99Designs launches Swiftly: where a design change is $15 an hour

99Designs, the crowd sourced design firm is now launching Swiftly a crowd sourced design-fixer firm. Billed as a place where you can get a title changed on a business card, a tweak done to a photo, headlines changed on websites, vectorizing images and other simpler tasks (provided the original fonts & layout documents are available), the idea is already unappetizing to many designers. $15 an hour is below minimum wage in Australia but a neat chunk of change in Thailand. Since Swiftly enables customers to get existing graphic design files altered by professional graphic designers within hours, it means the fonts and things needed are already in them - and half of the reason designers charge so much is already sorted. Perhaps one can set this work up so that one does several little tweak-jobs within an hour thereby getting up to a regular wage. It could be something for the unpaid design intern to do at night. Bonus! Imagine all the portfolio work you can claim!

“Swiftly is part of 99designs’ broader plan to change the paradigm for how businesses worldwide get graphic design work done and how designers earn money,” said 99designs President and CEO Patrick Llewellyn. “99designs contests have connected more than 230,000 customers with our extensive community of skilled designers. Now, with Swiftly, we’re introducing an entirely different model for businesses to get smaller design tasks done quickly and effortlessly. Swiftly’s launch underscores our determination to provide a full spectrum of graphic design solutions for customers and more opportunities for designers.”

“Swiftly grew out of our awareness that many people don’t know where to turn for a quick graphic design project, either because they don’t employ in-house designers or their designers are tied up with more substantial projects,” said 99designs Chief Technology Officer Lachlan Donald, who led the team that developed Swiftly. “It’s exciting to have the opportunity to develop a totally new service that fulfills a real need for customers and gives freelance designers another way to make money. It’s a win-win for everyone.”