You were directed here from the article “Hurry! Great Home Building Opportunity” on Handling the Curve.

Seriously, have a little self-respect. Whether you’ve been a designer for 10 years or 10 days, your time is valuable. In almost every case, these design contests hardly pay enough to even be worth it if you do win. If a company or individual is blind enough to not see the fault in holding contests like these, there’s a damn good chance they have no concept of what good design is worth either. Don’t worry, I’m having a little talk with them as well.

When you participate in these scams, you only reinforce their gross misunderstanding of the hard work and skill that goes into what we do, and the value it holds. You set and perpetuate wildly unrealistic expectations regarding the time and level of engagement required to properly execute solid, effective design.

Those people that are contributing to those contests aren’t designers. They’re simply moving shapes and fonts around in an unconsidered fashion, playing a numbers game, and frankly, often stealing concepts and even entire designs from more competant designers. Please do not associate yourself with this.

I don’t care who you are — you’re better than that.