Last time I taught you how to use Photoshop (coupled with Illustration and Photography skills) to sell stock images on major websites. I’m happy to hear that some of you who followed my advice were able to make a buck or two! One of my referrals to Dreamstime has made over $500 selling stock! Congratulations!

Method Two: Graphic / Logo Design Contests

This time I’ll show you how to make money with your graphic skills by participating in Graphic Design Competitions. This has always been a rather touchy and controversial area – basically designers compete with one another creating graphics and/or logos for a single client. At the end of the contest, the client will choose just one entry to award a prize to, while the rest of the designers walk away with nothing. This is known as ‘Spec’ work (or ‘Speculation’) and tends to be frowned upon by the graphic design community. Etiquette can also take a beating in these types of situations – you may find that elements of your design are being copied by other individuals, so make sure you know how to protect your intellectual property.

However if you’re willing to give it a go and you don’t mind doing some work for free, design contests are a fantastic way to build up your portfolio, develop new skills, and get involved in a graphic design community. Winning a sweet cash prize every now and then is also a plus! Many of these sites set a minimum prize that clients must award, and can range from $50 to several thousands.

Without further ado, here is a list of websites which hold Graphic design competitions. Many of these sites focus on providing Logos to clients, so you will need to know how to create vector graphics in Illustrator. However there are header / banner / general web graphic categories in these sites as well, if it’s only Photoshop that you’re skilled at!

1. 99 Designs

Minimum Prize: $100 (Suggested Prizes are much higher)
Popularity: Leader in the Field
Designer Protection: Good
Overview: The brainchild of Sitepoint, an EXCELLENT webmaster resource, 99 Designs is a massive ‘crowdsourcing’ site. You will not be hard-pressed to find competitions to participate in – 20-30 pop up each day, in multiple categories (Logos, Web Page, Stationary, and T-Shirts, just to name a few). However the massive popularity of this site also means that the competition is tough as well. Be ready to fight with tooth and nail to keep your designs above the rest! The minimum prize amount is good compared to the other sites, and they’ve recently implemented some measures that help protect designers. Clients are encouraged to set up ‘guaranteed’ contests, which mean that the prize amounts have been prepaid PRIOR to the contest starting. This helps ensure that a winner will be announced, and that a client will not disappear after a contest has closed.

What I especially like is a set end date – contests cannot run longer than ten days. This stops contests from dragging on and on!

2. Digital Point Forums

Minimum Prize: None
Popularity: Well known forums, but low prize amounts keep most designers away
Designer Protection: Low
Overview: If you’re having trouble scoring a win, you might want to try out the competitions held at Digital Point Forums. No minimum prize amount is set, so you’ll likely be working for peanuts. However because of this the competition is pretty low, so if you’re decent at designing graphics you may be able to clean up here. There is hardly any designer protection, nothing is stopping clients from a) not awarding a prize amount or b) running off with your design, so make sure you watermark everything and know your intellectual property rights! Check a contest holder’s iTrader before participating to help determine whether it’s worth your time.

Head on over to the next page to see the next 4 recommendations!

Google is holding a competition where participants design a Google Doodle! The winner will receive $10,000 for university/college, a trip to the ‘Googleplex’, a laptop, and a t-shirt with their doodle. This contest is limited to students from K-12 and only those living in the United States. So if that applies to you, why not talk to your school administrators about signing up? Do it quick though, the deadline for registration is March 28/08 with the deadline for the actual doodle on April 12/08. 2-36th place finishes will also win a trip to the Googleplex!

In the meantime, why not check out these ten quick tips from the ultimate Google Doodler himself, Dennis Hwang?

1. Make sure your design complements the shape of the letters in the Google logo, but don’t let that restrict your creativity.

2. Experiment with different media to see which one works best for your design (you can even create your doodle on your PC).
3. Don’t over-complicate your design – simpler images often have the most impact.
4. Remember that your design could end up on the Google homepage, so imagine how it will look on screen.
5. To find inspiration around the “What if…?” theme, try thinking about the future and how you would like it to differ from the present.
6. Remember to use color well and think about how it interacts with a white background.
7. Avoid commercial or copyrighted images.
8. Think outside the box – try to create a doodle that’s different from your classmates and hasn’t been done before.
9. Feel free to use the space behind and in front of the Google letters, but try to maintain your design’s overall balance.
10. Have fun! “Doodle 4 Google” is all about creativity and enjoying designing fun things.

