How To: Crowdsource Logo Creation

Creating and maintaining your corporate identity can easily be done through crowdsourcing, especially if you're on a limited marketing budget. It is a great compromise between over-paying for a professional agency and trying to do it yourself. Creating an appealing logo is the first step in establishing your CI - here are some tips to help you run an effective crowdsourcing contest for your logo:

Company, Know Thyself. First understand your brand voice, your audience, your business goals and how you want to use your logo. Knowing what you want, then articulating that clearly in the contest rules and process will get you a lot closer to a well-designed logo. 

Research your options.
Fortunately, you have a lot of options when it comes to crowdsourcing sites focusing on logo design. Sites like Crowdspring and 99Designs guarantee more than 100 submissions, sites like Prova will deliver at least 40. However, you might prefer to limit the number of submissions for simplicity’s sake.

Offer a good price and a clear design brief. Carefully think through and be as specific as possible on the site’s form so you make a clearer request to the design community. Use reference images and add language that clearly talks about what you want -- and don’t want (here's How To Create a Marketing Brief: http://ow.ly/fRto8). And if it’s in your budget, offer winning prize amount that’s in the higher range or at least above the minimum prize to make your contest stand out.

Choose your winner Consider putting out the call to your friends and colleagues to vote on the final design. They know you and your company, and could add some valuable input. Once you have a winning design, provide the winner with exactly the file formats you need (if you didn’t cover this in the design brief) so you won’t have to fool with Illustrator or Photoshop files after the fact.

On average, a crowdsourced logo costs between $250 and $350, -- that’s less than half what you’d pay for a professional agency to design your logo. By spending your budget wisely and by leveraging the power of the crowd, you will be able to design and redesign whenever needed. 

Redesign of UFOstart
We took some feedback into account and redesigned the following features on our platform: 

• cleaner layout for needs
• ability to apply on need item directly
• overview of involved people and the progress of each one
• improved social media integration (comment and share buttons)
• Invitations now include the whole context of a project or need

Join our first "Global Crowd Network" for Lean Startup funding! Connect with facebook on www.ufostart.com and calculate your Startup Value. Interested in how you can leverage the power of the crowd for your startup? Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter!

International CES will shine spotlight on startups

Between January 8th - 11th of 2013, the Intl' CES trade show will take place in Las Vegas, NV. And while CES is an industry standard, this year's focus will prove to be exciting: it is spotlighting startups and successful entrepreneurs in partnership with Startup America.

Why is this important for us at UFOstart? Because it shows that startups are not just companies that start small and make it big. They're ventures that have a plan for investors and customers alike, and that can make a good case for their success.

“Innovation defines the International CES and we are thrilled ... to bring programming that highlights the young start-ups and entrepreneurs who will shape the future of technology,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the  Consumer Electronics Association. 

What happens, though, if you have an idea but aren't sure where to find investors, or if you want to bring your resources to an innovative idea but don't know where to look?

That's where we at UFOstart come in. We look for innovation and smart entrepreneurs who have fresh ideas, and we partner them with investors and experts who determine if their plans are feasible. By allowing the crowd to determine what plans are the most worthy of funding, we simultaneously provide a platform for new businesses to find funding, for investors to choose their next target, and for field experts to leverage their experience. 

Entrepreneurs and creative businesses provide the spark that will ignite the technologies and services of the future. But they can't start that burn without fuel and guidance from investors and experts. UFOstart takes those pieces and puts them together.

And who knows? Maybe the partnership you forge through us will carry you on to the next CES, or even farther beyond.

If you have questions about how UFOstart can help you to crowdsource your funding and needs, please contact us so we can put our services to work for you.