What are shots?

Shots are small screenshots (400×300 pixels max) posted by members to show what they are working on. Some have called Dribbble “Twitter for designers.” Shots are to Dribbble as tweets are to Twitter.

What’s a player / spectator / prospect?

A player is a member at Dribbble who can post shots and comments. Players are drafted (invited) by current members.

A spectator is a member who can follow and discover shots and people on Dribbble, but cannot post shots and comments. Anyone can sign up as a spectator to follow the work and people on Dribbble.

A prospect is simply a spectator who has indicated (in their account settings) that he/she would like to be drafted as a player. There is a prospects list to help find these members.

See Why are players drafted? as to why we make the distinction between players / spectators / prospects.

Why are players drafted?

All players (members who can post shots) are drafted (invited) by members. Having members take responsibility for those they draft sharpens the focus on sharing interesting work. We also limit invitations, which helps our tiny company scale the site and our support of it. This strategy is imperfect—we know there are many fantastic designers still undrafted—so our efforts to grow gracefully are ongoing.

How are players drafted?

We periodically issue invitations to existing players who, in turn, invite new players to post their work as shots on Dribbble.

Anyone can sign up as a spectator and choose (in the account settings) to be on the Prospects list. Members with invitations see a Draft button on prospect profiles. If a member chooses to draft a prospect, an email is sent with a url to accept or decline the invitation.

How many shots do players get to upload?

When a player is drafted, they receive 24 shots. On the first day of each month, we top off everyone such that each player has 24 shots free. For example, if you have 10 shots free on March 31, you’ll get 14 more on April 1; if you have 0 free, you’ll get a full 24.

We recently added a 5 shot per day limit to discourage ball hogging, i.e. a single user flooding the shot streams with many of their shots in a short period of time.

What is proper behavior/etiquette for members?

Read the Player's Handbook for tips and rules for being a good team player in the community.

What’s a Pro account?

A Pro account offers additional features such as projects, attachments, stats, work availability settings and a Pro badge to members who purchase it. Pro accounts are only available to players at this time.

What’s a rebound?

A rebound is a shot in reply to another shot. Rebounds offer a way to follow up and “link” two shots together. For example, a sketch can be rebounded with a finished design, or alternate concepts of a design can be rebounded so there’s a reference trail to follow.

Rebounds can also be purely for fun—what you're working on doesn't have to be for work. :) For example, any player can create games or memes allowing other Dribbble players to riff off an initial shot to get their takes on the same idea.

You can see many examples of rebounds on the Playoffs page.

What’s a project?

A project is collection of a player's shots that have been grouped they share a common theme. Projects are viewable by anyone, but can only be created by members with Pro accounts.

You can see many examples of projects on the Projects page.

What’s a bucket?

A bucket is collection of shots that any Dribbble member can create. While logged in, click the 'Bucket' link on any shot to add it to a bucket.

You can see many examples of buckets on the Buckets page.

How can I contact members about work opportunities?

Members with Pro accounts can indicate that they are availabile for work. Doing so displays a 'Hire Me' button on their profiles that signed-in members can use to send messages about work opportunities (read testimonials from hired Dribbblers and talent seekers!).

Dribbble reserves the right to throttle the number of messages a member can send. We may eventually charge fees for sending messages to members.

Can I use your logo, icons and/or look & feel in my site or application?

See our Logo Downloads & Brand Guidelines for information about linking to Dribbble and branding your own website or application.

What’s with all the basketball references?

Water Polo didn’t work as well. And we in Salem, Massachusetts are Celtic people.