There’s nothing wrong with crowdsourcing, but when the Powerhouse Museum and Sydney Design posted a competition to redesign their branding for 2013 they received a somewhat unexpected response.

They posted a competition calling for design concepts for the 2013 festival on the American crowdsourcing website Creative Allies, sparking controversy amongst many Sydney design studios, who often battle it out to gain the prestigious title of delivering the concept and poster branding for the festival.

Sydney Design is made to celebrate the very designers who are up in arms against the idea. The competition and $1,000 prize were seen as a joke and insult to many designers and studios who would be well and truly undercut at such a price.

The competition has since been pulled, but many of the publicly viewable entries have luckily been archived for our entertainment…

Tom Groves