Giving Fiverr Another Try | Fiverr Tips for New Buyers

So last year I signed up for Fiverr and hired two different graphic artists to create a logo and ads. My experience was subpar and left a bad taste in my mouth. I haven’t really used them since.

This year, when I started to vlog, I began to look for ways to improve the production quality of my videos. Along with redesigning my logo, I wanted to add an animated intro to destinguish my brand on Youtube.

I’m typically a DIYer, however, this one-time animation is perhaps not worth my time. I decided to give Fiverr another try. This third experience was better but it could have gone a lot smoother. Naturally, I decided to write an article about what I’ve learned and some Fiverr tips for you to have a better product outcome and experience.

Fiverr Tips

1. Come up with a clear and concise request for what you want. Describe your requirements exactly how you want them and don’t leave any room for the contractor to guess.
2. Contact a few contractors so that you can get a base price for your project. Their advertised pricing is usually not the price you’ll end up paying. Shop around.
3. Ask for working files ahead of time. e.g. Photoshop files are .psd; illustrator, .ai; etc. This is so that you have the original working file in case you want to make changes or hire a new contractor to make changes. Contractors will charge you after the fact if you wait till the project is complete.
4. Request for unlimited revisions. Sometimes when speaking to someone overseas, there is a communication barrier. Unlimited revisions mean you’ll get exactly what you want. Eventually.
5. Request for high definition. Whether it’s an image or video, ask for the best resolution available. For video, ask for 4k. For images, typically the working file in Illustrator is fine. In Photoshop, you’ll need them to create the artwork in a large format.

Results

So this is where I learned my lesson. I sent a very basic request(below) and received an amazing animated video. But not without issue.

Hi. I want you to animate my logo: <link to log>

Can you make the purple to orange fade to glow sequentially from bottom to top? Can you make the blue text in hao.is move like ocean waves?

<Attached logo and font file>

I was not clear enough and cost me extra days on top of the projected delivery date and extra money.

This is the results of my request. The animated video cost me $24 including fees.

At first glance, the “hao is” text is no longer blue. In fact, the entire logo’s colors are kind of off. The ocean wave request was not within the text but rather under the logo as a reflection. It’s nice, but that’s not what I asked for.

Half-awake, I requested a revision to fix the issues listed(remember, these contractors are usually overseas and will deliver projects at odd hours). I had somehow missed the fact that they didn’t even use the font file that I sent. They just chose a random font that was similar!

Add that to my list of revisions and add another day for delivery. Annoying.

I then realized that perhaps I can possibly speed this along by asking for the working file. That way, I can attempt to work on it. “Sure, that’s fine,” they said. As long as I was willing to fork up an extra $15.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m pretty impressed with the first revision. I have yet to receive revision 2 but I’m guessing it’ll be more to my spec. I’ll update this article when r2 is received.

Being that this is my third time using Fiverr, it was the most fruitful experience. I just need to learn how to better communicate with these foreign contractors.

I hope these Fiverr tips can save you some time and money. Good luck!

Update

So I ended up receiving revision 2 past the original projected time and past the estimate time for the revision. Again, there was a miscommunication in regards to the water flow within the “hao is” text.

The seller made the entire text wave rather than the internal fill of the text wave. Luckily, I was able to catch him to do a quick revision that did not cost me another day. After some back and forth messages, we settled on revision 3: