Logo Design at 58¢ per Concept
by Steve Zelle, Graphic Designer, Ottawa Canada
A glance at some recent logo design ‘competitions’. A reminder of why price shouldn’t be a major selling point for design.
Logo Competition 1:
$99 prize
155 entries
64¢ per concept
A few of the client comments posted about the entries:
Basic very basic, these are all very disappointing.”
“These are all very simple and amateur looking, are there any professionals reviewing my requests?”
“Has anyone read my original request”
“This is a little over the top”
Logo Competition 2:
$149 prize
65 entries
$2.29 per concept
A few of the client comments posted about the entries:
2012/05/15: About the logo, you can even change the color if you need to”
2012/05/17: “. . . we don’t want to change the color of our logo”
Logo Competition 3:
$109 prize
161 entries
68¢ per concept
A client comment posted about the entries:
But i am yet to find the one that strikes out. Please keep up with your work. I am absolutely certain we will come to a conclusion with this new deadline.”
Logo Competition 4:
$120 prize
206 entries
58¢ per concept
A client comment posted about the entries:
Please read NEW additional information added today for final design submissions, if you follow my request im sure we will have a WINNER !! thank you everyone !!”
Sigh.
The numbers and comments speak for themselves, but you can read this post if you want to hear my thoughts on crowdsourcing design.
Credit Where Credit is Due
All of these competitions and comments (excluding my paragraph above) are from the crowd sourcing logo design website, DiginDigin.
Update: What is Spec Work?
A brief (and brilliant) introduction to Spec Work by Topic Simple.
So, begging is better than working on those false-crowdsourcing websites!
Great work! I think that pretty much sums up the major issue with soliciting free work from inexperienced designers. You get what you pay for, right?
“These are all very simple and amateur looking, are there any professionals reviewing my requests?”
Whilst I’d like to criticise this ‘client’ for expecting a professional level of design for $99, the problem lies with the crowdsourcing sites that claim you will get a professional standard for that price.
They’re not just screwing our industry, they’re ripping people off too.