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DesignJoy Review: My Experience + 10% OFF Discount
Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links, which means that if you eventually buy DesignJoy’s subscription, we will get a commission of that sale.
Having said that, I will be 100% unbiased and share my whole personal experience getting this whole site re-designed by them.
If you’re already sure about getting DesignJoy services, use the code FAILORY to get the promised 10% off in your first purchase.
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In January 2020, I decided it was time to redesign Failory’s site. That’s when I got into 99designs and lots of different design agencies until I eventually remembered about unlimited design services.
I came across DesignJoy when googling for this kind of services along with 6-7 more. After analyzing what each of them offered and their prices and matching them with what I was looking for, I decided to go with DesignJoy’s membership.
I have had a really great experience with them so I thought it was worth sharing. Either if you’re considering DesignJoy for your business or have just arrived at this article and feel you would benefit from a designer’s hand at a low cost, go on reading.
What’s DesignJoy?
DesignJoy is a monthly subscription that delivers any kind of design needed for your business.
It’s like Netflix for design. Instead of paying $12.99 and getting access to movies, you pay $4,995 and you get access to a designer that gets your requests done.
Wait… What’s an Unlimited Design Service?
We’ve written this huge guide on what are unlimited design services if you want to really learn about them.
They basically are agencies that get any design task you need at a fixed price per month. While a freelancer or agency charges per project and each task, unlimited design services are paid once a month / year and it doesn’t matter if you requested any tasks or not.
“But it is impossible to be unlimited. That would be slave labour!”
That’s correct. These services tend to limit the amount of work they do at the same time. DesignJoy, for example, does one concurrent task.
If you’re looking for a specific task to be done, unlimited design services might not be the best fit. However, those entrepreneurs running digital businesses may know that there are hundreds (or “unlimited”!) of things design-related that could be worked/improved. That’s why these services exist.
Who’s Behind DesignJoy?
The founder of DesignJoy is Brett Williams. Apart from DesignJoy, he has a website called scribbles, where you can download +100 vectorized scribbles for design projects.
What Type of Task do they Do?
On their site, they have the following chart:
I’ve only tried their website and logo designs and they delivered amazing work. I’m sure they are highly-qualified to do all the other tasks.
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What’s their Previous Work?
They have a Figma page where they display some of the work they’ve done.
I was really impressed to find out they have worked with some well-known companies that I admired, such as Buy Me A Coffee and Brew, both from the Sunny brothers.
Failory, this website, was also designed by DesignJoy. It used to look like this:
When I had the idea of re-designed the site, I noted down it was going to be something massive. I wanted to make something really different, starting from the background and main colors.
I first hired a freelancer to do the job, and the result was the following:
This is what I talk about when I say you’re never sure about the quality of the work. His portfolio looked great but the result was something completely opposite to what I was looking for.
Then I got DesignJoy’s membership and, as you can see below, they understood much better what I needed and they delivered a pixel-perfect innovative redesign.
The design was done in one month and after that, I canceled the membership. Specific tasks are not really what unlimited design services are thought for, but:
1) I felt in love with some of the designs DesignJoy has done so I really wanted to work with them.
2) I knew there would be many changes and new things needed to be designed (as our logo) as I went through the process and wanted to avoid being charged more by an agency.
3) The price was really reasonable compared to what other freelancers and agencies quoted the project.
What’s their Price?
DesignJoy’s pricing is super simple. There only are two plans, Standard at $4,995/month for one content request at a time, and Pro at $7,995/month for two requests at a time. Both offer 48-hour delivery, unlimited brands, users, stock photos, and the flexibility to pause or cancel anytime.
Using our 10% off in the first month, the final price for the Monthly plan is $4,495.5. Code: FAILORY.
These 2 plans cover all the design tasks you may need. Payment can be done with debit/credit card via Stripe. If you contact them, they might be willing to do a custom invoice through PayPal, as I did.
How Do They Manage Work?
Because I paid with PayPal, my case was a little bit different. We managed the communication through Trello + their chatbot and the design through Invision.
I think they generally design on Sketch and upload to Invision so that the user can comment directly on the layout.
To manage communication, they have built an internal tool within Trello where you are able to add requests, request them to work on them, review the delivered work, etc. They have a system of notifications which makes it super easy to be updated on how the design is going.
They might also offer the possibility of managing the work within Slack. I think you can add DesignJoy to the company’s Slack channel as a guest and manage all from there.
Their support chatbot, which is managed by the same founder (Brett), answers super fast and friendly. Do not hesitate to contact them if you have any questions.
The designs were delivered in .sketch in my case as well as in the Invision project. They might be willing to adjust the format in which they deliver work.
As for times, they promise to get the work delivered in less than 48 hours (weekdays only). In my case, as it was a whole website (+25 pages) redesign, it took them one whole month.
What if I Don’t Like the Designs?
At first, I was a little bit worried about the quality. I had a bad experience with the previous designer, so I wanted to take all precautions. On the side, $1,599 (the price of the Design plan at that time) was a big investment for a small business like Failory.
To be safe, I contacted Brett and we talked about the project for some minutes. He shared with me more of his previous work and claimed they were going to be able to finish the whole website redesign in 1 month.
We also agreed to spend the first 7 days, in which they are willing to give you the money back if you’re not happy with the results, working on the main pages, such as the homepage. After the first week, I was super happy with the direction taken so I obviously kept with DesignJoy.
It’s obvious, but still important to mention that you can always cancel DesignJoy’s membership at any time.
Negative Points
So far, I’ve been mentioning almost all positive points about unlimited design services and DesignJoy. However, here’re some things which could be improved:
There were some times in which I didn’t hear back from DesignJoy for 2-3 days. Anyway, it’s super normal. I was quite an obsessive customer, particularly because I had lost 4 months with the previous designer.
I used their site’s chatbot to directly communicate with them. It made it quite tedious as I had to enter the site, send a message, wait until they connected, etc.
If you don’t request any design task, you still have to pay. You need to be sure you will have many simple or few complex design tasks.
It’s a little bit expensive for many small/medium businesses. Some other unlimited design services charge far less, but that has a direct relationship with the quality of the designs.
Conclusions - Who’s DesignJoy For?
I’m 100% happy with the job done by DesignJoy. I definitely recommend it to everyone who’s looking for design tasks to be done by professional designers while keeping the costs low.
Even if you’re just starting and have a budget of 3-5 thousand dollars, I think it’s a GREAT investment. I’m pretty obsessed with design and let myself guide a lot by the UX when entering a site (especially SaaS and eCommerce). I really think good design can make the difference.
Make sure to use our code FAILORY to get a 10% discount on your first month.
If you have any questions, make sure to contact the DesignJoy or send me an email to hello@failory.com.
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