It’s a stretch, but in keeping with the Change theme of the week (Obama‘s Presidential inauguration and all that), let’s crowbar the idea into logo design (I told you it was a stretch). Specifically, the pros and cons of changing a logo that you’ve been using for a while. It will almost certainly be something you at least think about over the lifetime of your company logo. Usually starts off something like this – you take a peek at your business card that you were so proud of a few years ago, and it doesn’t seem to have the same oomph that it used to. The logo looks a little worn out. Perhaps you’ve changed your market focus and need a logo that’s more in line with your current day demographics. Bottom line – you start feeling the need the to bring your logo up to speed. Or perhaps change it altogether. Can it be done? Of course. Are there inherent risks involved? Yes there are. Do I recommend changing your logo design in mid-stride? Yes. And no. Changing an already established logo should be approached with a great deal of caution and not before weighing the pros and the cons, and assessing the best solution for your particular situation.

Here’s something to keep in mind. You may want to change your logo because you’re tired of seeing it, not necessarily because the logo itself has grown long in the tooth. And that’s not a good rationale to change any logo. Here’s the thing – you ARE going to get tired of your logo (as a matter of fact, you’re SUPPOSED to get tired of it). We all like fresh, new and spiffy. But what if the design is still solid, despite your growing visual fatigue with it? Chances are, just as you’ve grown weary of seeing your logo plastered everywhere, your market is just starting to connect it with your company or services. It takes a long time for this ‘connection’ to occur, and changing your logo willy-nilly as this point may undo whatever good will you’ve managed to build up.

On the other hand, a logo makeover – if executed properly – can infuse your company brand with new excitement – even major corporations shake up their identity once in a while – Wal-Mart, Intel, Kodak, Pepsi and Dairy Queen among recent examples. So yes, any logo can (and sometimes should) be changed. Are there any absolute rules? Not so far as we know. So, and with typical TLF aplomb, we’re going to make some up. And help you decide if you should change your company logo. Or work with what you’ve got.

Logo overhaul or update?

If you have a hankering to change your logo, you should decide if you want a total overhaul, a completely new design, or a simple logo repair. Perhaps your logo only needs a little sprucing up – a little simplification, a font tweak or perhaps a more technically proficient rendering sans the original gradients, blends and drop shadows. This is the least traumatic solution and allows for slow integration into your already branded material. You can use up your stock of already printed business goods as you methodically integrate the new look into your advertising and marketing materials. A logo repair usually involves a re-rendering of your artwork so that your new, and slightly improved, logo can be utilized in various media and will cause very little upset to the overall ‘look and feel’ of your company’s brand. Deciding factors about settling for a logo clean up, as opposed to a complete overhaul, should not be based on your emotional ‘feeling’ about the design. It should be based on your market’s understanding and acceptance of your logo and the amount of recognition that you’ve managed to build with it.

A logo ‘tweak’ is often enough change

While I’m not usually a betting man, it’s a pretty safe bet that Nike is not going to change their ubiquitous ‘swoosh’ logo anytime soon. After spending billions of dollars to get that mark into the public eye, and after developing the instant recognition factor that they’ve earned, such a change would be downright foolish. That’s not to say they won’t ever change certain aspects of their logo – they already have, As a matter of fact, many times. In an attempt to stay in vogue with current tastes and design sensibilities, the accompanying ‘Nike’ font style has been altered on numerous occasions. The swoosh, for all intents and purposes, has remained the same. At the end of the day, the instant Nike recognition factor makes the logo impressive, NOT the design. A sudden, and drastic, change to their ‘swoosh’ would impede that recognition factor too dramatically.

The same can be said for the Microsoft Windows logo, which evolved into the Vista version, and back to the newly released Windows 7 version. When first introduced in 1995, the logo was a somewhat ham-fisted graphic representation of a flying window. When the Windows XP operating system was introduced a few years ago, it also came with a logo makeover – the Windows icon, while retaining the basic concept, had become 3D, more refined, and included a tighter, more appropriate font. It retained enough of the old Windows logo ‘flavour’ to remain rooted in the same design family, but was sleeker (hopefully) to reflect the vastly improved (hopefully) operating system. Mircosoft’s major competitor, Apple, also converted their famous Apple icon from a rainbow-striped version to a solid, and much ‘classier’ modern icon in the late nineties. Over the years, the company dropped the Apple text, as the company evolved into manufacturing ‘lifestyle’ devices as well as desktop computers. With the advent of the OS X operating system, the Apple icon became a ‘gel’ version and then a ‘chrome’ version – a flavor so successful that the Apple website ‘look and feel’ remains among the most copied website design on the Internet today. Other than the original ‘Newton’ design, the essence of the brand – the Apple logo itself – has remained pretty stable over the years (see the evolution of the Apple logo here). in order to maintain the brand’s strength. While adapting it to the corporation’s current more diversified marketing efforts and focus (a focus that seems to have been lost with the MobileMe logo).

If Apple, Microsoft and Nike aren’t opposed to changing their logo, then your fears about changing yours, while understandable, can be put aside. It’s also worthy to note that they ‘modified’ their logos, rather than scrapping the look and recognition they had already achieved. And spent millions in achieving. In terms of your logo, it becomes more of a ‘how much change’ question.

How we’ve changed our logo

On a much smaller scale, we’ve changed The Logo Factory trademark several times over our studio’s history. Our first logo (circa 1993) was a Tim Burtonesque linear design that became, over the years, far too rigid, mechanical and ‘cold’ for my liking. This led to a completely new treatment – our TLF ‘house’ – in order to make our logo less, well, ‘factory’ like. After moving our operations onto the internet in 1996, the design was boxed, and we added the term Media Works. After a few years it was decided that the Media Works was redundant, and a little overkill on the overall ‘Factory’ concept. The aspect ratio of the bounding box was too restrictive, neither the purple nor the teal reproduced well on web safe colors, and the logo was far too complicated for small sizes. Our stationery was incredibly expensive to reproduce (a tiny yellow window – important for the logo back story – and the black bounding box guaranteed 4 color printing). Too, the logo didn’t fax well and looked absolutely horrible printing black and white on checks. Turns out that we had broken pretty well every golden rule of logo design there was.

