so, the contest ended - many thanks for your votes.
I still feel bad, that the other designers do get nothing (but points) but in the end, hopefully they got some publicity and items for their folio, most of them are very empty, so it is a bit hard to invite designers you know they will fit your desired style.
In the end, I will not stop developing games, and 99designs gives me 2 very important facts:
a) I get good looking images for my games, which - i believe - is very important to have.
b) get’s me an overall insight on how designers solve requests
so, if you are willed to pay the money, you will get good work for it - I also requested an extended review period which was granted very fast without complains.
Also, I raised the default money of 199 $ to 299 because I wanted two concepts (icon + teaser) hopefully, designers feel well with that - curious what the cutoff will be and what the designers will get.
From my point of view: recommendation - especially for the designers there
PS: @mind, it’s the same designer who made the image for word hero I liked his work, so I invited him, even, when I do not find his current folio very impressive (have to say)
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drawbacks of 99designs: their cutoff seems to be very high. from my 299 $ contest, the winner only got 175$ … beside the fact, that 99designs tricks you with a referal link to comission junction and rejecting you for their referal program after registration I do not like their business - even when their service is good for developers.
but that’s a personal view