Logo Design Love

1. steve douglas

   I agree with you whole-heartedly with this. Whenever a “designer’s” profitability rests on designing as many logos as possible, while spending as little time on each as possible (think design contests) jacking other people’s work is never far outside the realm of possibility. It will be certainly be interesting to see how this plays out, especially with iStock’s recent $10K “guarantee” that all their images are legit.

   BTW – thanks ever so much for the link to my article. Appreciated.

   Sep 23rd, 2009

2. Lorenzo

   sadly david, too many people are unaware of the work that goes behind designing a logo. too many small clients think very little of that aspect of things and istock just added to the lack of educating them. i had a client who asked me how much for a 4×6 flyer design for his nightclub monthly, i gave him my price and he literally laughed at me and said “no thanks, i have one of my bartenders do it for $50 and they look great” : needless to say the designs look like they were designed by the guys feet. hope all is well, lorenzo

   Sep 23rd, 2009

3. Martin Boath

   It’s an actual disaster. You’re spot-on David with your concerns about copyrighting. But for me Lorenzo, I think, has nailed it: too many clients don’t appreciate what’s involved in identity work. It’s our job to help them understand what’s involved and what a great identity can do for them.

   We’ve already seen how various iStock elements have started to appear in logos all over the world. Imagine how bad it will be when they start churning out actual proper logos themselves?

   This will make a mockery of what we as designers are trying to do. The fact that iStock are making these logos ‘unique’ (i.e. only downloadable once) will lend real weight for those who are not educated in the finer aspects of identity design. I can just imagine a client saying “Yeah it’s not one of *those* logo sites where everyone has the same logo; mines is a one-off don’t you know.”

   Jesus wept.

   Sep 23rd, 2009

4. Abbas

   The comments about this on TechCrunch made me smile. Comments such as ”this could be the death of the design industry” – hardly.

   It’s all about education and holding the clients hand, especially the smaller clients.

   Let the un-educated have their word-art, vectoriffic logos. Once they notice it isn’t the timeless masterpiece they hoped for, they’ll soon come begging, cup in hand, to the pros for a proper job.

   Sep 23rd, 2009

5. Lorenzo

   Thank you Martin.

   I agree Abbas. Unfortunately it seems only about 1 in 4 clients truly understands the concept of design which is an indicator to usually how they run their business which in turns tells us why only 1 in 4 business come close to succeeding. There, I tied a good logo into whether you live in a shack or a mansion, ha!

   Sep 23rd, 2009

6. Ram

   I don’t know what’s the worry because the chaps who are gonna purchase a stock logo is never gonna hire a professional designer in the first place because they don’t see any value in a professional graphic designer.

   Sep 23rd, 2009

7. Michael

   I’m with you on this one David.

   It always angers me when people offer up this very sub standard design options.

   Sadly though, there will always be a market for this sort of trash and i’m sure it will make iStock a lot of money

   Sep 23rd, 2009

8. Che Mcpherson

   Just to clarify the $5 is a bonus… Logos are selling for $200-$800 with 50% commission…
   I don’t think it will effect the market of custom logos at all only compete with companies like brandstack… Which are totaly different markets… as for the legal aspects I’m sure istock knows there shiz when it comes to this…

   Sep 23rd, 2009

9. David Airey

   Steve, that’s a hefty back-up for copyright infringement. Do you know how much a typical trademark attorney will charge to register a mark? Or is that as bad as asking how much for a logo? Knowledgeable about law I am not.

   Lorenzo, sadly, yes, but happily, there’ll also be those who value good design. Moves like this don’t help, that’s for sure, but let the spec sites and pre-fabricated symbol sellers fight it out amongst themselves. Rather them than me.

   Martin, you can equate the mockery to logo design contests. It’s another reason to focus on our own games, upping them to further widen the gap in quality.

   Abbas, another comment that brought a smile to my face, “This is awesome news. I need to brush up on my Photoshop skills.”

   Michael, how much money it’ll make is yet to be seen. If you think of it as glorified clip art, the prices will just keep falling and falling.

