Managing director Alec Lynch said crowdsourcing was like ‘outsourcing on steroids’. Customers put a job out to tender online and thousands of designers from across the world submit proposed designs on spec, so the client can select and pay for their favourite.

Lynch told ProPrint that one Sydney printer had already signed up to the service, which allows a user (such as a printer) to post a project brief for a design, such as a business card, and set a fixed budget on the DesignCrowd website.

The printer could then show the designs they receive to clients and download print-ready files when a design is selected.

Lynch said the company was offering the services of its stable of 13,000 designers on a “turn-on, turn-off” basis, where clients pay as they go.

“For a printer that doesn’t offer design work, our platform lets them offer value-add to their clients that can help them attract and retain clients that need design work, as well as increase their margin and profit by selling new services,” he said.

“For printers that already offer design services, our service can help them reduce costs and improve the capacity of their existing design team.”

Lynch said that he expected the initial uptake of the service to be at the SME end of the market, but claimed “the model would be quite powerful for large printers as well”.

“Early adopters will be small printers, but long term I can see chains like Worldwide Printing and Snap Printing adopting the system,” he said.

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