With a giant gasp, we overhauled our own logo a few years ago – keeping the house, the original typewriter font (both part of our trademarks) and tossed out pretty well everything else. The logo is still recognizable as our old TLF brand, but is vastly more versatile. Keeping the change minimal and subtle, we were still able to utilize the shirts, mouse pads, hats and other soft goods that we had in inventory. When it came to new production runs, we simply replaced the embroidery and silk-screens with the TLF 2.0 ‘look’. In terms of economics, our stationery design is back to two spot colors and as such, inexpensive to print via offset reproduction. We didn’t have to replace everything at once, replacing business cards, letterheads and brochures as we ran out. For a while, there was a slightly schizophrenic vibe to our marketing material, but it didn’t hurt us in the long run (for what it’s worth, we’re thinking about changing our logo again).

A massive, traumatic & potentially expensive logo overhaul

After having read all this you might still be absolutely convinced you need a soup to nuts re-design of your corporate identity. That’s okay too (it’s one of the reasons The Logo Factory exists). But here’s as close to a ‘rule of thumb’ we’re going to get. Unless your company is going to be around for generations, you can perform a major overhaul of your logo once. That one overhaul can be interpreted as an improvement. A new, forward thinking re-birth of your company. Any more changes and you’ll start to look a little schizophrenic, flaky and unfocused. It will appear to your market that you’re unsure of who you really are, or more importantly, who your clients are. While a logo makeover is relatively painless, a total overhaul can (though not always) represent a sizable expense and trauma to your marketing endeavors, so it shouldn’t be approached lightly. It involves starting again on everything – business cards, letterheads, website, the works. You won’t be able to slowly integrate your radically new look – it has to released in one mammoth ‘hit the beaches running’ roll out (having two different logos floating around in an exercise in marketing mayhem). This rollout can get expensive – unless timed exactly right, you’ll end up tossing all sorts of marketing material out as you replace it with newly branded stuff. Right across the board (this is also the reason why you should start out right when it comes to developing ANY logo, rather than taking a ‘that will do for now’ approach).

Changing your logo completely requires careful planning and execution so while a successful logo overhaul can bring enormous benefits to your company, the risks (and potential expense) can be high. If a makeover can be viewed as a few coats of makeup and a new hairdo on your logo, an overhaul can be likened to an entire face lift.

With the associated risks.

Related posts:

1. Apple MobileMe logo – craptastic or fluffy goodness?
2. Worst logo redesign of 2008 – Capital One
3. Toys R Us gets a logo makeover

For a designer, the most profitable logo design process involves the following steps; One – ask a client what they want. Two – give it to them. This type of project involves the client acting as an art director and in some aspects, the defacto designer of the logo itself. It takes the designer out of the creative side of the process and reduces them to a pair of hands, a Mac and a copy of Adobe Illustrator for rent. Pragmatically speaking, following a client’s ‘move this and add this’ instructions are the ‘path of least resistance’ – revisions and original concepts are hell on a time clock – and can ultimately lead to less time spent on any particular design project. It’s not even that such a method renders developing a decent logo impossible. If we were to put odds to the equation, I’d put chances of developing a decent logo at about fifty/fifty. But does it represent design value for the client? Probably not.

Less time spent equates into better value?

On the downside, this ‘get ‘er out the door’ methodology buys into the premise that creating a logo is simply moving pixels and vectors around a monitor, trying to create a pretty picture that a client ‘likes’, will approve and ultimately pay for. And while designing a logo quickly is often trumpeted as somehow being part of the ‘value’ equation, I’ve never really understood why potential clients are convinced that spending less time on their logo is somehow better than fully exploring various avenues of same, and devoting the extra time to do so.

The client as ‘art director’?

If a design buyer sees either as true, then they’d probably be better suited hiring a high-school student with some Adobe Illustrator skills, or in these internet-driven days, contracting their logo out via some other low cost method such as a logo design contest site. There, we’ll find all sorts of designers willing to work ‘for’ a client, and create pretty pictures without question or input. They’ll do it quickly too. Does this represent the client getting better ‘value’ for their design dollar? Probably not. Ultimately, ‘art directing’ the project is ‘value’ that the client has brought with them to the process, not ‘value’ they get. And accepting a shortened timeline – which decreases the amount of effort and preliminary concept work – is a benefit to the designer. Not the client. And why clients see speedy design as a ‘value’ is, to be charitable, quite beyond me.

Designers working with, as opposed to for.

If, on the other hand, a designer wants to work ‘with’ a client (a very large distinction), and the client is open to listening to (or viewing) a designer’s ideas and concepts – even those that are a little ‘off the reservation’ – we may be able to develop a killer logo and something out of the ordinary. This process is a little more involved and a substantial meet-and-greet is required. More research about the target customer. An overview of related branding efforts. An understanding of the people that the logo is supposed to resonate with. Bit of a hassle I know, but the extra time spent can present us with all sorts of information, ideas and direction that will aid us in creating a unique piece of visual real estate. It can be a teeth-grinding, hair-pulling back-and-forth, but at the end of the day, isn’t a client hiring us to design their logo – and with all that entails – not just produce pretty little pictures with their company name slapped on it? That’s the ‘value’ we as designers are supposed to bring to the table.

Shut up and do what you’re told?

Not that this opinion is universal. We had an earlier discussion on this topic, where it was argued that design is too important to be left to designers, where industry types opined that it was the client who knew everything, and the designer should just (paraphrasing) “shut up and do what they are told”. And while having a client ‘art direct’ the development of their logo is dandy for a designer’s bottom line, it’s a little much to expect someone who’s an expert in their field (the subject of the logo) to be well-versed in other areas. In this case, design of a logo. I’d even go as far to say that any designer that simply ‘follows instructions’ is doing their client a great disservice.

Designing an effective logo.

As arrogant as it may sound – a central aspect of any logo design project involves this blasphemious concept – the design shouldn’t only be created with the goal of getting the client to ‘like’ it. Graphic tastes are so varied that whether a client ‘likes’ a logo isn’t the only factor in evaluating how effective a logo is. Oh sure, producing a logo that the client ‘likes’ is important in getting a client to pay for said logo, but ultimately any design should work for the people the client is trying to reach. Namely, their customers. And their market. It’s up to the designer to thoughtfully understand their client’s market, produce solid concepts, present said concepts complete with the rationale behind them, and convince the client why their ideas will work in the client’s best interest. And if the client wants true value for their design buck, they should at least give their designer ‘air time’, not dismiss the ideas out of hand because they don’t ‘like’ them.