   Thanks for the comments, everyone.

   Sep 23rd, 2009

10. Marko Masnjak

    I used to love iStock because of it’s wide range of images available. Especially if you’re looking for something like a polaroid and other seemingly random items.

    But, this Logo business–in my opinion–is pretty much a huge slap in the face to us designers who make up a large amount of their client base.

    Sep 23rd, 2009

11. Sherry Sutton

    Ditto everything said about this. Talk about the worst business move a company could make. We will never renew our credits due to this conflict of interest from a supplier.

    Sep 23rd, 2009

12. Clayton Shumway

    I agree with Ram. Professional logo designers have a specific target market. iStock will appeal to a completely different target market. It’s like asking a BMW driver to switch to a Dodge…just not gunna happen.

    Sep 23rd, 2009

13. David Buchanan

    I’ll be very interested to see what happens when the first copyright infringement case comes up. It’s all right saying ‘buyer beware’ but I don’t think that discharges your responsibilities as a seller.

    I see parallels with istock logos and some music sites where the site provides a platform for people to download music illegally. If istock provides a platform for people to acquire ripped off ideas is that the same?

    Sep 23rd, 2009

14. alin b.

    Time will show! It is a wide market. We must get more clever in what we do and protect our work, talk to your clients and work harder! Good luck!

    Sep 23rd, 2009

15. inspirationbit

    In my experience, some clients can be educated by designers, other clients cling to the cheap knock-offs and refuse to broaden their mind and open their eyes. Once I see that there’s no point in my client education, I let them go and get their cheap deals. I think over time iStock and similar sites & services will do the educational job for us, designers, and we’ll see those clients coming to us and begging for help. Which is good, then we can triple our rates and that would teach them a lesson not too be greedy and cheap next time.

    Thanks for all those handy links you’ve interspersed this post with, David.

    Sep 23rd, 2009

16. Andrew Kelsall

    So it’s not just me who had one of those iStock Photos’ marketing emails about this “service”this morning.

    I use iStock Photo from time to time, but now, I feel their professionalism has been tainted by this shambolic practice.

    Here-here to what David Buchanan stated about the first copyright infringement case…I bet that would be in the Twitter trending topic list for a while, damaging their own business.

    I hope Shutterstock and Dreamstime don’t take the same route. It could be contagious!

    Sep 23rd, 2009

17. david

    If someone would explain (again and again) to clients that they would buy just a generic icon, which may or may not anyithing to do with the company, as opposed to a thoroughful process of crafting a brand concept, where the logo is just a part of the whole, the price is fine. Dumping rejected icons for $350 is not that bad.

    Sep 23rd, 2009

18. Cláudio

    100% agreed with you guys, professional logo designers won’t be out of clients, in no possible way. Thank God there are a handful of clients that value design, branding and the overall identity of their company. From what I see, here, in Brazil, is that a huge number of clients undervalues the power of design ( and a lot of them still goes well on earning money ), and some clients want to have that cool stuff for their company. Cool stuff the blends well with their way of work, and how they run the business. As a designer, I try to get those clients, and create the best design and the best relantionship I can, cause that precious client, normally has friends that think alike, and he will remember me when a friend asks him for a designer. Thats the best marketing ever. Also, this kind of people, don’t laugh at you when you give them your price.
    For the other clients, those that don’t believe in design, branding etc, ClipArt Logos will do their work, cause they won’t even know what to do with a branding manual.

    Thank you guys…

    Sep 23rd, 2009

19. Jeff

    What is sort of burning me about the whole thing is the fact that someone will accept $5 for one of these.

    Sep 23rd, 2009

20. Adam

    @Jeff it’s $5 when you upload, then if it’s sold you take 50% of sale. between $250 and $500

    a

    Sep 23rd, 2009

21. Andrew

    I guess I won’t be using iStock for photography anymore. Nothing like biting the hand that feeds you.

