It’s said that the obvious advantage of using a design contest, as you’re looking for an engineering design partner, is the quick access to a large pool of talent. There are two likely scenarios where I may find such an engineering contest an excellent idea:
- First, I’m posting a challenge for a specific design work because I want to identify and hire the most qualified professional (i.e., the winner of the challenge) for a project. In this case, I already know how the work should be done; the contest is just like a test to figure out the most qualified participant.
- Second, I’m in the middle of a project and in need of an engineering concept. So, I set up a contest and invited a group of engineers to compete against each other. The best engineer wins a specific amount of prize money, but I own the concept. It’s as if the prize money is some sort of payment to buy the concept.
The question is, where can I post the contest? Social media might be a good place to start, but what if I have no idea whether the participants are actual professionals or students still honing their skills? Cad Crowd has been working with professional freelancers and AEC firms to connect them with the best talent for their engineering challenges as the leading marketplace for vetted expertise.
Best sites for design contests
Well, my quick research on the web has led me to a list of the most recommended sites where everybody can post design challenges and contests, crowdsourcing-style.
Cad Crowd
Let’s not beat around the bush, there aren’t many websites out there that do engineering/design contests better than Cad Crowd, in terms of both ease-of-use and quality. There’s no jack of all trades here, either. Cad Crowd is built specifically to provide assistance for AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) companies and individual clients as they deal with challenges in their projects. While design contests are often most effective for relatively small projects like interior design, floor plan, 3D character animation services, 3D printable designs, and animations, I’ve seen competitions for basic designs in Cad Crowd with prizes up to $6,000. In general, contests range from a little over $300 for a simple challenge to more than $50,000 for a highly complex one.
Cad Crowd offers three different contest options, including public (visible to everyone), private (available for select designers), and invite-only (accessible for united professionals only). Every contest also comes with a guarantee of accuracy, which means Cad Crowd makes sure that all the submitted designs follow the specified requirements. Cad Crowd also handles the NDA and IP paperwork for clients to avoid issues with the matters at a later date. Depending on the budget you’re willing to spend, you can receive as many as 50 submissions within just a few days.
Website: CadCrowd.com
NineSigma
If you’ve been in the “open innovation” industry long enough, you should know that NineSigma is among the first companies to offer such a service. In fact, it has become famous precisely because of the crowdsourcing approach. Things have changed quite a big deal in the company in recent years, so that most of its clients today prefer the more discreet crowdsourcing, which sounds like an oxymoron, but the basic principle stands. While about half of all the design challenges and exploratory projects have never been made public, NineSigma boasts that nearly 80% of the respondents have at least a Master’s degree. So, that’s reassuring, I assume. One of its most famous past clients was the BMW Group when the automaker was searching for a solution to reduce IR transmission through car glazing to improve in-car connectivity.
Website: NineSigma.com
Wazoku
Since its foundation in 2011, Wazoku claims to have managed over 2,500 innovation challenges worth more than $6 million in award prizes. From those challenges, the company has seen and captured about 200,000 innovations from all around the world. One of the distinguishing factors of Wazoku is that it doesn’t limit submission only to professionals. The term “problem solvers” is used in a very loose sense to encourage all individuals to participate in every challenge and make positive contributions. One of its latest projects was an innovation challenge to devise a simple and easy-to-use enclosure system for pipe repair collars, with a total award of $30,000.
Website: WazokuCrowd.com
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AutoHarvest
If your business is in the automotive design industry, AutoHarvest might be the right place for you. It’s also a rather unique entry because the website doesn’t actually post challenges, but it offers an Intellectual Property library for members. At least there are a few crowdsourcing elements there. The idea behind AutoHarvest is to reveal some old (and potentially obscure) patents to help companies and inventors transfer their IP to others in need.
Think of it as a marketplace where buyers, patent holders, and companies can collaborate to solve engineering issues using existing technologies. It’s worth mentioning that the website isn’t the most visually appealing one; it seems that it hasn’t received any updates in years, so the interface isn’t exactly what you can describe as intuitive. The fact that it exists at all should be good enough for the industry.