Granted, if a designer is only interested in closing the deal, getting the job ‘out the door’ and moving on to the next paying gig, then we can forgo this step and crank out cookie-cutter designs exactly as per the client’s specs. Often times what a client ‘likes’ can often dovetail into what will work for his or her market. Alas, sometimes it doesn’t. Many times a logo project is signed off because “my wife likes it”, “it’s the same as so-and-so’s company, and they’re making lots of money”, “it reminds me of my days in college” or “I think this will look nice on a business card”. Nothing terribly wrong with any of these parameters, but does it automatically translate into an effective logo? Probably not. A client is best served by their designer taking a look at the client’s market, their competition and the people likely to be swayed by graphic imagery. And the kind of vibe that the logo will create when it comes to building a brand.

A logo – ground zero for a brand.

Many people offering marketing advice will tell you that a logo is not a brand. And that’s true. A logo isn’t a brand. But here’s the rub – a logo is the cornerstone of a brand, is often ground zero for how a brand gets developed and will influence a company’s branding efforts for years to come. For example, if a logo is designed to portray fast, speedy, discount, or any other retail flavored themes, it’s highly unlikely that the branding developed around it will somehow morph into corporate, conservative and high-end.

A logo has an overwhelming influence over any company’s ‘brand’ (witness the number of logo redesigns over the past year as companies attempt to reposition themselves in these difficult economic times) and while ‘a logo isn’t a brand’ is a fairly accurate statement, “a logo ultimately drives a brand” is more so (there’s a reason we use a sparkplug as a visual metaphor throughout our site). While some might argue that the role of a logo has been devalued over the years (unfortunately, in a Tragedy of the Commons scenario, by the graphic design industry itself) it is up to the designer to illustrate to the client that a logo is an investment in their company, rather than an expense of their company. And it’s up to designers to illustrate why value in logo design is not about how little it cost, or how fast it was cranked out, but how far we pushed the process to create a unique slice of the visual world, worthy of representing the company it was created for.

Related posts:

1. Logo design projects from Hell
2. Simplified logo design – a case study
3. Logo design case study – Goblin Offroad

We started this list last spring – calling it 10 Ways You Can Screw Up A Perfectly Good Logo, but never got around to finishing up (which would be #1 in a Top Ten Ways To Screw Up A List, list). Now that 2009 is upon us, we’ve got some resolutions to keep, some unfinished business to take care of and now seems as good a time as any to finish up our ‘screw up a logo’ feature. Accordingly, thought we’d expand on our common mistakes and logo design tips, taking a look at things that designers might do that will utterly ruin, destroy, wreck and bastardize a potentially decent logo attempt. I’ve tried (you can judge how successfully) to write this with both designers and clients in mind. So without further ado, we present 10 things NOT to do when designing your next logo…

#10 – Pixels are dandy for photographs, but not for your logo

Creating a bitmap logo in pixel based design software is only going to lead to headaches and more importantly, needless expense over the long haul. A lot of both. If your logo is available only as a rasterized image, you won’t be able to enlarge your design due to resolution issues. You won’t be able to add your logo to other artwork or place it on a web background color (unless it’s been created as a .png, a format that boasts a transparent background and even that comes with some technical issues). You won’t be able to change colors without an ungawdly amount of work. Forget about spot color printing, vinyl sign plotting or shake-and-bake embroidery tapes. Animating your logo in Flash will be a hassle, it won’t work for T-shirt logos and a myriad of other marketing applications.

Take a quick peek at your logo files – if you don’t see anything with the extension .eps or .ai, it’s time to visit a designer who will introduce you to the joys of vector based logos. For the disco version of why this is key, spend a few minutes with our file format video. You should also keep in mind that many logo special FX (glows, drop shadows, etc) can only be applied to bitmap images. Another reason, visual clarity notwithstanding, why gimmicky special FX shouldn’t be part of any logo design equation. At least if you want to use your new design anywhere other than a website.

#9 – Ignore kerning and spacing.

Whenever words are input into any design software package, the program ‘guesses’ how close the letters should be to each other. This is known as kerning. In the case of software it’s called ‘Auto’ Kerning. Problem is, these are only estimates and some software does it better than others, and accuracy often depends on the fonts you’re using. Off-the-rack kerning is often more accurate in ‘professional’ font sets than fonts available for download on ‘free font’ websites, but as kerning is almost always gauged visually, as opposed to driven by some formulaic algorithm, almost all font sets require a certain amount of ‘tweaking’ by hand.

It often depends on the software too. Microsoft Word is the worst, Adobe Illustrator is better though not perfect. Also, a word that looks well-spaced on your monitor will look nasty when enlarged to billboard size. Some letter combinations – V & A for example – require tighter spacing than say, M & N. Setting up correctly spaced typography is critical – poorly spaced letters will register in the viewer’s minds eye as an amateur hour logo, even if they can’t quite put their finger on what’s wrong. I’ve seen text logos with kerning that you could drive a Mack Truck through. A few more font issues – if you’re going to use off-the-shelf fonts (nothing terribly wrong with doing so) there are certain type faces that were never meant to be used for logos. Chauncery Script is one (shudder). Papyrus was cool (about six thousand logos ago). And oh yeah – while we’re talking about fonts, a logo with anything more than two font styles looks like a ransom note.

Hyper kerning of words can be cool (when words are stretched out, with a lot of space between letters) but keep this in mind – when used smallish, and because the individual letters are small to begin with , hyper kerned words are usually unreadable.

#8 – Throw in a ‘swoosh’ for good measure.

While clients and designers have generally clued into this one, there’s still the occasional outbreak (and some online logo design firms seem to be hopelessly addicted to slapping swooshes on everything from a dentist to pet shop logos). Swooshes (or swishes) were all the rage a few years ago (looked all high-techy and stuff) but now they’re a design element that translates exactly into “I dunnoh – didn’t have any other ideas”. I’ve seen logo portfolios that consist of one swooshy logo after another – for all practical purposes all these logos are identical and like the old TV series Dragnet, it’s just the names that have been changed. Not that we haven’t had issues ourselves. Hell, in the late 90s, we were guilty of adding a few swooshes here-and-there (okay, maybe more than a few) when the ‘dot-com’ boom was all the rage. In fact, The Logo Factory is credited with being the inspiration of Logo Hell – a look at the swoosh logo phenomenon that was first posted back in 1999. At some point the ‘thou shalt not swoosh’ was added to the TLF lexicon and while it took a little 12-step rehab, we’ve managed to stay on the ‘swoosh’ wagon. We still get the occasional client who wants us to ‘swoosh up’ their logo, but we generally have the ‘thou shouldn’t really’ discussion at some point. Here’s a rule of thumb – a logo that features a ‘swoosh’ today, will almost certainly be coming up for a redesign in a year or two (though some high profile logo redesigns managed to get that backwards). Better to head the idea off at the pass from the get-go.

