Nope, we’re not gonna do it. We know we’ve had a go at “job to the lowest bidder” sites, $5 logo makers and the rest, but this one we’re going to chuck under the chin and say “nice idea.”
That idea is “Swiftly,” a new service that allows people with desktop publishing software (we can’t quite bring ourselves to call them designers) to make quick design fixes for random clients for a flat $15 fee – the fixer gets $7-$10 of that, depending on experience.
Those small fixes include:
- Photo resizing/cropping
- PowerPoint fixes (update text/image/background)
- Business card changes (change text details)
- Slight logo alteration (change name, add tagline, change color)
- File conversion (e.g., Illustrator to JPG).
On the whole, this sounds like a perfect way to address a very real need. Companies that require a quick design fix are not likely to pay a professional designer’s rates for the service, yet these changes obviously need to be made.
The only downside seems to be the fact that the service is offered by 99Designs, home of the 30-designs-for-$299 service. Still, if bargain-basement design isn’t going anywhere – and there’s no reason to think that it will – at least let it handle the jobs professional designers can’t afford to touch.
