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- falkyr11, on 01/09/2009, -14/+1005Written by a professional logo designer who really, really doesn't want you to attempt to make your own logo.
- bossm4n, on 01/09/2009, -9/+463And the best example of how not to design a logo, OGC.
http://blogs.birminghampost.net/business/ogc-logo. ... - joshualamgroup, on 01/09/2009, -13/+375i.e. It's pretty much an advert: He discourages everything BUT professionally designed logos.
Why? He needs business in economic times like these. - draculthemad, on 01/09/2009, -4/+222Its one big ad for professional logo design, isnti t?
- uberduger, on 01/09/2009, -1/+154:DGC
- Bobby1978, on 01/09/2009, -17/+131Agreed with everything mentioned in the article *except* for design contests. While the arguments presented do appear to make sense, there are important benefits which bypass them all... to both designers participating in such contests, as well as the clients initiating them.
By and large, most who participate in such contests are amateurs, and their level of skill is unsurprisingly sub par. The primary goal of these newbies is to attain quick monetary rewards, but what many who are against contests don't mention are the secondary benefits, that of skill attainment and experience in dealing with clients - both of which are crucial when starting out in the industry. Fact of the matter is everyone had to have started somewhere, and contests are simply the latest and most convenient of places where talented individuals can immediately get a foothold in the industry and make a name for themselves. The reason why many of these so-called 'professionals' hate contests is that they diminish the capacity for them and the industry as a whole to charge exorbitant rates and fees for their services. Another is to ensure that any who show promising talent should be put in their place by getting them to spend years learning outdated degree programs, acquire lengthy and mundane corporate experiences, and most important of all - only allow a select few to the upper echelons if the design industry aka circle-jerk buddies.
Clients come in all shapes and forms - those who are able to afford quality service from reputable studios, no doubt charging an arm and a leg whilst doing so, and those who just barely can. Some certainly will not mind splurging out if they can afford to, but not all clients are as well off. Professional designers and design companies may prefer believing otherwise but there are clients who truly cannot afford their rates. So to these clients, opting to do it themselves, or trying out a few contests are probably their only option - they take a chance either way, except with contests with multiple designers participating, there is a higher chance someone with skill might produce someone just perfect for the look of the business and for the price given. If it's so good, why shouldn't all companies do such contests? Well for one thing, there is added risk the chosen designer may not be able to provide a complete service to the client, something large studios can. The logo may be perfect but the color may not translate well across different mediums. The logo may look fitting on a white or transparent canvas, but colored or black backgrounds may pose a problem. Some clients will not care, as these issues do not affect them, so the price paid is perfect. For clients who require solutions to these issues however, they get what they paid for exactly - the price of a good logo. In any case, clients win for the most part, as do designers.
The problem comes in when clients with no sense of taste or style choose lousy amateurish designs from newbies with almost no other skill, and end up with absolutely no after sale service - these clients deserve to get doubly burnt, lose the money and time, and end up with a crap design. Neither contests, nor contract services will help them, so may God have mercy on their soul.
Thankfully though, while many participating are amateurs, there are also a good number of open-minded professional designers who also take part in such contests, essentially reducing, if not eliminating bad designs from being selected. But why do they participate? Well, it turns out there are yet more benefit to contests those bugger anal-retentives don't want anyone else to know - portfolio expansion, free advertising, and cheap client base expansion. Pros probably don't need the money from contests, instead by producing consistently quality designs that score win after win, this will eventually attract the attention of clients who prefer going directly to such designers instead of starting contests themselves (the so-called "right way"). With accomplishments come a bigger and more varied portfolio, just the thing to convince future employers to acquire the designer, or attract more clients. Consistent wins also translate to free advertising from clients and even designers themselves. As the word spreads, this particular designer will be flooded with business in no time. The problem for them is to simply sort out the highest paying customers, regretfully inform those offering less, and complete the work. If the designer is good, he'd allow market forces to give him the desired high income he deserves from his now rich skill template, rather than suffocating the industry through his influence.
Those in the no-spec camp can go screw themselves. - rda1441, on 01/09/2009, -15/+102Buried....This is basically just an advertisement for stuck up 'professional' logo makers.
Next time, pay for your advertisement. - rednip, on 01/09/2009, -4/+90Yea, it's basically a mild sales pitch for his services; A mildly entertaining article even so (the phallic symbols are hilarious, but only 6 of them). However the only real advice he gives can be paraphrased as:
For the love of all things holy, get other people's opinions before you settle on a logo.
