graphic design | Successful Software

I launched my product a year ago, but so far haven’t had much luck selling it. I desperately needed advice from a person that could take a look at my situation and help figure out what’s wrong and how to move on. Andy Brice has been through all this and knew exactly what I was struggling with.

Simon Strandgaard, www.GraphicDesignerToolbox.com

gdt-screenshot

GraphicDesignerToolbox is a Mac OS X application for creating computer generated graphics. It allows users to snap together generative and filter blocks to create a vast range of different types of images, without any drawing or programming. It is an impressively slick and well engineered piece of software. But sales were unsatisfactory. I did some consulting for the author, Simon Strandgaard, focussed on improving the marketing and the user’s initial experience of the product. As a result he has made a lot of changes, including:

Re-thought the product positioning, marketing message and target customer.
Renamed the application to GraphicDesignerToolbox (from the less descriptive ToolboxApp).
Moved the website from ToolboxApp.com to GraphicDesignerToolbox.com.
Commissioned a new application icon.
Completely rewritten the website.
Improved the initial user experience with a quick tour and easy to load samples.
Improved the product documentation.
Changed the trial model.
Increased the price.
Released version 1.0.

You can see captures of old and new versions of the website below:

Old home page - click to enlarge

New home page - click to enlarge

It is has been very rewarding to see the product and marketing improve so much in just three months. Especially as someone else was doing all the hard work! I think the changes are a huge improvement all round and I wish Simon and GraphicDesignerToolbox every success. v1.0 was released today and Simon tells me he has sold as many licences today as in the previous 5 months.

If you have a Mac you can head over to GraphicDesignerToolbox.com and download the trial.

Most software developers have horrible graphics design skills. I am no exception. So I decided to run a contest on 99designs.com for some artwork I wanted to use to promote Perfect Table Plan. I have used DesignOutput.com once before, but I decided to give their competitor a try after seeing the stackoverflow.com and homedocumentmanager.com logos created through 99designs.

I put up $300 prize money for a humorous cartoon of a seating arrangement gone wrong. Fees cost me an additional $69. The detailed brief is here and I also supplied this rough sketch:

99designs_cartoon

Here is the winner I chose:

99designs_winner

I ran it as a ‘guaranteed’ competition to try and attract more designers I also made an effort to give plenty of feedback on the designs submitted and I let it run the full 7 days. I found the 99designs website easy and intuitive to use. Setting up the competition only took ten minutes or so. My only gripe is that the ‘eliminate’ and ‘choose winner’ buttons are so close together that it would be easy to click the wrong one. You do have to confirm the winning choice however.

Most of the other competitions are for logos and websites, so mine was a little unusual. But I still got over 40 different designs (some variations on a theme) from 20 different designers. You can see the designs here (those that haven’t been withdrawn). The quality of the entries varied, but much of it was really excellent. I am very happy with the winning entry.

99designs seems rather brutal for the designers. 40+ entries is common and some contests get over 1,000 designs entered. This means stiff competition and the designers don’t get anything unless they win. I am guessing that they are mostly students, who are happy for the practice, or living in cheaper parts of the world, where $300 is a significant amount of money. But it certainly offers excellent value for money for those running contests.