[Via Vaoko]
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Ever want to use your design skills to make a difference?

The American Red Cross is holding a t-shirt designing contest. The winner will receive $1000, media attention, their designed featured on 600,000 shirts, and the knowledge that they’re doing a part in helping those in need!

This contest is open to anyone. The winning shirt will be given to youth volunteers (high schools and colleges) who donate blood as a thank you gift and to incite others to donate as well. The deadline for this contest is March 21, 2008 and winners will be announced on April 4, 2008.

So roll up those sleeves (hah!) and get cracking!

[Via You the Designer]
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Some of you may remember last month when I posted about Photoshop Cafe’s $6300 Photoshop Contest.

Entrants had to design a video game cover based on a Photoshop Tool. Judging is broken down into overall impact, concept, and skill. Judging has finally begun and you can view all the finalists here! Make sure to vote for your favourite, since the People’s Choice Award will also be giving out prizes to the best designs as decided by YOU, the public!

Dodge and Burn is one of my favourites so far – which one do you fancy?

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Jacob Cass at Just Creative Design is putting out a contest for article writers! Basically, if you’ve written an article, tutorial, tip, or even a list of cool resources to put on the web, you have a chance to win nearly $5000 worth of prizes! Just send him the link to your article and he’ll advertise it. The deadline is the 4th of March, where multiple winners will be randomly chosen to win some super neat stuff!

The top prize is an Electric Guitar for practising all your slick licks. This package also comes with a dozen accessories including a gig bag, electronic tuner, and an instructional DVD!

The runner up and bonus prizes have a bunch of neat stuff pertaining to graphic design. Second place consists of some really useful stuff for our art – namely 597 vectors from GoMedia, 80 Adobe brushes, and 55 iStockPhoto credits. Equally interesting stuff is scattered in the third and bonus prize slots, including logo/header designs, consultations with prominent bloggers and graphic designers, free advertising and critiques, and a crapload more.

So what are you waiting for? It’s free publicity for your articles and your blog/website, and you stand a chance of winning some really cool stuff! I know I’ve sent in some entries.

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Ever design a character and wish you could bring it to life? Well, perhaps realizing it as a plastic or furry plush is the next best thing. Patch Together runs on contests. Submit a mock-up of a toy of your own design – if you get enough votes and the idea is feasible, you’ll be five-hundred bucks richer. Aside from that, you’ll also get a 5% commission on each of your toys that they sell. Pretty cool eh?

You have the choice of submitting concept art, a storyboard, or an animation for the flash inclined. The competition is ongoing (as I am sure they are in constant need of new products) and winners are decided by votes, page hits, and comments.

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Image from Photoshop Cafe (PlisKen)

From those who brought you the Cereal Box Contest: Photoshop Cafe‘s 8th Annual Design Contest is underway, with a truckload of great prizes up for grabs! The grand prize includes Adobe products, as well as a tablet, books, and other great design software. Second and third place also have considerably awesome prizes, and even a bonus prize worth $150, which is nothing to sneeze at for having a bit of fun.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to design a video game cover using a tool from Photoshop as the title of the game. Anyone can enter provided you use your own work, and scoring is done by a panel of three judges. If you want to give a shot at this, get your entries in soon! The contest ends at the end of this month at midnight of January 31/08. Good luck!

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Head on after the break to see some early sweet picks from this year’s contest.

Dice & Slice
Nice integration of a photograph with the box art, I thought. The photographed person almost looks like a 3-D game character.

Wave 2
Some nice photoshop work with the text effects and octopus, and clever texturing in the background, and the piece as a whole works well together.

Smudge Tool
Although a little too busy for a box-art, the idea is clever and executed in an interesting way. A lot of attention to detail was had when this piece was put together – the colours flow well together and are consistent, and the disintegrating planet was carefully crafted.

Gradient: Linear vs. Radial
Clean, simple, and believable as box art. It reminds me of the old Spy vs Spy games, and I want to play it.

Magnetic Lasso: The Quick Selection and the Dead
What more can I say, really?