I've seen a number of design competitions on there related to irish sites and I just know that the company is getting paid a hell of a lot to design a few of those sites. They are throwing it up there for 200 quid ... and it makes me go WTF!!! (pardon my french)
Do people getting sites actually care if the site was done for 200 quid and they pay 5k to someone ?
I'm always curious what'd happen if people told the clients oh yeah I saw your site design up on a competition.
I have to admit at times I've thought about entering a few of the competitions (for fun) see what people think of the designs but I haven't.
A lot of what I see in there seems to be stock icons dumped onto text a lot of the time. Though I must admit some of the designs can blow me away. At the moment I've got to work on a logo and I know its gonna take me a good bit of work. I just wonder if it'd be worthwhile throwing it up there at times.
I think design work does get undervalued a hell of a lot so I love to see the cartoons on the freelance switch site
Freelance Freedom #43 - FreelanceSwitch - The Freelance Blog