Logo Templates.
Fast . Cheap. And still not a good idea.

A magazine publisher for whom i served as art director once told me the secret of making really big money. He advised me - in that scholarly British accent of his - that true financial success lay, not in creating ones and twos of custom work (as i had labored most of my career to accomplish) but rather in mass production. He told me - "you'll always make more money if you create one design, and then reproduce it a lot of times and sell the same thing to a lot of people". And while the original concept can be traced back to automotive legend Henry Ford, coming from someone I respected, these were words to think about. In the context of his career choice - a magazine publisher with a slew of books under his belt to boot - it made perfect sense. As a designer, I was ultimately less than enthused. After all, isn't design - in this case logos - about creating new, and original work. Every time. Of course. Not if you believe the folks who have hung shingles all over the internet, selling what they like to refer to as 'logo templates'.

Don't you need an original logo?
In a perfect world, a logo is supposed to be original and capital ‘C’ custom. A brand that has been created with your company, service or product in mind. It is supposed to appeal to your customers, reflect your business philosophies and is usually born out of a sometimes-difficult process that takes place between you and your designer. The give and take between design integrity and market practicalities. Or you can pick a so-called pre-made logo, a relatively new design phenomenon where you select an existing icon from a library of supposedly 'professionally designed' templates, add your company name and you’re all set. All for pennies on the dollar. Of course, the very same logo template that you’re using will also be picked by other companies who will use it as their logo. Seems like the antithesis of what any designer worth his/her salt is about. It’s also the polar opposite of what you should do, if you care one iota about your business image.

Logo templates - time & money savior or disaster?
How can slapping your company name on a generic logo template replace an effective logo design created specifically for you? We don't think it can. From a design perspective, pre-made (or template) logos are a disaster. The idea that you can simply swap out some text (invariably presented on these template logo web sites as ‘Your Company Name’) with your actual company name presupposes a few things that are fundamentally incorrect. A font treatment is part of any effective logo. It is part of the design. The process. Not just something that is added in as an afterthought – the basic premise of the logo template model. Not every company name fits into the visual area created by the words ‘Your Company Name’. Red’s Pet Shop requires a different textual approach that The American Society of Red’s Pet Shops. No good can come from any design solution that involves simply slapping text on the bottom, or side of an existing generic icon. And let’s talk about the text itself. In order to keep these template logos as cost effective and therefore profitable (i.e.: fast) to edit as possible, the font styles are usually ‘off the shelf’ fonts in their native form (just like the ones in your font folder). This allows ‘Your Company Name’ text to be swapped out by simply cutting and pasting in the new company name. No design. No thought. Design integrity be damned. A vast majority of effective logos feature custom tailored fonts – text treatments that are kerned, re-rendered, warped, distorted, outlined, beveled, etc. Take a look at our logo design galleries – how many of these text treatments are ‘off the shelf’? Very few. It would be next to impossible to simply drop in new names into most of our presented logos because each text treatment was designed with the company name, business philosophy and market depicted in mind. Not so with template logos. But, oh, it only gets worse. Let’s look at the icons offered on most template logo sites.

Logo templates - bad design?
Here’s a design that’s been ‘inspired’ by an actual example from a ‘logo-template’ site (No, we ain’t kidding. No, we aren’t telling). No concept. No execution. For all practical purposes this isn’t even a logo. Impractical to copyright. Probably impossible to trademark. And while you can purchase logos like this for next to nothing all over the Internet, it could be argued that a ‘logo’ like this is worse that not having any at all. In a word - logo design 'templates' are 'bad'. In two words 'very bad'. Very best case scenario, these are rejects from previous design projects - not such a bad practice, as long as they're advertised in that manner, and aren't remotely similar to the parent project. They're more likely rejected designs from a forum logo design contest (often 'borrowed from the unsuspecting entrant) or simply a mash-up of various rudimentary swooshes, swirls and abstract shapes, frankensteined together in order to make an icon that, once 'Your Company Name' is added, is recognizable as something that could work as a logo. To be honest, they're not even frikkin’ logos. In actuality, they mean nothing. Sure, you may be able to mentally crowbar one of these templates into meaning something related to your company but ask yourself this - will your potential customers be willing to do the same mental gymnastics? Hardly. And while such generic, meaningless icons are the antithesis of effective design, it is all very deliberate. In order to appeal to as broad a spectrum as possible, most template logos are of the psychobabble variety. This swoosh means 'this'. This squiggle represents 'that'. The more recognizable template icons are merely clip art of very, very, poor quality.