#7 – Throw in the visual kitchen sink.

True story: we were developing a logo for a town to mark their bicentenial celebrations. In the original project brief, the client outlined that they wanted to add a visual reference to a famous landmark – a monument in the city square – to the design. Fair enough. The monument was unique to the town, was where most of the planned events were to take place. The initial round of preliminary designs went to committee (where many concept problems arise) and the request for modifications came back. The client wanted to add a few more things” to make the logo “wow” (roh-oh). They wanted a train, the train needed a station (obviously) so add that, there were lots of farmers so work in a barn, the barn also needed a windmill, throw in a few cows, some trees, there’s these mountains, and oh yeah, the town also looks great at sunset so if you could toss that in too, well, that would be great. And while we were at it, the residents were particularly proud of the new City Hall so toss that in to boot.

A few design elements had become a laundry list – a veritable cornucopia of disparate graphic elements, all competing for visual real estate. One of the planned uses saw the design being reproduced at just over an inch wide, and it was inevitable that every one of the elements would end up as featureless squiggles when reproduced at any size less than, oh I don’t know, 15 feet wide. The designer handling the gig voiced concerns about the complexity of the logo, but was overidden (client knows best doncha know) so each of the requested elements was sketched, rendered and added to the increasingly complex graphic. Of course, this myriad of illustrations expanded the timeline significantly, so we also had an increasingly impatient client on our hands. Once the revised graphic was completed, it went once again to committee, where it was decided that well, maybe the logo was now too complicated, and maybe we could pare it down to just feature the monument from the town square. For those not paying attention, that was two weeks ago, when the prelims were handed in.

Moral of this story – the simpler the better. Many often criticize The Logo Factory for our illustrative logo style, so we’re not as arbitrary in applying this ‘rule’ as perhaps we should, but generally speaking – the simpler the logo the more chance you have of if being remembered, and the less headaches you’ll have reproducing it in various applications.

#6 – A visual cliché means never having to say ‘I’m original’.

Yeah, we get it. Your logo features Stars and Stripes because you’re a good-old patriotic company. You have a globe in your logo because you’re, like global and stuff. And yeah, the little tripody figure with the circle for a head represents some dude or another (a whole bunch represents a bunch of dudes working together in tandem). Beams of light radiating from your icon indicates that there’s so much goodness emanating from the portrayed company, it simply can’t be contained within the central graphic. Most people will fully understand that replacing a $ for an S in the logo indicates that you’re attempting to portray something to do with finance. Similarly, there’s very few designs where a molar (smiley face optional) can be found other than a logo design for a dentist. Trouble is, Murphy the Molar is used in a lot of designs for dentists. These, folks, are visual clichés, classified as such because they’ve been done, ad nauseum, to death and there’s no way, no way at all, that your logo will be viewed as original or uniquely representing you. There’s far too many to list here, but they’re usually the very first thing that pops into your head when conceptualizing a logo for one industry or another. For that very reason, they should be discarded just as quickly. It’s very rare that the very first idea that you (or your designer) will crank out is the best idea, and the first idea you have runs a very, very high risk of being a cliché.

#5 – Mangled, Hidden and Sexy Time Visual Metaphors.

Everyone wants their logo to mean something – to represent some vital part of the company, product or service. Fair enough, though often easier said than done. Creating a graphic image that tells a specific story about a sometimes fairly specialized business activity can be a daunting task and always runs the risk of becoming a mangled visual metaphor. Trying to crowbar many visual metaphors almost guarantees that a logo will look like something else completely. Take the Toyota logo for example. Every time I’m behind a Toyota car, the overlapping ovals always look to be a man in a cowboy hat. It isn’t. Here’s the official explanation about the design (first released in 1989 with the Lexus line of luxury autos) from Toyota’s Web site:

“The current Toyota Mark consists of three ovals: the two perpendicular center ovals represent a relationship of mutual trust between the customer and Toyota. These ovals combine to symbolize the letter “T” for Toyota. The space in the background implies a global expansion of Toyota’s technology and unlimited potential for the future.”

Now, how many people going to figure that out? Not too many I expect. Mangled metaphors can get worse too. A lot worse. Often involves sexy bits that are inadvertently created out of the negative spaces surrounding the various shapes. The original ‘designer’ often doesn’t see the implied pictures until it’s far too late, and not before a lot of people have had a few giggles and titters at their expense. Sexy time logos may be funny. But they certainly ain’t good for business. Take this logo for Chinese drug company Kudawara. I’m sure the designer that created the logo meant well, but the logo looks like something else to a whole bunch of people including yours truly.

Or this striking logo for OGC. All fine and dandy, but turn the logo that logo 90 degrees clockwise. Takes on a whole new meaning, huh? Who’s going to notice? Well, when this design was released, only about half the internet, who derided it without mercy for weeks. And the, ahm, design that looks like ‘something’ being inserted into someone’s nether regions? It’s supposed to be an oriental house at sunset. All logos that started off with the best of intentions, but somehow went off the rails, their sexual connotations unnoticed until it was way too late.

Accordingly – here’s another tip. Look at your new logo from every possible viewpoint. Sideways. Upside down. At an angle. Get your pals to look at it too – if you designed the logo, your eyes and mind are preconditioned to see the logo as you think it should be. A set of fresh eyes, who have no preconceived notion of what your new design is supposed to look like, will see the hidden ‘sexy time’ metaphors before the logo is printed, oh, a thousand times or so.

#4 – Put the Accent on the Wrong Syllable. Upon failing that, forget words altogether and create an acronym that nobody will figure out.

The graphic version of accent on the wrong syllable occurs when we’re trying to jam several disparate elements into a logo. Often the effect is caused by stacking words on top of each other, and then stretching them out, or squeezing them in to fit within a certain shape or ‘logo footprint’. Wanting to ‘line things up’ is in a designer’s nature and working around grids has been a basic design principle since just after cave drawings. Trouble is, somethings are never meant to line up. For example, our company name is The Logo Factory. Stacked one on top of each other, The, Logo and Factory creates a visual pyramid. And I hates pyramids as the shape of a logo. I might be tempted to line everything up, but that would mean making ‘the’ as wide as the word ‘logo’ and those two words as wide as the word ‘factory’. That draws emphasis to the word ‘The’ which isn’t really important in the grand scheme of things.

