25 pound logo !!!!

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1

Hi,

I know quite a few people here are graphic designers who put a lot of time and effort into designing logos etc. What worries me is when company’s like this: http://www.25poundlogo.co.uk offer logo “designs” for £25. No way are their clients getting a unique carefully designed logo - instead they get a few “designs” that look like they have been designed in Laughing Bird’s “Logo Creator” software which costs $29 or approx £20.

Call me cynical but I don’t think there is any designing happening here - it’s just some computer operators using automatic logo generating software taking all of a couple of minutes to produce what they call logo design.

What makes me sad (and mad) is the fact some clients see this kind of online offer and expect you as a professional graphic designer to do it for a similar price regardless of the hours you put in to give them a unique logo design.

Richard

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What makes me sad (and mad) is the fact some clients see this kind of online offer and expect you as a professional graphic designer to do it for a similar price regardless of the hours you put in to give them a unique logo design.

Ok, my two pence…

Over the past 20 years I have seen the design industry slowly erode from mostly quality driven, to the mostly price driven market it is today. Quality is almost a non issue these days as price is king. Also, as with most other industries now, the 3rd world labor pool who can do rudimentary design (i.e. take existing designs and copy them then sell on internet) is FAR cheaper and will make things tougher in the future.

This is all a result of the democratization of the design industry by computer generated work. Basically everyone with a computer has access to the tech to do this. The real problem comes when those that have no skill think they don’t need it when all they have to do is download a template and get a professional look. Small companies all know they can get a template that is something like what they want and are willing to compromise on exclusivity to cut costs.

Computers are a great tool and playing field equalizer, but they also destroy closed niche markets such as small independent print and design houses. Computers certainly benefited me when I started out, but now the shoe is on the other foot.

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Unfortunately, we are in an industry, I’m talking graphic design here, that costs almost nothing to start up and you can work from home. For a few hundred pounds/dollars you’re in business with no overheads.

Before computers it wasn’t so easy as you needed a lot of skill, creativity and dexterity, to create stuff. Skills required for marker visuals, Letraset, gouache, artistic ability have all been eroded beyond retrieval by computers and cheap ready-made “artwork”. Now computers make it easy and as Chucka says the market is price not quality driven. That’s never going to go away now, and that’s the shame of it.

Having said that, I wouldn’t want to go back to working the way we used to, don’t forget we work ten times faster now, changes and results are instant. You can change designs, colours and fonts in a second on screen, something we would have killed for not so long ago. And then print them out if needed, no more visuals with Pantone colour sheets with 6pt white out type. Marvelous!

And I just love PDF’s. Remember having to print out colour proofs, mount them on artboard, put an overlay cover and then deliver it. Not any more - PDF and email it. Wahey! How much time and money is saved by that?

But it doesn’t stop at design. I have a good friend who is an accomplished, professional illustrator and his competitors are producing work more and more original work on computer, making client changes much easier and they are undercutting him, substantially. So if you don’t like computers, and he doesn’t, his work will disappear eventually.

Yes I’ve seen this 25Pound logo site. Eight out of ten of the designs are 'orrible aren’t they?

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I would imagine the work is being done in India, or similar low wage economy. I would suspect they even have a domain in every country… 25rupeelogo.in?

If you look closely at the site, it looks like many other bigger logo design websites - I think they’ve even nicked the graphics.

I suppose everybody has a right to earn a crust, but hopefully, quality ‘will out’ in the end.

David

On 4 Feb 2009, at 20:49, pixelart wrote:

I know quite a few people here are graphic designers who put a lot of time and effort into designing logos etc. What worries me is when company’s like this:http://www.25poundlogo.co.uk offer logo “designs” for £25. No way are their clients getting a unique carefully designed logo - instead they get a few “designs” that look like they have been designed in Laughing Bird’s “Logo Creator” software which costs $29 or approx £20.

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