Logo templates - are they even original?
Another question to ask yourself – are these icons original (and do they even belong to the template logo merchant in the first place)? We’ve discovered people selling template logos that were pinched right off our web site. We've even bought one of these template logos for $15.00 - which despite its hilarity illustrates a real problem with this method. We’ve found other sites that are (to be charitable) ‘inspired’ by our work in the design of their logo templates (see our Copycats logo templates section for some graphic examples). Neither would pass even the most rudimentary once over by a copyright lawyer, never mind the much more rigorous inspection of a trademark attorney. And heaven help anyone who goes to town - printing up brochures, letterheads, stationery, web sites and other marketing material, only to find that the logo being showcased belongs to somebody else. While you may save a few hundred (or even a thousand) dollars in the initial design of your logo, it’s critical to keep one thing in mind. Over the life of your business, that logo will be printed on tens of thousands of dollars worth of marketing material. Imagine waking up one morning to find out that you’re using a logo that belongs hook, line and sinker to somebody else. Perhaps now is a good time to remind you of the old saying – penny wise, pound-foolish. It’s never been appropriate in the logo design industry until now.

Exclusive buyouts? Not quite.
“But wait!” you cry. The web site claims that they’ll remove the logo template from their library once I purchase it!” Really? Do a search on Google for template logos. You’ll find that a lot of these sites feature the same set of logo templates. There are a few reasons for that. Firstly, many of the sites are owned by the very same people. In order to penetrate search engines (and to maximize exposure, traffic and profit) many companies simply create a shell web site, say sites A, B, C, D, and E, throw a series of template logos on each and hang out (yet another) shingle. Now, you may wish to believe that when you buy a template logo from site A, they’ll remove the image from site B, C, D, E, etc. We remain a little skeptical. You’re also never sure if someone has purchased the logo template before you, thereby clouding copyright and ownership issues forever. The second reason that many of these templates look the same is that they’ve all been purchased from the same supplier. - a logo template creator, who sells logo templates to a variety of sellers – for a few dollars apiece, and invariably to the same good folks that own the web sites that you run into. That means the owners of the web sites selling these templates have NO control over the availability, ownership, or future sales of the logos featured. Quite frankly – they don’t really own them either. So how can they possibly transfer ownership to you? It also seems a little disingenuous to feature somebody else’s templates or ‘disguise’ Bob’s Logo Service (.com) as Not Bob’s Logo Design Service (.com) in order to capture clients looking for a new logo. And if you do run into problems – try and find contact info. It’s usually a web-based form (email addresses can be traced) that promises “we’ll get back to you right away”. When you’re interested in buying perhaps. But if you want satisfaction for that bundle of letterheads, business cards and envelopes you’ve printed with someone else’s logo – let’s see how fast ‘right away’ really is

Why template logos?
So why template logos in the first place? Simple. It's to maximize profit (as my mentor had suggested) by selling the same thing to lots of people. Minimum investment. Good logo design takes time. The skills of a talented designer. Expensive (if legit) software. Hardware. And a client support infrastructure to manage the business end of things. $50 only buys so much time of a professional’s time. These template logo suppliers figured out it’s much more profitable to hire junior (or student) designers to create a mess of rudimentary icons, and offer them to as many eyes as possible (remember the search engine shenanigans?). They also buy rejected logo design contest entries from websites that traffic in such nonsense. Then they can proclaim on their web sites, usually in a star burst – “Logos only $50.00". Ooooh. Very sales oriented. And hopefully, one of the many logo templates will appeal to a percentage of the eyes that see it. Logo templates are the graphic design equivalent of Spam. And a system created to develop as many generic icons as possible (at the lowest cost) and sell them as many times as possible. It’s all about profit. Theirs. It is NOT about designing a great company logo. The idea of a logo is to be unique. Using a template logo shoots that theory right out of the water. Just ask yourself this - how many SUCCESSFUL companies used a template logo (as opposed to custom). I'll tell you. None. Nada. Zilch. Think you'll be the first?

Next Page: Logo design contests - a closer look.

Deciding if you need a logo
What makes a great logo
How do I design a logo
Do it yourself logo design
Clip art logos
Free logos
Logo Templates
Logo design contests
Online logo design
Selecting a designer
What's a logo worth?
Cheap logo design
Unlimited revisions
Working with our studio
How long does it take?
Getting started step-by-step
Logo design pointers
Logo design guidelines
Logo aspect ratios
Logo footprints
Common logo design mistakes
Logo design types
Illustration based logos
Text only logos
Icon driven logos
Cartoon logo design
Colors & your logo
RGB colors
Spot colors
CMYK colors
Pantone Matching System
Black & white logos
File formats
EPS file formats
JPG file formats
PNG file formats
GIF file formats
Your logo in a .PDF
Logo copyright
Poor man's copyright
Logo trademark
Stationery design basics
Business card design tips
Letterhead design tips
Envelope design tips
Design assets
Managing design assets
Having your logo printed
Print resolution
Gang run printing
Web friendly logos
Logo embroidery
Logos & signs
Uses for your new logo
Updating your logo
Logo repair or design