Website: AutoHarvest.org
GrabCAD
One of the better-known sites for engineering challenges, GrabCAD, is pretty straightforward about its engineering design contest feature. You define the type of contest, determine the prize money, and pay the site an administration fee. GrabCAD can manage everything for you, from the contest launch date, duration, and even the judging schedule. Also, you’re allowed to pick the jury, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to ask a member of your engineering team or an expert from the community to take part. In case you haven’t noticed, GrabCAD likes to boast about how it hosted a few competitions for NASA in relation to the agency’s space missions.
Website: GrabCad.com
yet2
In the old days, yet2 was solely a crowdsourcing platform. Now, it has expanded the business offerings to include open innovation consultancy as well. You can’t simply register and post an engineering design contest on the site; you need to use a custom portal software, with which you can launch and manage the innovation challenge. An internal team from yet2 claims to filter all submissions to make sure that you’ll only have to deal with and communicate with worthy ideas. Not so long ago, the site launched a design challenge to search for an innovation in the form of 3D-printed food, in an attempt to increase food production flexibility.
Website: Yet2.com
HeroX
I’ll go straight to the point: HeroX is an outright crowdsourcing platform where you can post design competitions about anything, including engineering. You have two contest options: a pay-per-challenge model with an 18% fee taken from the prize amount, or the unlimited model, where you pay an annual fee to use the platform as many times as you like. HeroX says that the latter is often used by engineering consultants and the more established companies, which makes sense because they may have to post challenges pretty often in any given year. The pay-per-challenge is better for startups, small engineering firms, or SMEs in general. Another good thing is that there’s no barrier to participation.
Website: HeroX.com
Designboom
If the engineering innovation you need is related to architectural design services, you might want to take a look at Designboom. For an upfront fee of $179, you’re allowed to post a design challenge and set the rules. Not only can you define the objectives and parameters of the challenge, but you can also determine who’s going to be the jury members. It’s a good thing that you can upload an image or two to illustrate the idea or concept that will help participants understand the objective better. Designboom also offers a higher-tier membership, where you pay $500 to have the platform promote or highlight the challenge on the website banner.
Website: DesignBoom.com
99designs
Most of the contests on the platform, or the entire site for that matter, is intended for graphic designs, such as logos, web UI, business cards, labels, book covers, etc. It’s not really about engineering, but there is a category for art and illustration that you might find useful if you need to have some architectural sketches done. Most design contests run for seven days, and by the end of the process, you get to select a winner. All the files are transferred along with the copyright. In the event that no sketches and illustrations submitted meet your requirements, 99designs has a money-back guarantee, too.
Website: 99Designs.com/contests
DesignContest
It’s similar to 99designs in the sense that it focuses on graphic design. The good thing is that DesignContest has a packaging design services category, which is actually also a big part of the engineering process in product development. You get to select three winners in every competition to potentially attract more participants. DesignContest handles the deliverables, payments, communications, NDAs, and copyrights on your behalf. Unless there’s something wrong along the way, it should be a streamlined process with the platform standing between you and the participants. The platform boasts a more than 95% satisfaction rate and claims to have helped more than 10,000 clients over the years.
Website: DesignContest.com
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Hackaday.io
This is the site that claims to have the largest collaborative hardware development community and also the biggest online repository of open hardware projects. I have no idea if those are entirely true, but Hackaday does allow you to post engineering contests or projects, including the descriptions you think necessary, and set the prizes. You can even set the requirements for the entries, so there’s little chance that somebody out there will submit irrelevant ideas. Hackaday also has features to submit a “tip” that helps promote the contest and highlight it on the site.
Website: Hackaday.io
Bustler
It’s the sister site of Archinect, so you can probably guess what the site is all about: architectural design. Think of Bustler as an Architect’s trusted online publication platform for events and competitions revolving around the architectural industry. You can’t post a contest as a guest user on Bustler; you need to register for an account or use an existing Archinect account if you have one already to publish a competition, news, or events. There are two options for competitions, including basic, standard, and featured.
The BASIC option is a free entry, meaning you don’t have to pay a dime to post the contest, whereas the STANDARD option is a paid listing. When you post a contest via the BASIC/free option, Bustler takes the liberty to review the details and retains the full right to either publish or decline it. Competitions posted via the STANDARD or FEATURED option never have to go through the internal reviewing process. If you want to make sure that your engineering design contest gets added to the list, the latter option is the way to go.
