Should You Use Fiverr For Your Twitch Overlays?
Ok first up, quick disclaimer - I don’t want to be totally slamming Fiverr or the people that work incredibly hard on the platform to earn a living or side hustle making stream overlays.
I don’t want the readers of this post to think that fiverr is not a viable option for stream overlay designs either. It totally is!
There are some great designers on the platform that really offer a great streaming overlay graphics at a reasonable price.
What this post is about though is the huge amount of feedback I have received from customers of our own over the years that will stand as useful information when deciding if Fiverr is the best place for you to get your stream overlays or gaming logos.
If you take streaming seriously you know - Your stream branding is important and so is your hard earned money. A bit of research goes a long way! That’s why you want the very best.
And that leads us onto the first problem that we hear come up time and time again -
⁃ Quality -
For the most part - the best stream overlay designers are not on Fiverr.
Why?
Because the best designers have migrated away from making stream overlays on Fiverr and have their own online store or freelance for larger twitch overlay companies.
Why would they hang around paying fees to Fiverr when, let’s face it, if the quality of the work was up to scratch, they would be selling their work on the open market?
What you will mostly find on Fiverr is those that design for a hobby or those trying to get together a portfolio that instead of offering free work, are charging people.
Most reputable stream designers will not work in Fiverr and if they did in the past, often they will remove their account when they move away from the platform because of the negative connotations being linked to it can have. We certainly don’t have our work in there and never have!
Here’s one of the reasons why this is the case -
⁃ Stolen Stream Graphics -
Now, when I say we don’t work on Fiverr, that doesn’t mean you can’t find our stream designs there.
Not on our own Fiverr account though... on other people’s “portfolios”.
That’s right, designs straight up lifted from our website, and often our customers social media pages and stuck right onto someone’s Fiverr profile showing off how beautiful their (our!) work is.
It’s not just us either. There are tonnes of stolen stream design and in particular streaming logos that outright do not belong to the seller but are being advertised as work of their own.
Not only do we see Fiverr sellers showing off stolen work but very often we see them selling it too!
There is very little skill required in removing a watermark from a design and with so many real portfolios out their on the web, scammers have a free run of Google image search to find a design that matches your brief, remove the original name and replace it with yours.
What you are buying in this instance is a stolen design. If your Twitch channel blows up and you have printed it all over your merchandise, potentially a lawsuit will be finding you!!
Another dirty trick is sellers going on to “free logo maker” websites and creating a simple design that matches nothing in their portfolio and selling you this!
But wait...
⁃ What about the star rating?! -
It must count for something right?
Well, recently while looking at somewhere to stay on vacation later on in the year on the popular website Airbnb, I learned an important lesson about online reviews when the seller is directly involved in the process -
I would read about how friendly and kind the host was.
How the host was fast to reply to any questions.
How the host was very kind and checked in to make sure the guests were ok and needed anything.
Yes,the host is awesome... but what’s the place like?!?
You see, the trouble with these types of review ,where the seller is very closely involved with the sale, is that they often review the person selling the service or product and not the product itself!
This coupled with the fact that the reviewer knows that their review could damage the reputation of another person often means that they will say a load of kind stuff about them, give them a 5 star review and never actually make any comment about the product they purchased.
Many find it hard to write a critical review when they know the person they have been dealing with it will see it and can publicly comment on it!
The same is often true of Fiverr stream designers.
Of course you want someone who is all the things I mentioned previously - friendly, fast to respond etc etc. But let’s face it, you want a decent product too. Right?!
Another obvious thing about star ratings links back to my last point -
If you’re buying stolen work and you don’t know it, of course you rate the seller highly.
Ignorance is bliss as they say!
A question to ask is this - if someone is a 5 star seller does it necessarily mean that they have been vetted and checked by Fiverr?
Nope. It might just mean they know how to get a 5 star rating, honestly or dishonestly.
And talking of dishonestly -
⁃ Misleading Profiles and Identity theft -
Now, this is something that our customers have never told us directly but a trick we have picked up on through their tip offs.
