I recently entered into a project to redesign a logo for a rather large, international company via crowdsourcing. I have never joined in on one of these “gangbang” ventures before but it sounded like it could be interesting. And at the time I was between my own projects, so, what the heck.

The hook was, if you were fortunate and were one of four people to make the cut there was a $2500 reward – they said. I didn’t make the final cut so I have know idea if they paid out or not. One of the criticisms is that crowdsourcing gets a lot of work for free.

There have been quite a few differences of opinion about the concept of crowdsourcing.
Cliff Kuang, in the October 29, 2009 issue of Fast Company magazine leads off his article by saying “Crowdsourcing: A one-way ticket to blah”. On the other hand, a group of ex-Crispin folks have started their own crowdsourcing agency. They obviously think it is a terrific idea.

I had a lot of fun. Mostly because I love designing and I think I’m not half bad at it. I’ve even won an award or two.

I felt the process was very anonymous however and void of any of the give and take that one gets when working directly with a client. It felt like I was part of a large pot of spaghetti and if one of my ideas happened to stick to the wall… but they didn’t.

I’m curious if any of you have taken the crowdsourcing route and if you feel it was a successful and rewarding experience for you or not.