    Sep 24th, 2009

22. Trish

    it still scares me this overall marginalizing of our profession. I’ve been seeing ad agencies, cities, professionals, etc., people who know better!, starting to use crowd sourcing and contests for everything from logo to brand to ad design. it is hard to educate someone when they don’t come to you in the first, second or third place. it’s not like they run in the same circles as us. their access to information on the damages that could happen doesn’t get to most. sorry, it scares me. I’m trying to keep optimistic even so, however. when the economy gets back up and running, hopefully our industry will as well.

    Sep 24th, 2009

23. Jonathan Patterson

    Just like in any other stock situation, I’m sure you’ll be able to tell what’s stock and what’s not. The best logos, the ones that are integrated to work precisely with a client’s business, will never be stock. True designers will always have some marketability no matter what cheaply priced alternative pollutes the design landscape.

    Sep 24th, 2009

24. Stephen Webb

    There are some interesting reactions to this article, and I have to say how surprised I am to read the news that they are starting to offer this service, if not only purely from a legal perspective – it seems like a mine field!

    Just how they are going to govern the designs will be interesting; surely the whole process is going to require a huge amount of administration to ensure the designs are legally acceptable, I’m not sure if placing this responsibility on the designer is really going to be effective – I can see the lawsuits flying in already!

    As for the general effect of selling logos on a stock site – the comments have been quite interesting. I don’t think it is “undermining” or “degrading” logo design in general, at the end of the day if a client wants a successful and unique design they will have to approach professional designers, there is simply no way around this!

    Sep 24th, 2009

25. Monica

    The problem is these days anybody can be a designer or a photographer and so on. There is no restriction and all you need it’s a computer, some software (ripped or not).Beside this are some smart guys (see iStock) that have full interest that this kind of bad habits persist and as long as will exist people willing to pay little money for poor jobs and people willing to do poor work for little money, this will go on and on and on. On the other hand we have lower wage countries like India, China…. even my sweet home Romania, or worse, countries like Canada, US and some of the European countries that will support underpaid work and situations like this will occur more and more often. It all start with our education. Designers have been so self-centered for so long and only now they start to gather around an idea, when things are going to go bad. What we need it’s a structure, sort of like doctors or lawyers have, and only people that have a certain amount of knowledge and experience can work in a certain area. But this means that every designer to stand up and fight for his profession. I feel sometimes humiliated by some so called designers or some potential clients, when they tell me that you don’t need years of design and hours of work to get a job done, and that even a monkey can be a graphic designer, that the only thing you need it’s some stock inspiration and a computer. And I feel like screaming. We should all think that behind our work are years of study and hard work, lots of money spent on studies, books, materials, hours and hours of reading and research. Evan if you are 100% inspired you can’t do a great job in 5-10 minutes. You can draw a logo in this much amount of time, but you can’t do the research for a good identity or have the time to talk with the client, to understand him and his needs. Everything connected with design, photography… art and crafts in general it involves lot of love and tons of respect for ourselves, the others and most important for our work.

    No! it’s not a disaster, it’s just a damn good business for iStock, that now owns some of the best known stock websites (too many in my opinion) The biggest problems that there is no law to prevent the monopole on the internet services of a certain company. Something like “I’m not buying from you, I’ll buy from the other one”, but the other one, slowly becomes the same one. And this same one has the arrogance to under rate our work and capabilities, to let the monkeys do the work of an astronaut. Why this happens? Simple! Because we let them.

    All the best to you all.

    Sep 24th, 2009

26. choppet

    I think it’s important to distinguish between clients who are injudiciously frugal and clients who are intimidated and confused by the process of recruiting a professional designer.

    I mean, if it’s anything like web design, they have no idea how to find you and rely almost entirely on fruitless Google searches and poor recommendations from their equally clueless colleagues and friends, they’re worried that the costs will be astronomical and they’re embarrassed to ask, they have no idea what their budget should be because they don’t know what good design costs and can’t very well ask you and expect a sincere answer, and they don’t know how time-consuming and attention-demanding the whole process will be or whether they’ll be able to oversee it.

    Having a non-designer find and choose and work with a designer can be as unfamiliar of territory as it might be for a designer to select a suitable therapist. How are you supposed to find someone good if you don’t know how to start, or what criteria to operate from? You need a designer to hire to a designer, practically.