Certain word combinations are awkward to design around and that’s just the way it is. It’s often at this point that designers toss out the names of the logo, creating company acronyms using the first letters of the company. Shouldn’t be an issue right? You’ll automatically think IBM (International Business Machines), GM (General Motors) and HP (Hewlett Packard). Ahm, not quite. Here’s the point about companies that use acronyms in their logo – they didn’t start out that way. At some point, the public got tired of saying, writing or speaking about the full name of the company, so they abbreviated it for ease of use. Takes a whole bunch of usage before people start to abbreviate a company name (think Federal Express who shortened their name to FedEx when customers starting referring to having a package delivered as being FedEx’ed). Abbreviating a company name at the hop (in order to avoid working with difficult combinations of words) isn’t going to help brand the company. In fact, the first question people will invariably ask upon seeing your spiffy new logo is “what do the initials stand for?” For what it’s worth, this is something I found out first hand. After typing out the phrase The Logo Factory oh, about a bazillion times, I started to abbreviate our name to the acronym TLF. Even designed a peachy logo for it. People still ask me what it ‘stands’ for.

#3 – Copy, steal or borrow from someone else.

It was a coin-toss whether this was to be #2 or not, but we figured that clip art is probably the logo crime that’s committed more often, so ripping on someone else’s logo slides in at #3. This would include outright ripping (“take this artwork, add my company name – change the color so that no-one will notice”) and the slightly less egregious trend-following (“I’ve noticed there’s a whole bunch of logos doing this – gel, chrome, swoosh, drop shadow, etc – I wanna logo just like theirs!”). Neither are particularly good ideas. Blatantly knocking off someone else’s logo is an immediate indication that you’re a grade ‘A’ twit, bereft of creativity, original ideas, morals and more importantly – any pride in what you do. As a designer if you present knock-offs to an unsuspecting client. Or as a business owner who uses a flagrantly purloined design.

Used to be that you could get away with this stuff – it was unlikely that a one-man shop in one corner of the world would find out that a design doppleganger in another part of the world even existed. No more. This is the age of the internet, and it’s amazingly easy to find out when pinched design work is being used by someone else. If you throw up a shingle on the Internet, someone can find the artwork that you borrowed, send off a nasty-gram to your ISP and contact their feisty lawyer, all without leaving their monitor. Not that people don’t try – hell we feature a whole logo Copycats section dedicated to stuff that’s been ripped from our coffers – it’s just that it’s not as easy to get away with it. And nothing screams ‘unprofessional’ than designing, or using, a logo that’s clearly been influenced by someone else.

The less egregious trend-following isn’t quite as noxious, but still runs into serious problems. Over the long haul, using a design trend in a logo instantly dates the work. At some point (unfortunately sooner rather than later) your funky new logo is going to get dated. Stale. Yesterday’s news. What was cutting-edge a couple of years ago is tired and trite today. It’s even possible that the trend you’re so excited about today is already dated – unless you’ve got your finger on the pulse of the design community, by the time you even become aware of a trend it’s on the way out. Even design professionals aren’t immune to this – I wasn’t even aware of Web 2.0 logos and design sensibilities until it was already hackneyed, and I pay closer attention to what’s going on than most.

#2 – Use Stock Art, Clip Art, or Photographs in Your Logo.

If you’re tempted to use clip art in your logo, here’s a word of advice. Don’t. And yes, that includes so-called template sites and online ‘logo generators’. On these Flash-driven web sites, you can pick from a catalog of logo templates (*cough* clip art *cough*) and add your text (usually in a crappy, unkerned font – see #9 for why that’s bad) and download your new logo – chock full of pre-fab, unoriginal goodness. These sites (ie: Instalogo.com, Logomaker.com, Logoyes.com, LogoSnap.com, et al) can call their little pre-fab logos Fire Trucks if they want – it’s still clip art. And clip art is a ruthlessly bad idea to use in any logo. There’s dozens of reasons why – here’s the most saliant – a logo is supposed to be unique. That’ alone should cure you of the desire to add that nifty pre-fab icon to your design. Once you incorporate clip art into your logo, your piece of visual identity is no longer unique.

And no, changing the size of clip art doesn’t make it unique. Neither does changing the color. Nor ‘flipping’ it around. Nor hiding bits of it behind other bits of artwork. Nor turning it on an angle. Or adding a swoosh. And if your logo is the same as someone elses (which is inevitable when you use clip art) you’ve defeated the purpose of having a logo in the first place. Better to have no logo (and build your company through word-of-mouth) than have a logo that someone else, often more than one, is also using. Nothing says “I’m a noob to this business thing” than presenting a logo that’s the same as another company. Oh sure, you might pick a pre-fab logo that no-one else chooses, but that’s a long shot at best. If you found it, so will someone else. Now, having said that – here’s how you can use clip art. To get ideas. You may like the idea portrayed in something you’ve seen – nothing to stop you from using that as a conceptual starting point in developing your custom design (of course, you’ll want to stray far enough from the design so that you don’t run counter to #3).

Another alarming trend, thanks to Google image search and cheap stock photograph sites, and the ease of which designers – in a hurry to add an illustrative element to a logo – can rustle up some visual reference, is the addition of photo-based artwork to logos. Granted, Google image search and stock photo sites are a great way to quickly explore some obscure subject matter, as well as to obtain accurate visual reference for a design gig. Alas, some designers are going one step further – using photographs pinched from Google image search, Photos.com or Istock as the actual artwork in the logo. Oh sure, they’ll take the step of rasterizing the image, or tracing it via illustrator, but the fact remains – they’re using stolen photography to create a logo for their clients. There are several issues – the first being copyright.

A traced version of a photograph is at the very least, a derivative of a copyrighted image. That’s bad legally. Also, if you found the image through Google image search, anyone can do the same thing, so it’s a certainty that at some point you’ll get found out. Nothing screams “I’m a hack” than people knowing you traced a free photograph found on the interwebs and passed it off to a client as an ‘original’ logo. This, by the way, is so common on logo design contest sites, that it’s almost frightening. Accordingly, if you want to add an illustrative element to any logo, by all means use Google image search to obtain visual reference. Then draw the bloody thing yourself.

#1 – Design your logo based on stupid lists.

