[D856C]

If they pay you nothing, they're not clients. Period.

If you don't have an interaction with the decision maker, and the ability to put forth the reason why your design is correct for the brief, you're not gaining experience in design. Basic graphic program operation, maybe, but not design.

It's not simply a matter of money, it's the use of contest as a firewall between the designer and the client. Completely eliminating the money as a consideration, the very idea should be at odds with every buzzword people throw around, from social computing, to interactivity, to the very underpinnings of an information age.

I won't even touch upon how laughable this makes books on the creative economy come off.

You're taking graphic dictation at best. Most of the winners of these contests might have some claim to telepathy or luck, but they have less claim to gaining anything relevant to the design process. Most of these contests are a subterfuge, not for the designer, but for the client.

The online contest is a way for the company not to have to think about design, about what they're trying to accomplish with the logo, and worse yet about the customers who are the real end-users of logos.