Website: Bustler.net
110Designs
Although the site is mainly for graphic design competitions, it still has a reasonably busy room for engineering and technical design stuff, especially in the automotive, architectural planning and design services, technology, and product packaging industries. A competition in the 110Designs typically takes about seven days from initial posting to completion. There’s no mention of whether you can extend the timeframe, for example, when you need to wait for more submissions, or rush it if you’re in a hurry. The site promises to give a 100% refund in case you don’t like any of the submitted designs at the end of the contest.
Website: 110designs.com
A’ Design Award & Competition
It’s all in the name. The A’Design Award and Competition is meant for designers, engineers, and innovators to launch contests and increase exposure to their businesses. You can either sponsor a competition hosted by the site or launch your own via the Grand Award Prize option. You can define the competition’s objectives and submission requirements, but you can’t determine the prize money. Instead, you have to choose from several different packages starting from around $2000 for a Silver Grand Award to a little more than $5000 for the Platinum prize. Here’s the deal with A’Design Award and Competition: all ideas, innovations, and designs submitted for any contests hosted by the site belong to the creators. You don’t own the IP rights, but you should be able to purchase the IP from the winner afterward.
Website: Adesignaward.com
Crowdspring
Most competitions in Crowdspring are in the graphic design category, but there’s one category that might interest you – product design services. This is great for startups and small companies in need of a fresh design, but who just can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars on brand-new, creative, ready-to-market product ideas. All designs submitted to the contest will be digital web files, such as PNG or PDF, but everything is editable in case you need to make some changes at a later date. Most projects run for seven days, and according to Crowdspring, you should receive dozens of ideas within this period. There’s also a 100% money-back guarantee if you can’t find any idea you’d like to use.
Website: Crowdspring.com
OpenIDEO
One of the most confusing things about OpenIDEO is the IP rights issues. While you can indeed post an engineering design contest on the site, all the submissions come with no copyright protections. They’re in the public domain for everyone to share, re-use, and modify. It’s kind of problematic because sometimes you need to include some sensitive details or technical information in the project description. However, OpenIDEO is still a perfectly good place to elicit ideas from members or participants. Just give a conceptual explanation about what you need, so that the community can share useful feedback. OpenIDEO specializes in crowdsourcing solutions for societal problems such as waste management and innovative, eco-friendly products.
Website: OpenIdeo.com
DesignCrowd
Everything about DesignCrowd might not look as prestigious as A’ Design Award & Competition, but at least the former is much easier to manage on the client’s side, and you get full copyright of the ideas and design files that win your contest. There’s nothing complicated about the process, either. You create the project brief, publish the competition, and let the participants present their best ideas. DesignCrowd allows you to choose the timeframe, but it has to run for at least three days before the submission window is over. If you still haven’t found the design you like after 10 days, you can ask for a refund.
Website: DesignCrowd.com
Quirky
As far as design competition is concerned, Quirky wants to have the cake and eat a portion of it, too. Here’s how I think it works: you post a concept about a product or an invention, and let the website manage every single submission from the members. You’re allowed to add more ideas to the original post. It’s basically a discussion to determine the best method to materialize the concept into a tangible product. And if Quirky finds the idea good enough and actually profitable, it connects you with a factory partner to manufacture the product in question. Once again, Quirky takes over the marketing and sells the product on the platforms and stores of its own choosing. When the product makes money, you get royalties. It’s like a competition between yourself and the other users to churn out the best ideas and potentially earn the right to royalties at the end of a lengthy process.
Website: Quirky.com
IdeaConnection
This platform is best described as an engineering design contest organizer, such as for electrical engineering services. IdeaConnection is pretty flexible in its offerings. For example, it allows you to supply the contest brief or let their internal team assist you with the details; you can host it on your own website or let it run on theirs; it gives you the option to run the marketing by yourself or let them handle everything; the platform also offers to function as your customer service, but only if you want it to. With so many things to choose from, it looks (although I don’t know for sure) that the cost should be flexible as well.