Like this one. Some of the ‘don’ts’ listed above are carved in stone (ie: it’s never a good idea to copy or use clip art and Microsoft Word was never meant to be a design program) but others are of the ‘in most cases’ variety. Sometimes funky spacing is called for. Maybe (though it’s hard to imagine when) a swoosh is what the Design Doctor ordered. Bottom line – if you’re adept enough at creativity, and clever enough to make unorthodox design solutions work, you can ignore many, of the caveats listed. Rules are meant to be broken and generally speaking, the more experienced you (or your designer) are, pretty well dictates how far off the reservation you can go when it comes to developing a truly creative logo solution. If you’re new to the whole logo design deal, you’ll be better served by following all of the above suggestions (and others found on ‘how to’ lists). The more familiar you become with what’s what, the more ‘rules’ you can turf out. After all, design trends generally start when one brave soul commits what was originally thought of as an upardonable sin, is high profile enough to be taken seriously, and their radical departure from established ‘thou shalt nots’ is emulated by a horde of other designers all seeking to be ‘ground breaking’. Who knows, maybe the swoosh will make a comeback (highly unlikely) or adding a lens flare will become the next Web 2.0 (guess that would be Web 3.0).

After all – who’s to say what makes a great logo great? And who’s really worthy of writing the end-all, be-all list of what you can, and can’t do, when it comes to developing an award worthy logo? Certainly not I – my opinion is only that. An educated one perhaps, but just an opinion nonetheless. For example, and at the risk of committing design heresy, I’ll go out on a limb and say that the Nike logo – one of the most recognized icons on the planet – is not a particularly good logo. If we lived in an alternate universe, the Nike logo didn’t exist, and I were to present the ubiquitous swoosh to a client, I could expect to be questioned thusly – “I paid you $X for this piece of clip art?” (the same could be said about the Apple Computer logo, one of my faves). Now, when we pimp that same swooshy Nike logo a gazillion times, slap it on Tiger Woods and every other sports star know to mankind, you’ve got yourself a different story. A rather blasé piece of graphic design becomes a iconoclastic cornerstone of pop culture. Bottom line, (almost) anything goes. Push the envelope but pay attention to the basic premise of a logo – the visual encapsulation of the heart and soul of the venture being depicted. As long as it’s not designed in Microsoft Paint, isn’t a knock-off from something else and the name of the company is spelled correctly, all should be fine.

Related posts:

1. Clip art logos
2. Are logo design contests really that bad?
3. A swoosh in your logo? Wasn’t a bad idea in ’98

Last week, I told you about specdebate, a supposedly open forum where designers can duke it out over the design contest issue. While action on the forum is light, George Ryan, the owner of the site (and a design contest site known as elogocontest) posted a pro contest piece, a “are logo design contests really that bad” kind of vibe that I found interesting. Not surprisingly, I don’t agree with most of what he says, but at least he’s strong enough in his convictions to mount a defense of his position. Thought I’d take the time to address some of his points on The Factor. George’s comments are in bold. Mine aren’t.

They Say: design contests are a waste of a designers time. Depends on the designer! If you have weeks or months of work lined up in front of you then yes, it probably a waste of time to spend valuable minutes working for spec. If, on the other hand, you are starting out as a designer or are having a dry spell design contests can be a readily available way to bring in some quick cash. Also, regardless of what the critics say the skill of the designer DOES make a HUGE difference in winning a contest. I can tell you right off the bat which designers on eLogoContest can win a contest if they choose, quality wins out 9 times out of 10. At the same time designers who DON’T ever win (it happens) can critique themselves and improve their work.

Design contests aren’t a waste of a designer’s time if the designer is simply honing their skills. Certainly, any time spent drawing, sketching or creating logos is never time wasted and is generally recommended as a way to keep skills sharp. Attempting to sell those efforts as finished artwork is another matter entirely. I’d also think that design contests are a waste of a designer’s time, if they want to earn a living, which, other than people just learning about the trade, is what professional design is all about. Which is kind of odd, because making money is how design contests are marketed to potential participants. And a professional design solution is how design contests are marketed to potential holders.

The actual chances of bringing in ‘quick cash’ for any one individual is extremely minimal. Judging by the number of contests that are abandoned without any winner being accepted (roughly 9% – a figure determined by a quick perusal of two design contest sites) and the sheer volume of designers participating, the chance of an individual making any ‘quick cash’ is almost nil. Especially if they’re going to put any effort, and the required time, into their entries (which goes a long way to explaining why so many copied logos and purloined clip art designs make their way into submissions).

Logo contest sites are trying to minimize abandoned contests by featuring what they refer to as ‘guaranteed prizes’ – an interesting concept where the contest holder pays the site owners the prize money up front, and even if they decide to abandon the contest in progress, the prize will still be awarded (though how the winner is selected is often a little foggy). Trouble is, holding a ‘guaranteed prize’ contest is still optional (makes you wonder if the people opting out of holding ‘guaranteed prize contests’ have any intentions of making good on selecting a winner at all) and most contest holders opt out. The risk of entering a logo contest, only to see it abandoned at a later date, is so great that some entrants (especially the better ones) are refusing to submit work to any contest that isn’t guaranteed, something which the design contest sites aren’t too quick to admit up front. Easier to attract contest holders when these sites imply that they can walk at any time, without awarding the contest prize (still not sure if that’s even legal).

In terms of the best design winning one of these contests, and judging by the winning designs themselves, the client is often unversed in what makes a good logo, how that logo will reproduce over a wide range of media, and even the difference between vector art and bitmap generated designs. Without any one-on-one interaction, they remain unversed throughout the design process, unaware of the technical and visual issues with the designs they’re viewing. Bottom line, they pick crap logos.

Being the client and all, this is their right, and a normal day-to-day occurance at any design studio where clearly superior work is tossed aside for designs that meet some requirement that has nothing to do with good design. In a design contest, this translates to the best design not always being selected, nor the work of the best designer. More often than not, designer skill, or the quality of the logos entered into the contest, has nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with the winning entry being selected. Which translates into the best designer NOT getting paid. Which is kind of the antithesis of what a design contest is supposed to be about. Don’t take my word for it – take a trip through one of these websites and see for yourself. In a normal studio environment, or a one-on-one freelance basis, the designer will get paid even if the client decides to direct the creation of a logo that isn’t, by any definition, a good logo. A friend of mine once said “The client is always King. But they can’t be art director”. During any logo design contest, the contest holder has no choice but to be an art director. That, by the way, is something that the contest holder brings to the ‘contest’, rather than any ‘logo value‘ gained by holding one.

In terms of designers having their work critiqued, most contest holders don’t even bother. The time required, and the volume of entries makes this impractical for most (if they were able to explain why they didn’t ‘like’ a logo in the first place), and many contests go on without any feedback at all, save the selection of the winner.

Many logo contest sites have realized that this is an issue and have instituted simple rating systems – usually stars or numbers out of five – so that they can still claim the designers’ work is being critiqued, while minimizing the amount of time the holder has to spend. Funny thing – even that very basic ‘click here to rate’ requirement is still being avoided, and without any criteria at all often ends with designers wondering why their design – which rated a 4 out of 5 stars – lost to a design that was rated 3 out of five. Bottom line – the idea that a designer receives any valuable feedback, ostensibly to enhance their skills, is like most contest site claims, a stretch at best.

