If you’re a company considering a design contest, where you solicit free work from trained designers for your websites, apps, icons, or logos: stop. It’s insulting to an entire profession and makes me (and many others I’m sure) think less of you, your company, and your product.

You wouldn’t send out a call for hundreds of electricians to install a light at your house and pay the “winner”. This isn’t any different.

If you’re a designer thinking about spending the time and energy participating in a design contest for a couple hundred bucks or a free year of a membership to some service: don’t. Take pride in your craft. Your time and skill and worth more than a cash prize and “exposure”.

It’s 2024. Enough of this nonsense.

Arturo Chang for CBC:

The graphic features multiple symbols representing Winnipeg, including a prairie crocus (the provincial flower), the Red and Assiniboine rivers (which meet in the centre of Winnipeg) and an overlay of the city’s current footprint.

[…]

It’s enclosed by the outline of a turtle shell to represent Turtle Island and has other symbols representing the city’s Indigenous roots. Two footprints represent the path toward reconciliation.

A few things to celebrate here:

• It acknowledges reconciliation and celebrates not only the city but also it’s Indigenous history.
• It was created by an artist from Peguis First Nation.
• It wasn’t the result of an ill-conceived design contest.
• It looks really good.

I feel that so much of the existing infrastructure and tools of the IndieWeb have been built without the input of people dedicated to crafting an experience for a broader range of users. I won’t call out specific services, products, or people, I mean no disrespect, but it’s clear that so many of the tools that are available are made by developers, for developers.

If people really want the independent web to take off, to achieve anything close to mass-adoption, more consideration needs to placed into how non-developers can get started with them.