It was a familiar refrain from the design community.
There's a world of creativity out there, and yet large companies restrict themselves to a 'preferred suppliers' list of the largest design agencies.
Spurred by this thought, Design-Crowd created a website to enable large companies and small businesses to get ideas and designs from thousands of freelance designers or smaller agencies around the world.
The client specifies its requirements for the design, and the amount it will pay for the winning design. It then receives dozens or even hundreds of submissions from different designers, and can pick its favourite. Source: HSEC 2010 100 Thoughts, HSBC, London.