They Say: Design contests are not a valid source of regular income. I agree! It can be an awesome source of supplementary income but I would never encourage a designer to rely on design contests as their main source of income, even if they could, simply because it is not guaranteed income. Design contests can be part of a powerful approach to freelancing, including freelance job sites, local work and networking, but stand on them alone and you are asking to fall.

Okay. A guy who owns a logo design contest site admits that entering contests is not a valid source of regular income. No comment necessary I guess. In terms of being ‘part of a powerful approach to freelance’ I supose I’d have to ask “how so?” if entering contests is not a ‘valid source of regular income’. Most freelance designers view their practice as a career, not some hobby where they might make some ‘quick cash’.

Some logo design contest sites (including George’s) will claim that entering contests is a great way to build up a client list, as contest holders engage the designer to create collateral design work – brochures, stationery, websites, etc. If this were true, then it’s only winning entries are likely to gain this advantage. As a designer’s chances of winning a contest are slim to begin with (if a winner gets selected at all) this so-called benefit is negligible to begin with. Ironically, most design contest sites also hold contests for brochures, websites and stationery, claiming that the contest model is a great way to get these items developed, NOT working one-on-one with a designer or design firm. Bottom line – you can’t have it both ways, though as we’ll see, design contest advocates attempt quite often to do just that.

Should also take this opportunity to point out that design contest sites charge holders a fee (above and beyond the prize amount) to run contests, and some even claw back prize money by charging a percentage of the entrant’s winnings. In other words, the logo contest sites’ income is guaranteed, while the designers who are creating their ‘product’ shoulder all the ‘risk’ and invest all the time. While we’re talking about having it both ways and all.

They Say: Clients get the short end of the stick when running a design contest. Nothing personal against the proponents of this theory but this is without a doubt one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. Even if all the client gets out of it is a bunch of ideas I fail to see how that is the “short end of the stick”. I DO encourage contest holders to get the most out of their contest by using the actual contest as a brainstorming process and then working with the winning designer to finetune the design if needed (paying the designer their regular rates of course), but even if they just use the winning design as it is they still more than get their moneys worth out of the contest. It’s also worth pointing out that I have never heard this complaint from a client, only from designers.

Well, if the sheer number of designs presented ever turns out to be a factor in what makes a good logo, or a factor in ascertaining the worth of a logo, then perhaps contests might have a leg-up. However, the idea that 100 bad designs is somehow better than two or three good ones is a concept that still eludes me. This is the graphic design version of spam e-mail – throw enough designs at a client and hope that something ‘sticks’. In terms of the designs themselves, the vast majority of logos entered into design contests aren’t any good (and that’s being charitable). They’re cobbled together by folks who are (as George points out) looking to make some ‘quick cash’ and ‘developing their skills’. Often by so-called designers who have no idea about design, and figure slapping together some rudimentary shapes in a bootleg copy of Illustrator is a perfectly valid way to produce a logo. The designs are often ripped off other entrants work, often in the very same contest, in order to win favor with the client. There’s very little concept. Execution is often shoddy. Often, contest entrants will submit the same design, rejected from a previous contest, over and over again, hoping that someone will eventually select their logo for something. Anything. I’ve even seen designs that were selected as the winner for one contest, being entered by the same designer, into another.

Wading through several hundred extremely bad designs, in order to find a decent logo, is overwhelming to even the most experienced design client, let alone someone who may be new to the process. And designing an effective logo is always about the end product, not the number of preliminary designs it took to get there. There’s many a design project at the shop that only required one pass – that logo is every bit as valuable as one that required multiple steps.

I’d go as far to say that the sheer volume of entries can be overwhelming to the first-time design buyer. Take a look at any contest where there are a lot of entries. On most contest sites, the contest holder is supposed to critique every design (a ‘pro’ that is boasted by contest advocates – they claim that having one’s work critiqued is is one of the main benefits of entering a design contest in the first place). The comment sections often degenerate into skirmishes between the holder and the entrants when the volume of designs makes it impossible for the holder to comment on every single one. Do a search for ‘feedback please’ on any contest site to see how often this happens.

Many contest holders end up resenting the time they’re expected to spend telling designers what they like, and don’t like, usually skipping over this expectation as the volume of entries increases. The ‘client’ is supposed to critique artwork that they have absolutely no interest in using, which they see as a waste of their time and as they’re paying for ‘services’ not necessarily part of their obligation. Let’s be honest here – most people who hold logo contests have been convinced that they get more design options for a greatly reduced cost, not spending additional time trying to explain why they don’t like this or that design, nor educating designers on what makes a great logo, when they probably don’t have any idea past “I like that” and “I don’t like that”.

There’s also the idea that a logo development takes place in a very public venue, where designs are likely to get ripped off by other unscrupulous folks trolling the internet looking for images, either to add to their so-called portfolios, adapt for their own projects, or add to their own template logo collections (an ongoing issue which our Copycat features clearly illustrate). During a one-on-one project with a freelancer or design studio, concepts and preliminary designs (which may be very similar to the final work) are not published, and the final logo won’t be revealed until there are a minimum of copyright protections in place. That doesn’t happen in logo contests, where the artwork is publicly available from step one. This was an earlier criticism of mine, to which some logo contest sites have reacted, creating ‘private contests’ that are only accessable to logged in members and contest holders. Here’s the funny thing though – the fact that these contest are ‘hidden’ only increases the chance that plagiarized logos will get entered as ‘designers’ out for a ‘quick buck’ figure their ripped off entries won’t be seen by folks who will recognize the designs. The simple truth is this – by their very nature, logo contests attract folks who aren’t opposed to cutting corners to make a ‘quick buck’. This isn’t unique to the design industry. It is, in fact, human nature.

Astonishingly, George makes this suggestion –

I encourage contest holders to get the most out of their contest by using the actual contest as a brainstorming process and then working with the winning designer to fine tune the design if needed (paying the designer their regular rates of course).

Unless I’m missing something (which is always possible) a guy that owns a logo design contest site advocates using his ‘services’ to brainstorm for a logo, then hire a designer (at regular rates) to ‘fine tune’ the design. So, what’s the point of holding a logo contest again?

