99designs Targets Agencies with Launch of Pro Tools Suite

San Francisco
19 Feb 2013

99designs, the world’s largest online graphic design marketplace, today announced the launch of Pro Tools, a new suite of services designed specifically to meet the needs of marketing agencies, web development agencies, and other businesses that frequently use freelance designers to source custom graphic design.

“We’ve been really excited by the adoption of 99designs’ marketplace model by agencies and larger companies. In the course of working with tens of thousands of these customers, it became increasingly apparent that we needed to develop tools specifically tailored to meet their demands,” said 99designs President and CEO Patrick Llewellyn. “We look forward to working closely with our Pro Tools customers in coming months to further expand and refine the offering.”

The Pro Tools suite provides 99designs’ agency and other high-usage business customers with more streamlined talent sourcing and management; enhanced collaboration and feedback; and augmented privacy and security. Specific features of the Pro Tools suite include:

  • Invite-Only Contests streamline talent sourcing and management by enabling contest holders to choose and invite which designers may participate in their contests.
  • White-Label Presentations helps 99designs’ customers share design options and solicit feedback with clients and internal teams privately, efficiently and effectively.
  • Private Contests keep design drafts not ready for public viewing hidden from the search engines and the general public. Only members of the 99designs community can see the contests and must agree to an NDA to view the details.
  • Blind Contests let customers who want even more privacy for their contest hide design entries from view by other designers in the contest.
  • Custom NDAs enable customers with unique privacy requirements not covered in 99designs’ standard NDA to upload their own custom NDA that designers must agree to before they can view the contest.

99designs developed the Pro Tools suite based on interviews with hundreds of 99designs’ agency and other high-usage business customers that regularly source custom graphic design from 99designs. Approximately 13 percent of 99designs’ current customers are agencies working across a variety of disciplines ranging from marketing and public relations to web design and development.

“We were an early adopter of 99designs and have been successfully using the service for years to develop custom creative for a diverse set of clients,” said Zack Bujazia, Incredible Creative Officer at Incredible Marketing, a B2B marketing agency with offices in the United States and Australia. “The new Pro Tools suite will help us work more efficiently by simplifying feedback loops with our clients and empowering us to easily work with our favorite talent in the 99designs’ community.”

Customers can purchase the Pro Tools suite for $199 when they launch any contest on 99designs. For the next month, 99designs is offering Pro Tools for an introductory rate of $99.

About 99designs
99designs is the world's largest online graphic design marketplace, connecting businesses looking for design work with more than 200,000 graphic designers from 192 countries around the world. Businesses can source graphic design work quickly and affordably by launching design contests to the community, working 1-on-1 with individual designers, or purchasing design templates from 99designs' readymade logo store. The company was co-founded by serial entrepreneurs Mark Harbottle and Matt Mickiewicz (SitePoint, Flippa), and is backed by Accel Partners and angel investors Michael Dearing (eBay, Harrison Metal), Dave Goldberg (Survey Monkey), Stewart Butterfield (Flickr, Tiny Speck) and Anthony Casalena (Squarespace). To learn more about 99designs, including where the company is hiring, visit 99designs.com.

Media contact (Worldwide):
Lauren Gard, 99designs
(Worldwide)
510-246-1366
lauren.gard@99designs.com