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 Clip Art Logo Free Zone.
The Logo Factory DOES NOT utilize clip art, logo design templates, 'pre-made logos', 'recycled designs' or material generated by do it yourself logo design software in ANY of our logo design packages. All design work and corporate identity material made available through this site is designed from scratch, and every piece of artwork is unique to every project using client's submitted project profiles. All material on our galleries and portfolios are ACTUAL project samples. Any 'archive' material that is made available for download is marked clearly as such and featured in the Morgue File area of our site. All our clients can rest assured that The Logo Factory is a Clip Art and Copycat Free Zone. |
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No-one owns the image outright, so that any clipart image is unencumbered with copyright issues when a lot of people use it. Does that sound like a good idea for a logo? (also sounds very similar to so-called logo templates). You can't own it, you can't claim exclusivity, and an untold number of other companies are utilizing the very same image. Yes, maybe even your direct competition. Using a piece of clip art as your logo is probably infringing on a copyright (that's bad) as it's very rare that the licensing arrangements with the original designer allow for it (Microsoft clip art is a prime example of this. It's given away with a ton of software, but the licensing is so restrictive it's pretty well unusable for any commercial use whatsoever. Probably okay to use the artwork to advertise your church picnic. Not so okay to slap the artwork on a flyer advertising your latest 'blow-out' sale). Bottom line? Don't do it.
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 What exactly is clip art?
To designers, the term clipart refers to an image or design that can be found in clip art libraries and is available for use over-and-over again, for a multitude of people. The term ‘clip art’ doesn’t refer to the quality of the work - it’s not a matter of’ ‘how good it looks’ but rather ‘what it is’. There is some exceptionally good clip art available and just because we don’t technically use scissors (that’s the ‘clip’ part) designers understand that downloading a prefabricated icon, template logo, image or illustration from a website doesn’t change the fact that such material is still defined as clip art. As long as we understand what it is, and the limitations thereof, there’s nothing particularly wrong with clip art. Clip art - even of the digital variety - has been the saviour of many a designer in times of deadline crunch.
Clients, on the other hand tend to refer to something being ‘clip art’ as how the artwork appears visually to them. But what does clip art ‘look like’? If I was to try and define ‘clip art’, I’d probably point out to the ubiquitous line-drawings of people performing various tasks around offices that have been featured in flyers for eons. As these images have been for eons, they’re dated and tired, both in fashion sense of the characters, and office hardware depicted. Stylistically, the line weights are uniform (as opposed to varied line thicknesses which give any illustration a nifty look) and that’s probably as close as I can get. But even then, I’m probably pointing out this clip art because I’ve seen it thousands of times, I've been in the field long enough to remember the huge books of clip art that these images were snipped from. It wouldn’t be because I’m a master at recognizing clip art-at-glance. So what do clients mean when they say “meh - that looks like clip art”? No small question either.
To a client, the term ‘clip art’ does refer to ‘how it looks’ and is usually a phrase that they will use when - in their mind - the design presented does not appear to have taken the amount of time that they believe they have paid for. Nor the amount of attention they feel their new corporate identity is due. Often, this criticism is due to a misunderstanding of what a logo design is, or rather, should be - the personality of the company pared down to a (relatively) simple graphic. It’s also due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what ‘clip art’ is. I’ve often said that if we lived in an alternate universe, and the Apple and Nike logos were yet to be invented, and we were to present either of these now-celebrated designs to a client, they’d quickly dismiss them out-of-hand, no doubt with a ‘looks like clip art’ critique. A complex logo ‘looks’ like it took time and effort while a simple eloquent logo ‘looks’ it it took a few minutes to put together (never mind the concept, the roughs, the sketches and doodles) thus the dreaded ‘clip art’. You see, it’s all about perception and the perception of ‘value’. While complex logos appear to have taken an awfully long time to develop, simple logos ‘look’ like they could have been rendered quickly using desktop design software (and the supposed miraculous ‘design this’ key).
Rather than what clip art is, some clients view ‘clip art’ as what they believe is the amount of time a designer spent on their funky new logo. It should go without saying that the amount of time spent on a logo shouldn’t be a factor in how effective it is. I’ve seen great logos that took a few hours to conceptualize and render. Neither can be described as clip art which remains, a term used to describe pre-fab artwork that is created with the sole purpose of being used by multiples of people, either as a standalone piece, or incorporated into another piece with text and/or graphics.
Understanding what clip art is, we can now turn our attention to its use as, or part of, a logo design and whether or not you should consider it. Don’t. Using clip art in a logo defeats the entire purpose of having a logo in the first place. Using clip art in your logo is, for all intents and purposes, the same as copying someone else, without the legal hassles that might come with a more blatant copy. Also, many clip art collections have stringent terms of service and most pre-emptively nix the idea of using it as part of any logo or image that is to be trademarked. In fact, most clip art collections, while ‘royalty free’ continue to hold the rights to their work and legally let you ‘borrow’ it for a fairly limited range of uses - usually excluding as your new logo.
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 Never mind paying for clip art.
Download our free Morgue Files!
We hate watching people pay perfectly good money for less than perfect clip art logo solutions. Our solution? We'll give it away. That's right - you can download free graphics in our Morgue Files without having to pay a dime! Perfect for trying your hand at do it yourself logo design. If a custom design solution is out of your budget, or you just want to play around with our design 'off casts' as a starting point - why would you pay other design firms for their crappy clip-art, lousy templates or host an 'risky' logo design contest when you can download here for free? Our Morgue Files area will be updated and edited from time to time, so please check back often to see if there's anything appropriate for your needs. And if you're ever in the market for a custom logo design solution, we hope you'll keep The Logo Factory in mind.. |
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