Introduction for Designers

[Chung Dha]

Hello new DC designers,

Due to no guide for starters and people unaware about what they can do I made this guide. Hope it will help new designer who likes to join this community.

Most here might already work for companies or work freelance for one, but this community is a great way for student or just beginning designers to learn or improve them self. Here the level of designs in the Designer Team is very high, so companies ask for designs will get good designs. So to be chosen for the Design Team is a big privileged, and it don't happen directly. So you need to prove yourself, for some its easy but for students and beginning designers it could be hard.

Don't think this place is all about winning contest and earn allot of money. Its all about trying to express yourself to make the best design and hopefully it could be actually be used, and the extra a bit of cash earnings for your sweat and tears to design it.


- Just starting

When you just started you can still do allot of stuff in this community. There are different sections where you can do different things:

1. General Information
2. Design Contest
3. Inspiration
4. Instructional Content
5. General Chat
6. DC



1. General Information
Here you can find information about this community and also advice new ideas for this community to improve. Also if there are any question how the forum works you can find it there, if you can't find the answer don't hesitate to ask. Also there is a online magazine, where you can find news about design or this community. You can also send it news to help this magazine to get more info.


2. Design Contest
Particular most people are drawn to this cause they see all the money signs. But for starters you can't submit your design in the contest where it says Design Team Members Only. Those contest you can only watch and get inspired. But don't steal the designs cause that is not appropriate. Here we need to make total new designs that you have never seen before and also try to do the best.

However in this sections we can enter 2 different contest for starters Non-profit/Charity Contest and Community Contest. These contest we can improve and show your skills. However in the Non-profit/Charity Contest you can already earn a little by winning the contest. But if you win 3 times at the Community Contest you can join the Design Team. Also main rules says you may only submit 3 designs per contest threads. Other information about the contest are found there too.

Really Important!!: All logos on DesignContest.net must be created in vector format.
For further information look at the Guidelines For Creating & Delivering Logos thread.

When submitting the designs make them in a reasonable size and upload it to the web. With flickr.com or imageshack. And post the url to the images between .


3. Inspiration
This is a interesting sections where you can do allot of things too. First you can post threads with site, pictures or other thing that give you inspiration. To help others to get inspired. You can also show off the work you did outside of this contest and community, this could also help you get into the Design Team faster.

Work in Progress. Here you can show things your still working on and want some comment about. Not just thing about the contest, but also for other things maybe schoolwork of other designs. Some people always think they are the best and what they make is best, but this is not always true. So first thing we need to learn is to trust others and ask there comment about your work. This way you know what wrong and learn to look from a different view. So this section might be very helpful when you just can't get whats wrong with your design.


4. Instructional Content
Here you can find new about the industry of Design, new programs and information. The important thing of this section is to help you or others to learn the programs or help if the run into a problem. Here you can ask anything if you don't understand how the programs work. And if you know a cool trick is might be handy to post the guide here so other can learn it too.


5.General Chat
Here you can introduce yourself and also give information about you background. Or talk about just anything or ask anything too.




-Joining Design team
To join the Design team and to be able to compete with all the contest you need to look at this page. http://www.designcontest.net/content/view/14/28/

These are the requirement before you can become a member of the Design Team and to send an application.

1. You must have your own online version of a portfolio

2. You should be a registered member of the Contest Forums

3. You must be an active member of the DesignContest.net community for one week and have at least 10 forum posts

4. You must be able to receive Paypal payments


If you feel you meet the above requirements, please fill out the form. All new applications will be reviewed and processed within 30 days.


If there is anything you want to ask don't hesitate just ask.

[Koenve]

Thanks for the information! Going to subscribe right now!

[zooley]

Thanx for the detailed informations Chung Dha.

[Azam.biz]

That is very useful - thank you. Wish more forums had such comprehensive details, as it stops newbies asking the same questions all the time.

[keegan_re]

time to start ^^
but i have one question
"own online version of a portfolio"

is it means i have my own website, or can i put my design portfolio in deviantart ?