Website: IdeaConnection.com
GoPillar
First things first, GoPillar is a pleasing platform to post architectural design contests. With the most basic option, you’re only allowed to post a contest for a finished floor plan and description. Price starts at $1200 for a residential project, $1600 for an outdoor structure, and $2200 for a commercial building. You can add more options like indoor/outdoor plans, sections, 3D images, interior designs, and even virtual tours for an additional amount of money. In general, you pay more for every single design file you request. GoPillar claims to have more than 50,000 designers ready to compete to win every contest posted on the website. There’s also a message board to help you communicate with participants.
Website: GoPillar.com
Brandsupply
As an online marketplace for graphic design, Brandsupply offers plenty of unique logos, illustrations, and digital art for various purposes. But it also allows you to post design contests as well, such as in the stationery category. Mind you that most of the existing contests are asking for logos, and there’s no clear explanation whether the “stationery” in question includes office supplies or just letterheads and envelopes. That said, it still looks like a good place to invite design submissions for everyday items like pens, pencils, hoodies, umbrellas, or other souvenir items. You can give feedback to every design submitted by participants and even ask for revisions if needed.
Website: Brandsupply.com
Designhill
Nearly everything about Designhill is similar to other graphic design contest sites out there. You’re welcome to post design competitions for logos, posters, brochures, CD covers, and so on. The good thing is that Designhill also has a “clothing and merchandise” category where you can invite participants to create unique designs for hats/caps, tote bags, personalized mugs, and t-shirts. Most contest packages come with a full-refund guarantee. The price for each contest is listed clearly, and the site mentions that there’s no hidden fee at all. The money you spend on publishing a contest already covers the cost of copyright ownership of the winning design.
Website: Designhill.com
Thingiverse
Whether you’re looking for a 3D-printable design or 3D-printed objects, Thingiverse has you covered. While it’s mainly an online marketplace for 3D printing design services, it has a contest feature where you can specify exactly what you need and set the amount of money you’re willing to pay for that. If you only want a file to be printed in the future, make sure to specify the file format you need and the deadline for submissions. It might be easier if you could provide an image or an illustration (of the object you want to print) in the contest description.
Website: Thingiverse.com
HYVE Crowd
For a site that claims to have (so far) organized 133 contests with total prize money of more than a million dollars in engineering, social, and services categories, HYVE Crowd is certainly more than qualified enough to host your design competition. For all those contests, the site has attracted 98,000 participants who submitted more than 125,000 ideas for big and small companies, as well as government projects. Among the biggest highlights are Volkswagen, as the automaker was trying to discover new concepts for car bodies with minimal joint complexity. BMW was also once a client in a contest to improve the luggage compartment of its cars. Henkel, the adhesive manufacturer, has also published a design contest in HYVE Crowd to look for a better packaging design.
Website: HyveCrowd.com
Cults 3D
In many respects, Cults 3D is just like Thingiverse. Both platforms offer services to host contests for 3D-printable designs and 3D-printed objects for everyone. The biggest difference is that Cults 3D actually has spots to help you launch competitions for objects made using CNC machining and laser cutting technologies as well. Unfortunately, there isn’t an instant way to publish a contest in Cults 3D. You need to send an inquiry to the administrator and let them decide whether your idea/proposal is good enough to warrant an actual contest.
Website: Cults3D.com
Arcbazar
It’s all about architectural design contests in Arcbazar. There are three major categories provided: Home & Garden, Commercial, and Institutional. For each type, you can specify the scope of the project, such as remodeling, interior design services, landscape, or even new buildings. Arcbazar allows you to add further details in the contest description, such as the type of rooms to be renovated and the overall square footage of the project. Once you finish with the basic description, you get an estimate. Everything is very simple and straightforward – Arcbazar doesn’t even do anything else, only architectural contests.
Website: Arcbazar.com
Innoget
At first glance, Innoget doesn’t really look like a place where you can publish a design contest. It’s more like a network for innovators to communicate with each other rather than a platform to host a competition, but you can treat it as such if you want. The idea behind Innoget is to let companies, stakeholders, designers, engineers, and the public at large make positive contributions to future innovative products and technologies. However, every conversation starts with a basic idea – it takes a conceptual design to start the conversation, and that’s where the competitive mindset seeps in. Head to the “Innovation Needs” directory on the site, and you’ll see some of the latest active challenges posted.