He also missed another obvious pitfall, and probably the worst one; making it too similar to another company's logo, in particular one that is aggressive about protecting their trademark. - Suits, on 01/09/2009, -0/+78My Design team and I go out of our way to integrate human genitalia into all our clients logos.
- fattony80, on 01/09/2009, -3/+81Atherton Car Center
8===> - djbuffnstuff, on 01/09/2009, -0/+71i also like the a-style one
http://bitsandpieces.us/wp-content/uploads/2008/05 ... - marcoionox, on 01/09/2009, -2/+72Guess the London Olypics logo has applied one (or more) of these rules: http://i41.tinypic.com/2q03ij4.jpg
- Millsee, on 01/09/2009, -2/+66Dugg for the abundance of amusing *****-like logos.
- Murdats, on 01/09/2009, -1/+63yeah. I am having to design a logo for our social club, I am not going to get a professional to do it, I was hoping he would point out what not to do in the design process, not what not to buy.
- roodammy44, on 01/09/2009, -2/+62Agreed.
Look at the millions of pounds and months spent designing the London 2012 olympics logo, and yet everyone agrees that it's a pile of *****.
I admit that branding and logos matter, but if you're a small firm do they matter to the point where you will spend thousands of pounds for a small drawing?
Like someone said above, the google logo was drawn by their founders. Can anyone say that they can think of a way better logo than that? Unless you're particularly bad at drawing, you're probably better off doing it yourself. - inactive, on 01/09/2009, -16/+73This, coming from a website which uses basic white text as a "logo"?
- computershack, on 01/09/2009, -3/+54THe London Olympic Games logo is a good example of ***** design. Apparently it's supposed to say 2012 in quirky numbers. To everyone else except the designers and the people stupid enough to agree to the design, it looks like a woman bent over giving a man a blow job.Seriously. AND THEY PAID £400,000 FOR THAT *****.
I challenge you to look at it and see anything but that: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/43005000/gif ... - morninglorii, on 01/09/2009, -1/+50Hooray! The London 2012 Olympics, sponsored by Lisa Simpson Giving Some Dude Head.
- bryson430, on 01/09/2009, -0/+48Here's a visual aid for those who can't see it:
http://bryson.albassamtheatre.com/2012new.gif - icecoldtrashcan, on 01/09/2009, -1/+48I can't believe £400000 paid for that *****. Hell, I could design a better logo than that.
- Smaulz, on 01/09/2009, -0/+45Dummy, you're supposed to use Powerpoint to make logos!
- uberduger, on 01/09/2009, -0/+44Confucius, he say:
"Man wanking will come in handy." - marcoionox, on 01/09/2009, -0/+44Wow - That comment was an article itself (On one page)!
- dlan4327, on 01/09/2009, -0/+41I'm going to file that little tidbit of information away for a rainy day.
You never know when the knowledge that OGC looks like a man wanking will come in handy.
No pun intended with the word handy. - Bauer22, on 01/09/2009, -4/+40Bonus Tip.
If the words "Glossy" "Reflection" or "Web 2.0" come up when one describes your logo, promptly find your designer and shove his Wacom pen through his eyes. - acegi, on 01/09/2009, -1/+37:'(GC
- tgc1, on 01/09/2009, -0/+35I believe you could ***** on a piece of paper and make it better than that.
- roxya, on 01/09/2009, -2/+36lol @ comparing logo design work to dentistry.
This is the guy's logo portfolio: http://justcreativedesign.com/portfolio/ - Gizza, on 01/09/2009, -3/+37Didn't the Google guys design their own logo?
They seem to be doing alright for themselves. - skuzzed, on 01/09/2009, -4/+36Yep, I should make one called "How NOT To Design A Website" then at the end of the article, "Hire me instead"
- spartarising, on 01/09/2009, -2/+32"Professional logo designers have a strict logo design process that can take weeks or in some cases months to complete a logo."
Read: If you hire me, don't bother me if I don't respond to any of your emails. I am being a PROFESSIONAL. Oh, and you are paying for every day I'm not working. - digitalpencil, on 01/09/2009, -1/+30^ if by cool and new you mean classic but old..
- Wilsomatic, on 01/09/2009, -6/+35But Microsoft Publisher is really good at making logos!
- toledojon, on 01/09/2009, -2/+31He makes some valid points about the importance of good logo design, but his argument is completely overshadowed by his pimping himself out to the readers. Not a big fan of that.
- inactive, on 01/09/2009, -1/+29i had the same problems when i was trying to come up with a logo for my company Coca-Cola
- TheTaoOfBill, on 01/09/2009, -4/+31lol are you serious? People still believe this *****? If you believe everything on the internet then I have a letter from a rich uncle of yours from Nigeria who wants to give you his inheritance of 1 billion dollars but he needs you to write me a check for 5000 dollars first.
