And your categorization of the participants in design contests is only partially true. Yes, there are many terrible designers who submit designs — I run out of ways of telling people they just don’t have a shot — but the small number of very talented designers makes putting up with the others more than worthwhile.

Let me make sure I’m very clear too: I would never recommend a site like 99designs for a business looking to develop their brand. There are too many other elements that go into that besides just being to create something that looks nice. 99designs is perfect for people like me, though, who just need a site that stands out among all the rest but that isn’t competing against major brands. They definitely fill a very sizeable niche.

At the end of the day you get what you pay for. The only designers contests attract are high schools students and uneducated designers playing with Photoshop. Is that the person you want to brand your business?

If you want a professional designer you won’t find it at design contests.

You mentioned not finding the quality you were looking for in some of the local design firms. This is the case in any industry though; there are ineffective lawyers, doctors, and if the news is any indication lately, train conductors. It’s a process of finding the right fit. One of the biggest benefits to working with a firm that you’ve taken the time to select as the right fit for your needs is that there is a pretty good chance that they will still be around for your next project, and the longer that you work together, the more synergy will be developed between both parties. With a designer working on spec, there is a good chance that they won’t be around in a year.

As for the quality, my personal experience and what I’ve heard 100% from everyone I’ve ever talked to is that the quality of work from local designers we’ve worked with is barely comparable to the quality from 99designs. I’ve run 3 or 4 competitions on 99designs, and every single winner (and some of the losers) was far better than 99% of the design work I’ve had done in 15 years online. Now, granted, 99% of the submissions overall are just utterly terrible, but it only takes 1.

You are absolutely right about people stealing work, though. I’ve even had designers steal work from someone’s design for the same contest. What are they thinking? Thankfully the other designers police that pretty well (I had another one turn someone in on one of my contests), but it’s definitely a threat. Of course, who’s to say that my local designer won’t do the same thing, betting on the fact that I’ll never find out — or at least when I do that it will be far too late and/or far too costly to do anything about it.

You get what you pay for, and generally, the designers who are willing to compete for spec work aren’t true professionals so you won’t receive the level of quality you’re probably looking for. That may be ok for a hobby site, but as you mentioned, it’s a poor choice for any serious business. A professional designer should be able to create a website that not only looks stunning while conveying the right image, but also presents information in a clear and concise manner, motivates visitors to take a particular action, displays properly across a range of browsers and screen resolutions. When you just hire a Photoshop jockey, you’re not going to get that.

Another thing to consider is that because the profit margins on competing in contests such as 99designs are often very low, some less than ethical designers will simply copy someone else’s work. I’ve seen it happen time and time again on sites like that.

As a small business owner, I could spend a week of my time interviewing candidates or I could go to 99designs and have a design completed in that amount of time. You just can’t expect someone for whom money and time are extremely scarce resources to spend 4 weeks or more (maybe much more) from search to project completion — especially when the cost is also at least double.

That said, you’re a fool if you use 99designs for anything more than just a basic site design. If your site is critical to your business, and you don’t have a good grasp of design and usability, you could do yourself way more harm than good. The web is littered with sites that look fantastic, but that are almost useless for the customer.

Before we get into the pros and cons though, I think it’s important that people understand where the concept of spec work came from.

Advertising agencies competing for clients would present their concepts to a potential advertiser, showcasing their creativity and ability to represent the advertiser to their target market. Generally, this particular type of relationship would consist of a potential client and a small handful of qualified ad agencies. Meeting would take place, criteria and expectations would be set, and both the potential client and the agency would discuss creative direction in depth.

These agencies weren’t competing for the ability to get paid for the spec work that they did though; they were competing for control of the advertisers budget. We’re not talking about small budgets here; we’re talking about companies investing hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars in their advertising campaigns. The typical agency commission is 15% of an advertising budget, so the potential payoff could be huge.

The spec work we see today is much different. Instead of seeking out a few qualified designers to see if there is even a fit, some companies just take the shotgun approach and ask as many designers as they can reach to take a shot. There is rarely any objective criteria set, little to no discussion on creative direction and the designers are competing to be paid for the very work they are doing.

I think business owners would be better suited doing their homework to find a few designers that they feel they can work with, looking over their portfolios and spending some time talking to them. In the end, the client gets a better design that is tailored to their specific needs, the designer gets paid for their work and everyone wins.