My point can be made with a quick story -
A very loyal customer reached out to us to inform us of someone that is using our stream designs on an instagram portfolio.
I checked it out and like hundreds of accounts, yes, they were.
I click their Fiverr account in their bio and there we are - a level 2 seller, 8 orders in the queue and a load of amazing reviews.
I reached out on instagram on my personal account, made some enquires about their (OUR!) beautiful work and then politely asked them to take it down as I knew of course it was stolen.
I did the same on the Fiverr account and the person told me they were the same person as on the instagram account and they were already working on removing the stuff from Fiverr too.
But wait... were they the same?
The person I spoke to on Instagram was called Emily, she was a beautiful young lady from Canada and was making designs professionally for 8 years. This confused me because she looked about 18 in her profile! Her profile was littered with candid “what I was up to this weekend” pictures shuffled in with stream overlay designs. Most, to be honest, really didn’t match up to that of a professional designer - Bikini photos on the beach etc. Not exactly what you’d expect. I did wonder if her Linked In business profile had the same images!
The person I spoke to on Fiverr was Ahmad, a 32 year old man from Pakistan.
A quick reverse image search of Emily proved that she was actually a model from Ukraine with over 3 million followers. Maybe just doing a bit of design work on the side?!
Furthermore, a little more digging had me find out this scammer has a British PayPal account and an American bank account.
It’s just shady.
Do you really want to be doing business with someone who is using the tactics of luring in customers with stolen pictures of models?
If they are using these tactics to get customers, will the work be honest too?
The other thing about Emily Ahmad the Ukrainian, Pakistani, Canadian, British American was his or hers ability to communicate. You would think with such a diverse background, weekend trips to Paris and photo shoots in Dubai etc it would be easy! -
⁃ Communication -
If you’ve ever worked with a designer or stream overlay design company before, you’ll know this is the foundation upon which great graphics are built.
I noted earlier that ultimately you want quality but without a good understanding of your requirements, it’s a non starter!
On Fiverr, there is no vetting process to ensure that the language that the seller inputs on their profile represents the actual level of skill that the seller has.
Sellers can use canned responses to answer your simple delivery enquiries or design needs but when it gets down to the nitty gritty, can they fully realise what you’re looking for in your design?
Nothing pleases me more than the wonderful power of connectivity that the internet has bought and how it has improved the diverse selection of services we can choose from across the internet.
But, if someone sets their profile to English Fluent. That’s really what you expect.
That’s not to say that it’s not worth working with someone that claims an intermediate level of your native language. The creases can of course be ironed out.
Too often though the feedback we hear about Fiverr overlay designs goes something like this -
He/she had an amazing portfolio, very friendly but they simply couldn’t understand what I wanted!
That’s not only important at the design phase but also after completion -
⁃ Help Setting up -
So, you’ve got your twitch overlays, your product was delivered in double quick time, let’s get them on the stream!
Ah, hang on, how does this all work?
Well it’s too late. They’ve taken your money and run. They’ve got the rating, the review and they’ve got your money. What do they owe you now?
Not always the case of course but if you pay cheap, there is often no room for the personalised service you would expect from something as meaningful as your stream branding.
Often you’ll be left in the dark with no help or resources and no one to reach out to if you’re having trouble.
This is something that all reputable stream graphics companies would always offer help with.
⁃ In Conclusion -
I’m at risk in this post of sounding like a Fiverr hating trash talker and I’m fully aware of it. I have resisted the opportunity in this post to say how great we are to keep it fair!
The truth is I more often than not hear negative reviews about wasted money than the opposite.
That’s not to say all Fiver overlay designers are horrible scammers or offer bad quality work. There really is some great talent out there. My suggestion if you are going to take a chance on Fiverr is to do your homework because it’s increasingly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff!
Fast delivery, great quality and cheap price is simply a combination that doesn’t exist. If you’re expecting that, expect to waste your money.