeks for participating designers. The more projects you participate in, the faster we will review your account. We’ll send you an email confirming your account is verified or rejected.
We recommend you submit to at least 3 different projects to display your skills and creativity. As soon as your account is approved, you can enjoy the full benefits of being a fully fledged community member with your designs visible in your portfolio and you can start earning money.
To successfully pass verification, we recommend the following tips.
Submit original work
Your design must be entirely your own work. Do not copy another design.
Never use stock images, clip-art or purchased vectors in a logo design, illustration design or icon design contest.
Use of stock images in any other design categories must be declared. You must also be able to demonstrate that you own the rights to any stock images used.
If you are reported for using stock or copying designs your account will be closed.
Reasons for rejecting a design:
- Inappropriate use of stock images / clip art
- Design contains generic or overused design concepts
- Excessive number of variations of the same design submitted to a project
- File format is not permitted
- Design does not meet the requirements of the brief
- Image quality is poor / pixelated
- Copy of an existing brand
- Image is off centered
- Personal watermarks not allowed
- Please stop submitting the same design
- File corrupted – some designs do not show, either too big or wasn’t uploaded properly
For more information see, Do’s and Don’ts guide to submitting designs.
Create and submit nice preview images
Preview Images should be 1200px x 1000px (300dpi). Preview images should be .jpg format.
Create source files for handover
You can also do this to pass verification. If our team can review your source files it will make the approval process faster.
All elements within your design file must be vector components. All vectors must be editable and scalable. There should be no raster elements. In addition:
- All fonts should be converted to outlines
- Closed shapes should not contain any breaks or gaps in the outline of your vector
- Unnecessary shapes should be removed
- Submissions with vectors not possessing these attributes will be rejected.
Designers should submit two sets of file sets (outlined and non outlined). The point being that customers will want to refer to non outlined files to reference or edit designs (think flyers or brochures).
For more information, see FAQ What Are Source Files?
Behaviour
DesignCrowd reserves the right to deem the general quality of a submission to be unacceptable and thus non-compliant with these standards. As a guideline, we define reasonable quality as designs that are:
- Highly professional
- Meeting the brief
- Suitable for the purpose and target market
Want More?
We’re here for you!
DesignCrowd’s Minimum Design Standards
Designer’s guide to submitting work to design contests
Insiders guide to the professional design process
Four reasons research will make you a better designer
Typographic terms every designer should know
Design tutorial tips and tricks you should know by now
Written by Jo Sabin on Monday, April 17, 2017
Jo Sabin is Head of Designer Community at DesignCrowd. She’s led the company’s public relations and social media programs since 2012. With more than ten years’ experience working with Australian and international tech startups in the creative industries, Jo has been instrumental in meeting DesignCrowd’s objectives in Australia and abroad. Get in touch via Twitter.