What Inkd has added is the crowdsourcing/community piece which if, from a business standpoint, can be achieved by merely kicking back 20% of the sale to the designer community, makes all the sense in the world. Does that make ratio make sense for designers remains to be seen. If it does make sense, I agree with your assessment, this will be a winner.

Nice site! Usability is very good.

am i the only one who finds the commission ratio a bit ridiculous?

guru/elance/ebay’s commission structure draft in comparison!

it’s always nice to read something with at least a little bit of research behind it, and without ridiculous reasoning (ahem.. erik and sarah)

When you open up an Illustrator or InDesign file, the application looks for linked images relative to your design file. Sometimes you might have to relink the files, I know its a pain but these apps weren’t designed to work in a completely networked environment. There’s no way around this unfortunately.

As far as the missing fonts – we can’t actually resell these typefaces yet, so for the moment we’re providing you with the font names in a “readme” text file that should be located in the same folder as your design files. You can certainly purchase the typefaces online, but we cannot distribute them. Your computer will most likely substitute system fonts if you don’t have the specific ones that the designer used.

There are two layers in the file – a Template layer and an Artwork layer. The Template layer contains guides such as Fold, Safety, Trim, and Bleed Lines. The document size is actually larger to accomodate any bleeds setup in the file. When you go to print, the printer will trim your document to the correct finished size.

How does iStockapps sound?

Sometimes it’s not even necessary because of the limited use case and shelf life. Heck, one of the most high-profile brand images on the net, the Twitter bird, isn’t even owned by Twitter! It’s an iStock image any of us can download at any time.

Although…I’m a fan of custom design and creativity. To me there’s nothing ’stock’ about distinctive design.

Still, congrats Kelly. I’ll definitely be sharing this with my friends

I can fix the picture link without much trouble, but I think someone in marketing would really struggle to make the changes needed to use these templates (particularly from europe or other metric countries) , and would end up paying a designer to change what was needed anyway. Which I think would lead the company to just engage a designer from the beginning next time.

A larger problem is the fonts. I can see why they weren’t included (obvious licensing problem), but many people will see this as a ‘istock’ type setup and assume everything needed is supplied. They won’t be happy with ponying up another $40+ per font (more if it’s something high end). Plus then you need to assume the editor is comfortable installing the fonts on their system (not simple if you don’t have dedicated software).

The only market I can see for something like this is someone working in marketing or similar who has basic design training but isn’t comfortable creating something from scratch. Even then I doubt if they could do much beyond inserting body copy and making colour changes.

Well done on the designs, they are definitely very high quality, lets hope that the standard is maintained once the site starts to become popular.

Wake up and Smell the Coffee…

From my perspective, you’ve nailed it with a site/service for:

1) businesses where “designing is not their business”; and,

2) designers where “business is not always begotten by design”.

Simple solution to solve big problems for both types. They quality of design and templates you’ve assembled in short order is phenomenal. Your concept takes a lot of the quesswork and time out of finding designers, getting quotes, and getting cool stuff printed.

I’m a fan, a convert, and an enthusiast of your company. Nice work.

Kelly Smith
Founder: inkd.com

The reason a designer might work with us is because they can sell their design thousands of times instead of selling it just once. And, we are a great way to drive freelance business to them as well. Stay tuned for more enhancements! It’s only our first day!

Kelly Smith

There’s already a handful of online sites to find graphic designers like ifreelance.com and guru.com. Speaking as a small business owner, the “traditional” model is great– I email my graphic designer and he creates exactly what I want. Why in the world would good designers put a lot of effort into selling a design for 20% of $100 when they can make 10 times that working directly for clients?

Now this person can be a designer or not. If designer, why would he buy when he can create one. You might say, cost cutting.

If not a designer (but still owns high-end design applications), wont he/she runs a chance of screwing up the template?

Having said that, this could prove to be a good cost cutting tool for companies where marketing services are first on the chopping block.

Good luck,
Kapil
twitter.com/ktundwal