Design Contest! Winner Receives $100!

I recently participated in a t-shirt design contest for my husband's local CrossFit gym. Their logo is not very professional and doesn't look great. I happened to have an assignment to redesign the logo of a local business during the same time as the contest, so I signed up thinking I could kill two birds with one stone. I could get my assignment done and I could try to win a month free of CrossFit for my husband. I also happened to be reading an excellent book called Logo Design Love by David Airey from which I learned a few things about participating in design contests. Here are a few reasons why it's never a good idea to join a design contest as a designer

1. You're not going to get feedback on your design.
1. You don't have a mentor or a company who can meet with you and give you feedback on your designs. You can't make progress without feedback when designing a logo for a company that's not yours. You can't progress as a designer if you don't get feedback on your work. 
2. You're not working with enough information.
1. Because you're not meeting with a representative of the company you're designing for, you don't get a sense of the goals of the company and its logo or t-shirt or whatever you're designing. You don't get that design brief with constraints and goals that lead you to your most successful designs.
3. You're worth more!
1. Companies who offer $100 or something around that for design services are simply cheating you out of what you deserve. Design is something few people in the world can do. It takes time, research, drawing, program skills, and the most important commodity, creative thinking. You are worth a lot more than $100. Even local companies pay thousands and tens of thousands for successful designs and branding.

Don't sell yourself short! You are worth more!

**Note: Maybe it could be worth it if it was for a charity cause you believed in...  but other than that, don't do it!