    I think there’s this attitude of “Oh, clients are stupid and cheap, we have to pull them on a leash to get them anywhere” but I think most of them are just lost. Good design isn’t just about a great logo; the second you start designing for money, for real people and real companies, I think there’s a service element to design too. Promote, get the word out, give clients a roadmap, have a compelling spiel on why professional designers are necessary and cost-effective, show them that this won’t be scary and that it’ll pay off financially, and say things like “If you don’t choose me I understand, but I really think you should…” so that they know you aren’t just fucking with their heads.

    I think over time designers will have to step this service aspect up a notch or two. But if they do, it’ll blow new “innovations” like iStock away.

    Sep 24th, 2009

27. Oguzhan Ocalan

    Hi David. I read Ronnie Lebow’s article, too. Great read.

    Why are all designers not getting together in one big platform? “Revolution of the Designers”. Let’s face it, we are just talking, criticizing but we are not acting.

    As the Internet is growing faster and faster, all the designers should come together at one website. Here potential clients could be informed and educated about what’s right and what’s wrong in this industry.

    Sep 24th, 2009

28. Monica

    hi Choppet,

    you are part right, but you miss one thing, we don’t talk about the ones that are “lost” (that I also consider fair to give as much help as I can), we are talking about the ones that know exactly how much a design costs, but they deliberately underestimate the cost for their own financial wealth (no matter what that means to the others) and I talk about the ones that are so ignorant and arrogant that they don’t care about how much work it involves (the ones that don’t want to listen because they think they know everything), but most of all, we are talking about the ones that don’t respect other work, skills, talent, investment…. bla bla

    all the best

    Sep 24th, 2009

29. Christina Lannen

    I generally don’t design logos for clients, but for the handful that I have created it’s a lot of work.

    And policing copyright or trademarks will be very interesting as in how are they going to do it.

    I’m dealing right now with a company in CA that has taken content from my website that has a registered copyright. People whether clients or not can be completely clueless.

    Sep 24th, 2009

30. Clayton Misura

    If designers feel strongly about this issue, they should take a stand, cancel their accounts and boycott iStock.

    Sep 24th, 2009

31. Jonathan Patterson

    @Oguzhan and @Monica,

    Good points. We need some kind of enforced accreditation and minimum pricing in which design services are billed at.

    Sep 24th, 2009

32. Stephen Lee Ogden

    It’s the economics of changing a specialized service into a point of purchase commodity. It’s not about design at all. iStock is a business trying to make more money by exploiting ‘designers’ who don’t maintain a full vertebra (which has been part of their business model for a long time).

    Sep 26th, 2009

33. Panasit

    Oh wow. The comment at the istockphoto forum is truly horrifying.

    Sep 26th, 2009

34. Jeremy Bolton

    Great article and resources. This is a topic that more designers need to hear. I still have fellow designers who don’t know what is wrong with sites that offer these sorts of services.

    And I have to say the link for those who are “uncontrollably compelled to upload a logo” made my day!

    Sep 26th, 2009

35. Dwight

    “One of those things is that a logo in isolation is like lipstick on a pig.”

    I love it! Funny and true! Logos are useless when not designed in context! :)

    Sep 27th, 2009

36. Kim Tackett

    David, thanks for the article and keeping this subject top of mind.
    I recently had a client tell me “I don’t need a new logo, I bought this perfectly good one for $100.” And btw, it perfectly sucked.
    He hired me to do other work, but this doesn’t bode well for our relationship.

    One thing we can do as design professionals is continue to educate on brand experience vs. cheap logo design. I have always encouraged clients who don’t want to pay for a thorough logo brand project to simply use clean typography. Good type beats a bad logo (which can actually hurt you).

    And we can boycott iStock.

    And we can keep talking to each other, and keep supporting those in our industry who are doing awesome work. That includes you.

    Sep 30th, 2009

37. Tessa Carroll

    It is most certainly true that a fair amount of trademark infringement will occur as a result of iStock’s decision to offer pre-created logos. However, reasonable designers can avoid such action by simply using a logo as inspiration.

