dhobo

Thanks for the reasonable responses, it's a touchy subject amongst professional designers as design "contests" get to be more commonplace and hurt the design industry as a whole. I too don't subscribe to the "never do anything for free" mindset, I am a firm believer in donating my time and efforts to support people and projects that I feel are deserving who could use it! I also agree the idea of getting your fanbase involved in the process, as it helps foster a great community. If people are fine with donating their time so you can sell merch based on their efforts, then great! That's their decision to make and I fully support that. If you're interested in a relatively low-cost alternative in the future that still gets the community involved, consider paying some small-time designers with portfolios you like to do some concept work for you and then have the community choose the designs they like best and take it from there. You get the best of both worlds this way.

Been using launchbox for a while now and I really enjoy the software, but I had to make an account to post here with regards to your contest. I know you're not some big company with megabucks to spend, so a contest seems like a great and cheap way to get some "free" design work done, but you're seriously devaluing both designers out there and your own product. Expecting people to put in time and effort for free, or at best, for "potential" compensation, means you're going to get hobbyists (or horribly naive younger designers) and an overall lower quality of submissions. I apologize if this comes across as nagging, but I realize that most people out there don't realize how these contests tend to harm new professional designers from getting work contracts and folks like yourself receiving a better quality of design. If you care to, this website can explain everything in better detail and with more eloquence than I can, so feel free to give it a gander. It's geared towards bigger companies to some degree, but the overall message applies here as well. http://www.nospec.com/ With that said, I hope to see launchbox continue to evolve and improve. Whatever decision you make regarding this contest, I hope it pans out for you as well!