- foreignwarren, on 01/09/2009, -1/+26Definitely a plug for his services as you said. Having worked as the marketing Director for a fairly large (for my country) company and dealt with various designer types -who get pissy if you have any changes to be made after one or two drafts even after numerous meetings to allow them to get a feel for your business and what you expect- I used a paid online service when opening my own business and I was very happy with the results and it only cost me $100. Now granted some of the options provided for my logo were obviously intended to steer me towards the two or so quality designs amongst the rubbish. However I was able to get it down to one that really did capture what I wanted and they made a couple changes at my request and it is still in use today three years later- and in two countries!
Moral: If you're on a shoestring startup budget like most smallbusiness owners you can use these services (though not the absolutely free ones which really are rubbish) and get good results that can take you somewhere. If years later you feel like undergoing a re-branding and you can afford it.....look up Mr. Fancypants art director who wrote the article. - JackpotCity, on 01/09/2009, -0/+24I remember laughing my ass off when I saw that one for the first time.
As a brand building exercise though, top marks, 'cos by now most people would know about OGC. - DarkLance, on 01/09/2009, -11/+34Ah look, another "designer" sucking his own phallic symbol.
- kelpee, on 01/09/2009, -1/+23Yeah I could disagree. Some of these "professional" logo's suck. The article was a drum up.
- WhiskeyLemur, on 06/30/2009, -0/+22Murdats - my husband is a graphic designer, and the basic premise of good logo design according to him is Keep It Simple. The simpler a logo, the more recognizable it is - there's a reason that Nike and McDonald's logos are so minimalistic. From this basic premise follow a couple of corollaries:
1. Simple = scaleable. It may not matter as much for a local club, but a larger corporation will want something that looks as good in an 80x80 pixel icon as it does blazoned across an NYC billboard.
2. Avoid cluttering it with text, for the same reason: if you have to shrink it, you'll lose all meaning and end up with an indeterminate blob. To take a f'r instance, just look at the logo of Nerv in the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion: http://www.albatross1.com/ANIMIMG/evangel.gif
Even at that size, the text becomes ugly and near-illegible.
3. Pick your colors to suit your needs, and try to simplify it to as few colors as you can. Imo anything more than 2-3 colors tends to look tacky, but that's personal opinion.
4. If you use a textual logo instead of a pictorial one, don't mix fonts - for most purposes, if you want to make some part of it stand out, you'll be better off using the boldface or italic form of the same font. You *do* have more leeway on which font to use - custom is best, of course, but even if you use a stock font, something that is illegible in long text can still work for a nice, classy logo, like the one we use for my company's hotels:
http://www.rollacover.com/images/LogoGansevoort.gi ...
5. This is mentioned in the article, but it bears repeating: avoid looking too much like other logos in the same industry, avoid looking like *any* famous logo (we have a hardware store in the area which looks like it cribbed its sign from Starbucks), and make sure that if you use images, they're not copyrighted. Again, original is best.
Hope this helps.... as I said, it's VERY basic rundown, but if you've never done logo design before, it'll get you started thinking in the right direction :) As a disclaimer, this is all coming second-hand from listening to my better half talk, and from doing layout design myself: I've never singlehandedly come up with a logo, so I apologize if I'm off-base on any of this. - excalibre, on 01/09/2009, -3/+24The whole article seemed to justify spending large amounts of money on simple logo designs.
- 42Vindictive, on 01/09/2009, -0/+21I think its the dayglo ***** pink and yellow that a lot of people hate.
- Maizuru, on 01/09/2009, -1/+22JackCass Design... really?
http://justcreativedesign.com/wp-content/gallery/l ... - joshualamgroup, on 01/09/2009, -6/+26Yes I could.
- 8bitflu, on 01/09/2009, -0/+20I cry when I fap too, it's ok.
- cJw314, on 01/09/2009, -1/+21tl;dr
Spec work sucks. - f3l1x, on 01/09/2009, -0/+20...or come...
- Seth024, on 01/09/2009, -0/+19I never even saw the 2012 in that picture before.
- inactive, on 01/09/2009, -2/+21This article didn't really say anything about how not to design a logo, other than "Have a professional do it". I figured it would have had examples of actual logo design. Well, there was the phallic example, but overall it was pretty much just saying pay a professional. That's hardly helpful. That would be like me writing an article about home improvement and writing "hire a professional!"
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