Penji
Pros
- Great Quality
- Great Designers
- Easy To Navigate
- Cost Effective
- Unlimited Revisions
Cons
- Timezone
- Terminology Issues
Today I’ll be writing about Penji, an online on-demand graphics design website. By the end of this review you’ll hopefully have some idea as to what Penji is, what they do and how they might be able to help you and your business.
So originally Penji contacted me and said would I like to review them, when I checked them out, I absolutely said yes. Why? well they have a huge highbrow client list and have worked with them on several different projects. Some of their well-known brands include Reebok, Lyft, Uber, DHL, Best Buy, UPS and Calvin Klein to name just a few of many of their well-known client list.
Penji has also been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur and Inc, and now My Helpful Hints.
Penji has the very best of the world’s graphic designers on board, only the top 2% of designers are considered. Along with great designers, you also have three different pricing plans and unlimited revisions (yes, it’s true as I tested this out!).
So, let’s get on with the review.
Main Website.
The Penji website is heavily US biased and has its pricing in $USD, this is something worth considering, especially from outside of the USA. The website is clean, easy to navigate and navigates easily on both desktop and mobile with ease. So, huge plus points on that.
Penji can do all your creative works, in fact it’s the solution to your expensive graphic designing solution. Perfect to outsource your needs to them. They have three different pricing plans, starting from $399 per month, right upto $899 per month. Each tier has different benefits. You can also save 10% by paying quarterly and save 15% if you pay yearly.
A good point to note is that you can try Penji and cancel within 15 days if it isn’t for you. No risk and Penji will honour your request.
Designers.
When you sign up, you’ll be able to enter the Penji dashboard. It works like a live chat messaging system, there’s no telephone service. This online messaging system is great in some ways, but sometimes you’ll be left waiting until your chosen designer contacts you again. I had to wait over a day just to get a simple answer regarding colour hex codes. Something that should take seconds to respond to.
The messaging system works OK, you input what it is you require and a Penji designer will be assigned to you.
My Helpful Hints is 3 years old, so I thought this would be a great time for a brand refresh and a new logo. This Penji review came along at the right time.
So, I put a request to Penji to design me a logo. I wanted to see what they could do. The first drafts were seriously disappointing, I wasn’t happy!
I asked for them to concentrate on the lettering MHH and design something with that and received three more designs.
I loathed the first two designs. The left one looks boring, the middle one looked like a weird Tetris Ikea lovechild, but I did like the third righthand one, but not those colours. But, I had now something that could be worked on. I asked them to design me a logo using the third logo but to try out some different colour options.
Second Draft.
It was much better but not perfect, but luckily you can keep going getting revisions until you’re completely satisfied. I then asked for my designer to try a black background with orange lettering. I like orange and it’s on my previous logo had orange, but I wanted a more vibrant shade.
You’ll notice that the MHH makes up my website name, although the Penji designer kept misspelling My Helpful Hints to My Handy Hints???
Despite this being in the brief, and this is one thing I did find negative about Penji, language. Not sure if it’s an American/British language barrier but trying to put across my feelings was difficult. Also, I’m not a graphic designer so didn’t know the correct lingo to communicate as to what it is, I wanted. I know what I had in my mind but putting that across to graphic experts was difficult. I think sometimes the Penji designer forgets that I’m not an expert, that’s their job.
Final Design.
So, after a lot of back and forth messaging, I have a final logo design for which I’m happy about. I wanted a striking, vibrant colour on a black background.
Each design is a one off, so you can be sure that no one else will have the same logo, unlike some logo apps, where many people can use the same logo. With Penji it’s your logo and only yours.
I love my new logo, to save your design there’s a download button on the dashboard. Downloads are saved in ZIP format and will require unzipping to view the contents. Images are saved as a JPG format.
Conclusion.
Penji certainly has the potential to be something great, especially if you’re spending money on in-house graphic designers. But it does have some issues, it’s certainly not perfect. The biggest issue for me as a non-graphic designer is the correct terminology to get results. I don’t want to be a graphic designer, so wouldn’t know the correct terminology, anyway that’s why you’d be using Penji?
Another thing worth considering is the time zone between the two countries, I was getting sometimes updates at 2:30BST and had to wait sometimes to the next day for a simple update.
But would I recommend Penji? Yes, overall, I’m still incredibly happy, I’m sure with more communication with them we’d be better at understanding what we both need to complete a project.
The pricing at first seems quite expensive, especially for a business with no designing budget such as me. But, upon checking it out further, a larger business would save money switching to Penji.
All I can say is try Penji out but remember to cancel before the 15-day mark if you’re not happy. But I’m sure once you see the quality of their work, you’ll want to keep them on a rolling basis. Penji can do all sorts, not just logos, but all your graphic designs for any applications.
There’s a reason why some of the world’s biggest brands use Penji.
Sign up Now.
Check out Penji now.
Also, add the code HELPFULHINTS15 to exclusively save 15% off the first month of a Penji membership of any plan.
Product sample provided by Penji in exchange for a detailed, unbiased review.
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