Core77

Crowdsourced iOS 7 Designs

By Rain Noe - August 8, 2013

in Visual Communication

DesignCrowd is the name of a graphic design crowdsourcing venture that bills themselves as "The world's #1 custom design marketplace." Businesses seeking designs for logos, websites, T-shirts, flyers, brochures or business cards submit design briefs, then the site's 133,000-plus designers submit concepts; DC estimates that concepts start rolling in within hours of posting a brief, and that they will typically add up to over 100 submissions per project. Businesses can then request changes of their selectees, and eventually money changes hands. The cynical ID'ers among us can think of it like a version of Quirky where you don't need to know anything about injection molding. In any case, here's how it works:

To draw publicity, DesignCrowd recently held an informal, internal design competition asking its users to re-design iOS 7. The submissions are different enough that they're bound to be divisive. But it makes me wonder if Apple would ever let iOS users choose their own icons, and if people would be willing to pay others for them, as with ringtones.

In any case, see anything you like? The one I find most visually appealing is the one that's probably the hardest to use, with its Breaking Bad-esque Periodic Table characters.

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Steve

11 years ago

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Its a shame Apple didn't do it this way from the start, iOS7 might not have turned out to be such a horrid train wreck. Id take every one of thee over the official UI they released, its like a child's first attempt at minimalism.
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Luke

11 years ago

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Spec work is a monstrosity. People without scruples use it to generate thousands of man-hours of design work for veritable peanuts. Even LocalMotors, which you guys couldn't help but gush over, basically stole hard labor from hundreds of designers, paying the concept they went for a mere pittance.

If this stuff were released to the public under a copyleft license, that's a different story. Open Source takes from a lot of people, but it gives back everything to everyone. Not so with design contests for proprietary commercial interests.

I'm happy for the graphic design profession that that AIGA is taking a hard stance against spec work. I just wish someone in the industial design world would do the same, but the IDSA has proven completely worthless in defending designers. At the very least, could Core77 refrain from promoting this kind of scam?
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SFPaul

11 years ago

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As a professional product photographer for the past 25 years this is what happened to my profession. Everybody has a camera now and can call themselves a photographer. Penny stocks and royalty images. The dumbing down of the consumer based on the dumbing down of the photos used in advertising.
It all adds up to something like this.
Get ready for more.
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Arunprasath

11 years ago

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Apple's design is way better than these icons. iOS 7 will be a huge hit when its released to the public!
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George Smart

11 years ago

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Down with ridiculous spec work like this.
Don't promote it.
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Tomas hernandez

11 years ago

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The meaning of the word ''design'' here is prostituted.

Just an emotional thought.
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Tomas hernandez

11 years ago

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Risk free? a brief that can be written in minutes?

Someone has to take the risk.. and there is three parties here.
companies search for answers, for question they don't know. and they spec such problems arise from no conversation between the parties. Sounds like shallow misguided answers and a lot of work for nothing. Not to mention all of the problems can arise. This proposal looks naive and shallow just like the answers acquired from this site. maybe this can be used as an example to improve into a better business model.
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Mathieu

11 years ago

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Wow that's really bad
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Clark Hadden

11 years ago

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To have colourless icons would not be considered an inclusive idea. If i had poor sight, i think i'd struggle to distinguish one from another. Is that not a basic principle?
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James D

11 years ago

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As a blog that a lot of actual, professional designers read I feel pretty strongly that you guys have a responsibility to not promote crowdsourcing (or as I like to call it, "tons of free spec work") as a viable model. Sites like DesignCrowd exist to devalue and commoditize design, particularly work that entry-level designers would typically be doing.
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