    True designers don’t just pull a logo off of a shelf and stick it on some business cards or brochures. Real designers will do their due diligence and research their client, learning everything they can about them. From there, if deemed necessary, sure, pick out a logo that you like that aligns with your client’s company and use it as inspiration. As long as designers aren’t purposely ripping one another off, all will remain well.

    Tessa Carroll
    VBP OutSourcing

    Oct 2nd, 2009

38. Tamara Johnson

    I appreciate this article, but it isn’t surprising.

    I have a mantra that my clients will find me, the ones that are unique, beautiful to work with/egregious to work with, and willing to pay (and yes on time *winks*). When I have scouted for new clients through cold calls, advertisements, or word of mouth I have of course run into the ones who scoff *sometimes really horribly* at hiring a designer.

    I’ve learned that those folks usually scoff at having money to pay for the barest essentials like gas and food. But for clients who want to hire a dedicated & creative human being that will hopefully bring life to their project are always out there -please believe it.

    As an artist I’ve always felt that there are so many other artists out there, whether they are the formally trained folks or the self-taught, renegade type I feel that sometimes our fish bowl gets smaller and smaller, and when a juggernaut like iStock rolls up and pumps out Print-On-Demand type logos we (the artists) get queasy and feel that our funds may dry up or our creative integrity will be diminished due to someone’s nifty thought of “hey lets automate logos for people – wouldn’t that be neat?!”

    Not so. We aren’t just logo makers, we are designers, yes logos are fingerprints, majestic ones (yeah I heard the mutter of ‘not-all-of-em’) but they are only one facet of our ability.

    If Jane Doe feels that it’s best for her to point and click the logo design to suit her fancy then I say go ahead, but remember there are many people out there who always admire & hire our services.

    If you are “queasy” about the whole iStock thing, then research the Print On Demand Book Publishing fiasco. Oh yeah, it’s a multi-million dollar industry, but how many authors are NOT best-sellers in that regime…many. Trust me, I’m one of them (laughing out loud, and shrewdly).

    The traditional publishing houses worried about the same aspect of “cheap” literary works circulating without the backbone of seasoned editors, queries, copywriters, designers and so forth. But as time has gone on their attention span has lessened to this since the appeal of the consumer has favored traditional publications over the out-of-the-box indys.

    It’s a weird game of competition yes, but God gave you the talent to press forward (Yep, had to throw God out there). I believe you have to love this job if you want to survive, because so many times you’ll have hefty competition out there eating at you, naysayer belittling you, and even our fellow constituents judging your ability. So I’ll say it – don’t put iStock in your “Oh Sh*t I’ve Got Serious Competition” folder yet.

    It ain’t competition; it’s just another convenience for the population with myopic design vision. Get a census chart of your surrounding population, slice it in half, and visualize one half are the clients that will target you, the other will head to iStock…still there’s a lot of clientele out there to rally up so go grab the half that’s yours (easier said than done I know, but overall doable).

    Oct 2nd, 2009

39. Chuck Spidell

    Logo design is an intimate process between you and the client … but you all know that.

    “huge opportunity for designers” = a simplified version of crowdsourcing and spec work. I’ve got an account with them and now after reading this news I’m seriously considering closing it. I originally opened my account to help other designers with their photography needs – not so much about making money and more about building a community. I don’t see how this is going to benefit designers.

    Given, the positive responses on their forum, no one seems to think this is a bad idea either.

    Oct 2nd, 2009

40. Chuck Spidell

    OK, I’ve done it. I’ve voiced my opinion on the iStock forum. Let’s see the reaction.

    Oct 2nd, 2009

41. charlotte salcedo

    its not much $5 but what if they never sell your logo? I could create 100’s of logos in minutes, however I agree with the others on here as well~ you have to be open minded in the design industry.

    I feel this would be a good oppurtunity for a less experienced designer to gain exposure. I dont think the pros should participate in this, not for 5 dollars.

    Oct 10th, 2009

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