[_Redrum]

You can upload to any image host. But please make sure to organize your work into categories; it's a lot easier to review that way.

[suh00ail00]

Thank you ! cant wait to get started !

[alexjyk]

thanks for the detail information.. it helps alot

[elantonio]

Just a few questions regarding the application for membership: how long does it take you to approve an application? And if denied, how long will the period for one to re-apply?

Thanks.

[_Redrum]

Hi elantonio.

Approval time can vary. Sometimes over a month depending on the number of applications and how much free time I've got.

If denied, the reply e-mail will specify the time to wait before re-applying; if no period is specified, then you can assume that no waiting is required.

[elantonio]

^
Thanks, Redrum

[miguelfurtado]

this is very helpfull.

Thanks CD

[NewJack]

Thanks, this was a very helpful post!

[jodiwest]

why do I need to post 10 times?

[_Redrum]

Originally Posted by jodiwest

why do I need to post 10 times?

The answer

Question: Forum Participation

[2ndFloorDesign]

Thanks for the info, it's very helpful, but it doesn't cover one aspect...the portfolio. I have recently been rejected 2 times due to a "lack of caliper" in logo design. This description is a bit to vague, and I'm hoping that anyone can help point me in the right direction. I've been designing for 20 years now, believe me, I have an extensive portfolio, but I fear I'm just not showing the right items to be chosen for the team. Are there specific guidelines, like "we need to see logos for 10 diferent trade markets" or "we need to see logos that are 2-d and 3d". I know they all need to be vectors, I can follow directions on that. (I hope it's not a simple oversight that my online portfolio is shown in jpgs rather than original .ai vector formats to download (gulp)). I've looked over other deasign team member websites, and I personally think I'm up to caliper with the rest of the team (although you can be the judge of that) There's something I'm missing here...can anyone give me further direction please.?.

You can peek at my portfolio here

Thanks for the advice.
Mary

[designsbyjulie]

This is GREAT info, thanks!

[designsbyjulie]

Originally Posted by 2ndFloorDesign

Thanks for the info, it's very helpful, but it doesn't cover one aspect...the portfolio. I have recently been rejected 2 times due to a "lack of caliper" in logo design. This description is a bit to vague, and I'm hoping that anyone can help point me in the right direction. I've been designing for 20 years now, believe me, I have an extensive portfolio, but I fear I'm just not showing the right items to be chosen for the team. Are there specific guidelines, like "we need to see logos for 10 diferent trade markets" or "we need to see logos that are 2-d and 3d". I know they all need to be vectors, I can follow directions on that. (I hope it's not a simple oversight that my online portfolio is shown in jpgs rather than original .ai vector formats to download (gulp)). I've looked over other deasign team member websites, and I personally think I'm up to caliper with the rest of the team (although you can be the judge of that) There's something I'm missing here...can anyone give me further direction please.?.

You can peek at my portfolio here

Thanks for the advice.
Mary

Mary,
I looked at your portfolio and was impressed. If you are disqualified than I can't imagine what will be said about my portfolio. I'm looking forward to a response to explain what the "lack of caliper" means.

[Carbon]

Some excellent information here! It helped out a lot actually. And as for 2ndFloorDesign, I am not too sure what they mean by lack of caliper either. I think in the ends it's just there choice and judgment you have to go with. Though I don't quite understand there reasoning, your work is done very well.

[_Redrum]

Hi designsbyjulie and Carbon,

To be precise, we don't actually use the term "lack of caliper". That was strictly Mary's choice of words. DC just has a certain quality of designs that we are looking for, which I often refer to as the "quality standard" for designs. Each design in a portfolio is judged on a pass/fail basis - it either meets the standard or it doesn't. So there's nothing special or tricky that you have to present, as long as you have excellent designs to show off.

When I say "excellent", I really do mean Excellent! The designs have to be able to compete with the best of what's out there. I would love to recommend the Design Team for everyone, but the truth is that many (read: most) designers apply before they are ready.