BandArt allows you to launch a design contest on your website, your band's Facebook Page and on Creative Allies (home of thousands of designers). Invite your fans and the best emerging designers to create your next gig poster, T-shirt, album cover. BandArt enables you to engage your current fans in the design process while also introducing you to new ones.
Creative Allies is an online community that lets designers and illustrators from around the world create art and merch designs for the biggest bands in the world. We are passionate about art, music, and providing high-profile, profitable creative opportunities for artists everywhere.
You set the prize amount to be paid to the winning designer. Creative Allies collects your prize money up front and pays the winning designer at the end of the contest. There is a $250 minimum requirement to start a contest, but we recommend you offer at least a $400 prize for best results. Creative Allies collects a $50 processing fee per contest, the rest goes to the winning designer.
Yes. You can add more money to your prize amount after the contest has launched. Simply contact support@bandart.com to request a prize increase. It is not possible to decrease a prize amount once you have paid for your contest.
Running a BandArt Design Contest offers a number of benefits to bands:
Choose between a small poster(11"x17"), large poster(16"x20"), T-shirt, album cover, or logo.
The album cover contest type will only run a contest for the cover design of your packaging. We will help connect you with your winning designer to complete the packaging design after the contest has ended. This may incur additional cost between you and the designer. We cannot accept custom templates for an album cover contest.
All designers will be required to submit their design at the LP record size (12" x 12") with a minimum resolution of 200 dpi, which can then be sized down to meet any specific album cover size needs.
To start your design contest click here.
We recommend running your contest for a minimum of 3 weeks and no longer than 6 weeks.
A public design contest for moderately well-known indie band on Creative Allies can pull in more than 200 entries. There is no guarantee of how many designs you'll get for your design contest, but there are a few ways you can maximize your entries:
You are required to pay Creative Allies for the winning design up front (you determine the amount). When you choose a winner, we'll handle the payment to the winner.
After the contest deadline, you'll have 30 days to select your winner. In the event that a winning design isn't chosen within 30 days, Creative Allies will distribute your prize equally to designers who have previously won other contests (rewarding the most loyal and best designers in the Creative Allies community).
Yes. Adding concert tickets, VIP access, free merch and other goodies is a great way to add an extra incentive (and a personal touch) to your design contest. However, don't underestimate the strong effect that your cash prize has in persuading a designer to participate. A very low cash prize can seem insulting and unappealing even if it's balanced by awesome non-cash prizes. Please be aware that you are solely responsible for fulfilling any additional prizing. DO NOT list anything that you are not prepared to send to the winner.
Yes. You can upload logos and other graphics to provide to contest participants. You can clarify whether they are required or just for reference and inspiration. We advise against providing band photos unless you absolutely want them included. In our experience, providing photos tends to limit the creativity of the resulting designs.
You can leave comments on any entry to communicate suggested changes to the designer, but only before the contest reaches its deadline. After the contest deadline, you'll need to choose a winner based on the versions that have been submitted. However, once you choose an entry as a winner, you will be able to contact that designer to ask for revisions.
Once the contest deadline has passed, you can review all of the entries and take up to 30 days to choose a winner. You can view all your entries by visiting your contest page and clicking "See All Entries". If you do not choose a winner within 30 days, Creative Allies reserves the right to choose a winner or distribute the prize money to contest participants who entered the contests.
Most contests have one grand prize winner. If you would like to select any additional winners (so you can own the full copyright of that design), please contact support@bandart.com. For each additional winner you choose (all winners are considered tied for first place), you'll have to pay Creative Allies the amount of the original prize in order to get access to the high-resolution design files.
You have the opportunity to sell additional contest entries and earn a royalty on sales through the Creative Allies Store.
In addition to choosing your Winner(s), you can choose to sell as many contest entries as you'd like in the Creative Allies Store. It's a risk-free way for your band to turn additional designs into merchandise to make money for and promote your band.
To add a contest entry to the Creative Allies Store, just go to that entry's page on creativeallies.com and click "Sell This Creation." We'll add the item to the Store and handle all printing and fulfillment sending your band a 50% royalty check on all sales for your band's item once a month. We also handle paying royalties to the designer.
We offer special bulk pricing for bands who want to sell on the road. Just email store@creativeallies.com to request a quote.