What is account verification?

Designer account verification is a means for DesignCrowd to ensure that designers who wish to participate in paid contests have the necessary knowledge, skill and design sensibility to produce good quality designs and be competitive in the marketplace.

Your designs will be reviewed by our Team, based on our Design Quality Standards and our available data of designs preferred by customers in the marketplace. To ensure high quality is consistent over time, we will constantly monitor all our designer community. So aim to keep a high quality level at all times!

Aside from logos being able to stand out for their good quality, please avoid falling into common design pitfalls such as submitting generic logo designs that disregard customers’ creative brief. We strongly encourage you to take your time to read the brief, do your research and ask questions if necessary to ensure your design is tailored to your customer’s needs. Aside from increasing the chances of your design standing out from the rest and being selected as the winner, it will prevent your account from potentially being closed. Just because you see some designs you consider generic in the platform, doesn’t mean it’s an accepted practice.

To put it simply, account verification is similar to an application process where you apply to be accepted as a competing designer on the platform.

Please read the Design Guidelines, Design Quality Standards, and Generic, common and overused designs.

While your account is unverified, a few limitations are in place:

• Your designs will not be visible on the project until these are reviewed by our Team - We do this to ensure all designs submitted to a project meet our minimum quality standards and respond to the customer’s specific creative brief needs.
• Your designer profile and portfolio will not be visible - Unverified designers have not been accepted into the platform just yet, and this needs to be clear for customers who are potentially looking to purchase a design from an unverified designer.
• You can not post public comments on projects - We do this to protect projects from spam or phishing attempts.

How long does this verification process take?

The verification process can only be completed until at least 3 of your designs submitted to 3 different projects have been approved or rejected. The more projects you participate in, the faster a decision about your account can be made - consequently, this also means that if you have not submitted to enough projects, the process is stalled until you meet this minimum amount.

Please note that if your design submission is really poor, your account may be closed prior to reaching 3 projects.

How do I get verified?

Before even submitting any designs, please ensure you meet the following criteria in order to get verified:

1. You must be a new user with no previous designer accounts owned. If the system or the staff identifies that the account you’ve registered is not your first, your account may be closed by staff (unless specifically given permission to re-register).
2. The identity details you provide in your designer account must match the user of the account. This includes your real name (different from your “designer name”), and your country. DesignCrowd may require you to submit a valid ID at any time to verify your identity and may close accounts that don't have accurate or matching account information.
3. You must have a verified payment account that is accepted on DesignCrowd : Paypal or Payoneer. Getting your payment account “verified” usually means attaching a bank account, credit card, or debit card to your payment account.

Please read the following articles:

• How do I get paid?
• Paypal not available in my country. Can DesignCrowd pay out in another payment method?
• How does DesignCrowd know my paypal account for me to receive payment?

In order to get verified, you will need to get at least than 3 approved designs submitted to 3 different paid projects with the following criteria:

• Variations of the same design will not count as separate designs.
• Getting a design rejected will increase the required number of approved designs by 1.
• The style of designs you submit must reasonably vary from one project to another (if you keep submitting text-only logo designs, for example, then it would be difficult to assess whether you are competent in other styles or if you rely solely on fonts). If your designs are not varied, this will delay the verification of your account.
• If you only submitted to a specific print or web category during verification (for example, business card projects), and then you want to branch out to other categories (like logo design), your account may be sent back to verification, especially if your work is sub-par.

How long will my designs be under review?

Your designs are reviewed and will be approved or rejected by our Team within 48-72 hours except during weekends which can potentially take longer. In the event that you submitted a design and the project goes to the Deciding phase before your design is reviewed, your submission will still be sent in to the project if your design is approved.

How do I know if my design has been reviewed?

You will receive a notification email every time a design has been reviewed (approved or rejected) and once enough designs are reviewed, you will receive an email confirming your account is verified or rejected.

Reasons to approve a design:

• The design meets the project's brief requirements.
• The design is original and is of good quality conceptually and execution-wise and is aesthetically-pleasing.
• The design is placed on an appropriately-contrasting, solid-colored, non-gradient (ideally, white) background and is not using any mock-ups.
• The design meets our Design Guidelines and Design Quality Standards.

Reasons for a rejected design:

• Inappropriate use of stock images, clipart, or is a copy of an existing design.
• Design contains generic or overused concepts, or is lacking a concept altogether.
• Design contains non-vector elements, effects or layers.
• Design does not meet all the project requirements.
• Image quality is blurry / pixelated, or too small.
• Poor design quality and execution - Do not re-submit the same design as-is.
• File Corrupted: Image is too big or wasn’t uploaded properly.
• Please don’t submit a design identical to, or too similar to one you previously submitted.
• Design presentation is poor - Center and scale the design appropriately.
• Use of personal watermarks is not allowed.
• Submission contains different design concepts - Please submit each concept separately.
• Use of mock-ups is not permitted at this stage - Design must be flat and placed against a solid white background.

For a more detailed explanation of each reason, please refer to this FAQ.

What happens to my rejected designs?

Designs that are rejected are not submitted to the project and are immediately removed from the site. You retain the right to reuse that design for whatever purpose you see fit and, of course, you retain the copyright to that design (except any assets / intellectual property that belongs to the client like their old logo design, company name, etc).

Each time your design is rejected, you will receive an email notification that should contain the following information:

• A thumbnail of the rejected design.
• The general reason why your design was rejected.
• Comments from the verification team (but not always).

I can no longer access my account! I’ve already submitted designs for verification.

If you are a new user who has submitted designs and are suddenly unable to access your account, then most likely you have failed the verification process and your account has been automatically closed. Please check your email for any notifications received.

If you do not believe this to be the case, then you may contact our support team here.

What should I do now?

Start looking for projects that interest you and fit your skillset, work on them, and start submitting your designs!

1. Go to the graphic design jobs board and find a few design projects that interest you.
2. Find jobs quickly by using keywords or sorting filters: design type, language, budget, deadline, current submission volume.
3. Save jobs that interest you to your Watchlist - you'll receive reminders when a job is 24 hours from deadline.
4. Submit designs that adhere to the project’s brief requirements, our Design Guidelines, Design Quality Standards, and Generic, common and overused designs.

Current designers can undergo a quality review, for more information please see: Why Is My Design Portfolio Under Review? for further information.