{"id":10371,"date":"2012-12-15T12:02:49","date_gmt":"2012-12-15T17:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/?p=10371"},"modified":"2021-10-19T06:49:53","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T10:49:53","slug":"icon-contests-are-crowdsourcing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/icon-contests-are-crowdsourcing\/","title":{"rendered":"Icon Contests are Crowdsourcing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back to crowdsourcing<\/a>! The fact is crowdsourcing is more common and easier than we often think. \u00a0In a nutshell, crowdsourcing is the idea of putting a task into the hands of an army of pieceworkers who may do a great job — or a downright lousy job — with that task. \u00a0Some of the leaders in crowdsourcing are folks like Amazon\u2019s Mechanical Turk<\/a> and oDesk<\/a>. \u00a0For example, if you have an art job you want completed for a low cost or in a short time, or you want to take a poll of likely customers, you can send these projects to the masses via a crowdsource platform. \u00a0The problem is sometimes the job you crowdsource doesn\u2019t come back the way you wanted. \u00a0Sure the crowd can have a genius of it\u2019s own, but it also has a profound stupidity of its own. \u00a0So the biggest drawback of crowdsourcing is that if you want expert work, you have to be the expert yourself. \u00a0You have to know exactly what you want, and exactly what good work will look like before you crowdsource your job. \u00a0Enter contests.<\/p>\n

One way many web designers have overcome the problem of the stupidity of the crowd is by using contests to cull the inept from the downright brilliant. \u00a0Icon contests are a perfect example. \u00a0According to Smashing Magazine<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cA sweet, nice icon set is a perfect showcase of designer\u2019s work and a powerful instrument to build up your reputation online. In fact, designers make use of it, creating absolutely amazing icon sets and offering them for free download. However, designing a high-quality icon set isn\u2019t an easy task. It takes time, patience and resources and it requires professional skills and experience. We are regularly looking for talented artists and creative designers\u201d<\/p>\n

So they run icon contests<\/a> to find the best icons and provide free use via creative commons rules. \u00a0But more interesting for web designers<\/em> in search of their own perfect sets of icons, as well as other varieties of artwork, are crowdsourcing platforms that will actually run a contest for you. \u00a0These folks run contests for \u00a0web designers who want their own unique sets of icons and artwork. \u00a0Three well known art contest platforms are Design Contest<\/a>, 99 Designs<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0and Design Crowd<\/a>.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/youtu.be\/9Qx6fbt1ycA<\/p>\n

You create the contest and they run it for a fee. \u00a0The prices to run a contest vary and all are relatively low, but surely as more art-design contest platforms begin to compete the prices to run an icon contest will likely drop.<\/p>\n

Another perhaps surprising aspect of these contests is that top designers are willing to compete in these contests for a minimal price or even for free at times, because if they win they can publicize their abilities. \u00a0For Smashing Magazine<\/em> they compete in order to give away a few icons as loss leaders: VisualPharm<\/a>, \u00a0BanzaiTokyo\u00a0(who provided our featured image above<\/a>), and RocketTheme<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0for example, have entered some pretty wonderful icons in Smashing Magazine<\/em> contests and giveaways.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Cupcake by Artdesigner.lv released by Smashing Magazine<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Gingerman designed by Rockettheme and released by Smashing Magazine<\/p><\/div>\n

The point is, icon contests work on a bunch of levels to produce top quality work. Artists enter because they want to win, even if just for the sheer joy of victory. \u00a0People like to watch contests, even some pretty weird ones… both weird contest and weird people! \u00a0And finally, there\u2019s money and skill involved. \u00a0Web designers \u00a0choose the winners; since in the end the web designer is really the expert and the artist has to meet those expectations to win. \u00a0Icons are a perfect place to compete, like cupcake contests. \u00a0Small, beautiful, exemplary of the artists\u2019 overall work, and the excitement of watching the best in their fields engage in ruthless competition is actually awe evoking. \u00a0RAWR! \u00a0Let the icons games begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back to crowdsourcing! The fact is crowdsourcing is more common and easier than we often think. \u00a0In a nutshell, crowdsourcing is the idea of putting a task into the hands…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":10376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1,3416,2776,11,2601],"tags":[2427,6342,2780,6348,6341,6352,3261,6343,5963,6344,4721,6350,4356,6347,6346,6349,6351,6345],"class_list":["post-10371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-commerce","category-random-stuff","category-special-offers","category-webdesign","category-web-hosting-news","category-webmaster-resources","tag-amazon","tag-art-job","tag-contests","tag-creative-commons","tag-creative-designers","tag-crowd","tag-crowdsourcing","tag-expert-work","tag-genius","tag-lousy-job","tag-mechanical-turk","tag-nutshell","tag-odesk","tag-patience","tag-professional-skills","tag-stupidity","tag-talented-artists","tag-web-designers"],"views":129,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}