Website: Innoget.com
Enel
With a presence in more than 120 countries worldwide, the Open Innovability platform by Enel helps make sure that your engineering design competition gets the exposure it needs to crowdsource the most efficient solution. Every contest proposal has to go through the in-house team of experts for evaluation, and they can actually help you formulate the contest so that it meets their requirements for sustainability and innovative aspects. And if you haven’t published any challenge or competition of any sort on the site, you’ll be eligible for a 100% discount. In other words, your first contest is free of charge.
Website: Enel.com
Contest Watchers
There are multiple categories in Contest Watchers, from industrial design services to visual arts. The platform is mostly geared towards innovators, creative thinkers, and freelancers looking to get broader recognition in the industries at large, but it also opens the door to companies in search of innovative solutions. You have the freedom to determine the prize money and the specific requirements for each competition, but Contest Watchers will only publish your challenge if you accept international participation.
Website: ContestWatchers.com
Arch Out Loud
As the name suggests, Arch Out Loud specializes in architectural designs. The platform allows you to either sponsor a competition or run your own design challenge. Over the course of its history, Arch Out Loud has collaborated with partners from various backgrounds, including individual homeowners and even the United States government. Some of the most impressive design contests in its portfolio include the Open Ideas for a Floating House in Miami, a Multi-Purpose Stadium in Nigeria, a Hurricane Shell Design Competition in Collaboration with Deltec Homes, and the Design Contest for the New White House.
Website: ArchOutLoud.com
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Ennomotive
All the contests organized by Ennomotive fall under one of the following categories: (1) development of new products using new innovative materials, mechanical designs, and electronics, (2) improvement in manufacturing and construction operations with robotics and automation, and (3) environment-focused projects by the revaluation of industrial waste. Ennomotive promises to be pretty involved throughout the contest by providing feedback on submissions and evaluations, too.
Website: Ennomotive.com
Instructables
One of the most popular websites for DIY projects, Instructables, unfortunately, offers no direct route to post design competitions. Instructables actually makes a distinction between contests (typically run for eight weeks), challenges (four weeks), and speed challenges (two weeks). Everything is all too casual with the site, as it informs users to notify them about an idea for a contest via social media like Instagram or Twitter. And there’s no guarantee it will publish (or even review) your ideas at all. But it’s a well-known site for everyday inventors, so you might want to give it a go nevertheless.
Website: Instructables.com
Agorize
You don’t get to publish a contest on the Agorize website. Instead, it offers you a premium competition management platform that you can use to launch design challenges and connect with a massive community of 10 million innovators and startups. Agorize promises to stay involved throughout the process, helping you identify possible solutions. The platform isn’t free; the subscription fee is calculated based on the number of participants or contributors of your contest and the number of contest administrators. It doesn’t say what the base price is, but there’s a free trial available.
Website: Agorize.com
Desall
The “industrial design” contest on Desall focuses on projects expected to go into mass production, “craft design” is about small production items like artisan products, whereas the “interior design” covers 3D furniture rendering services and space planning. A contest might be done as a single phase or a sequential phase. The former means you publish a design contest for only one aspect of a project, such as a product design or the internal mechanism of a product. In the sequential phase, the contest might include more aspects, including idea generation, new design, branding, and packaging.
Website: Desall.com
Freelancer
Probably one of the most widely known platforms to launch a design contest on the web, Freelancer opens the door to companies and individual clients to organize a specific challenge, set the prize money, and determine the winner. Anyone can publish a contest in any industry category, from a simple logo design to a complex engineering design. Freelancer also promises to give the prize money back if, at the end of the contest, you still haven’t found the design you want, or are basically unhappy with the result.
Website: Freelancer.com
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Conclusion
Whether you find yourself overwhelmed with workload in a project or have an idea that isn’t fully developed yet, a design contest can be an effective solution to either problem. This is where you can collect ideas to solve specific engineering issues, accelerate the development of a unique product design, and maybe, put your approach to engineering design into a much wider perspective. In addition, design contests help support design culture by helping winners with monetary incentives (prize money), professional feedback, or publicity aid (if you want, you can actually publish the winning design after the contest).
Cad Crowd is the number one platform for finding freelance 3D design and engineering design professionals, both for vetted hires and through contests, proven and trusted by AEC firms all across the globe. Get a free quote today.