In terms of having never heard complaints about ‘getting the short end of the stick’ (I actually think George is quoting yours truly) from what George refers to as ‘clients’, that’s not terribly surprising. Many folks, new to the design process, may think that ‘the more, the merrier’ is a valid barometer of the quality of design. It isn’t. It’s applying grocery store mentality to a logo design, and at the risk of mangling a metaphor is comparing ‘apples and oranges’. Also, as the rate of abandoned contests is almost 10%, it would appear that at least some ‘clients’ ended up deciding that holding a logo contest wasn’t the way to develop their logo, the number of presented designs be damned.

They Say: Design contests encourage plagarism and clipart. The creative industry itself encourages plagarism and unoriginal designs, not directly of course, but any industry that relies on creativity will have the lazy trying to take advantage of it. This is NOT something that is unique to design contests, it happens every day all over the globe. The fact that it is much more obvious in the design contest format because of the public display of all entries does not mean that it is a direct result of the “contest format”. In fact I think that design contests provide much MORE transparancy and contest holders can be much more confident that they are getting original work than they would working with an unknown designer. We regularly have “designers” attempting to pass off ripped work as their own, thanks to our viligant community of designers these “designers” are usually reported and banned within minutes of posting the work, let’s see that happen with a conventional studio!

No offense to George, but this wanders into bullshit territory. Owners of logo contest sites – every single one – know that this is an ogoing issue and have disclaimers within their terms and conditions that state, very specifically, that they are not responsible for originality of any logo presented. George’s site, elogocontest, for example, has this to say –

eLogoContest is a independent ‘middle-man’ and makes no claims whatsoever as to the originality of any user-submitted content.

George also seems to think that the ‘creative industry’ encourages unoriginal designs (an oxymoronic statement if there ever was one) because ‘lazy’ people are always tempted to take advantage. Shouldn’t have to point this out, but when people’s jobs and careers are on the line, they are less likely to risk whatever security they have by ripping off another designer. Studios and graphic design firms are liable for some very real, and costly, damages. No designer, or firm, who values their reputation is going to risk it all by presenting stolen work as their own – it’s only with the relative anonymity of the internet (the very model of logo contest sites) does this become an issue. There are some very high risks for established designers or graphic design firms foisting off purloined work as their own. In logo design contests, the anonymity of the entrants, as well as the ‘not necessarily original’ disclaimer illustrates quite clearly that logo contest sites are aware of this inherent flaw, and try to avoid this liability that everyone else assumes (though whether these disclaimers are legally sound is anyone’s guess).

Again, in his defence of logo contests, George makes another astonishing admission –

We regularly have “designers” attempting to pass off ripped work as their own.

Regularly? That’s nice. He then goes on to defiantly state that these ‘designers’ are banned and demands ‘let’s see that happen in a conventional studio’. Ahm, if this were to happen at any ‘conventional studio’ the designer would be fired instantly. Might even find themselves at the wrong end of a lawsuit if they’re under contract. Ask yourself this – who’s more likely to pinch a logo they found on the internet – a designer working for a decent wage with benefits who’d risk that job and suffer an insurmountable blemish on their resume, or a designer entering a logo contest without any payment, in order to earn the chance of winning $100 or so, while hiding behind a screen name like logodsgr151. While the site itself attempts to absolve itself from any ‘originality’ liability. It’s at this juncture, that I should point out that I found two examples of our client’s work being submitted to two of George’s contests, and that it was only after we wrote about them were the designs yanked.

See, here’s the thing. On any logo design contest site, that’s ANY site that uses the contest model, I can guarantee that copied logos will eventually find their way into the submissions. To say that this happens ‘regularly’ at conventional studios, or with fairly established freelancers is, to be charitable, nonsense. It doesn’t.

They Say: Design contests are ruining the industry. If the industry that you mean is the “3 logo concepts for a hundred and fifty bucks” industry then yes, you might be right. I do not, however, think that design contests are a replacement for an experienced design firm coming up with a full fledged brand, nor are they the same as working one on one with a designer, but they certainly do have their place in the industry, and for the small startup that has a few hundred dollars to spend on a brand they can be the most powerful way to go.

Ruining the industry? Not logo design contests per se, but the attitude that a designers work is only worth remuneration if it meets some undefined criteria, that a designers time isn’t worth anything and that the education, experience, skill and reputation of a designer amounts to squat, is certainly a little disconcerting for folks who are IN the industry. Especially when folks like George market logo design contests as being a better alternative than more conventional avenues (he compares his contest site to other companies using the volume of designs as the only barometer), when clearly, they’re not. And while I certainly understand George’s efforts – trying to make money off other people’s efforts without paying for those efforts – it’s certainly not a position that’s going to be supported by the denizens of any ‘industry’ be it design or not. Does his model work out to better design? No.

While theoretically, not paying for your ‘staff’ could be argued as a sound business position, a quick calculation of George’s income from the site ($19.95 per contest, plus 10% of any winnings) will show that the logo design contest model isn’t exactly a boon to his bank account either. George would be better served opening a traditional graphic design studio. Cause here’s the thing. As more and more of these things pop up on the interwebs, with the resultant competition, site owners are going to have to figure out how to attract designers, while charging contest holders less and ‘relaxing’ the terms they have to agree to. A downward spiral of design integrity checks and balances.

At the end of the day, logo design contest sites are not about developing value, better design, better client interaction or better working conditions for designers. Far from it. Every single design contest site – without exception – were created by folks trying to make a buck from the design industry while not having to pay their ‘workforce’, the very developers of their ‘product’. Off shoring was the big challenge of the design industry a few years ago, as globalization introduced western companies to international wage rates. Contest sites have figured out a way to reduce those wage rates to zero. In a weird sense, my hat’s off to them for having the cojones to pull it off.

But it certainly isn’t a road to better design. Nor the road to a career for up-and-coming designers. Which is what this particular industry has always been about to me.

Related posts:

1. Anyone up for a logo design contest debate?
2. Design contest war breaks out.
3. The dirty little secret that most spec, design contest & crowdsourcing sites don’t want designers to know

Despite our umpteenth promise to leave this particular subject alone, the battle over design contests continues unabated, with another round of tit-for-tat discussions opening up at various points about the web this week. Site Point – an Australian web developer and ‘spec’ site – fired the opening salvo with a positively giddy ‘thumbs up’ interview with a design contest entrant titled (without a hint of irony) – Design Contests Made Me A Better Designer (uh-huh).

A quick skim finds the ‘interview’ to be brimming with pro-contest opinions and apologetics, most notably for an outfit called 99 Designs – the poster child for everything that’s wrong with design contests, and the subject of earlier criticsm and controversy. Should be noted that Site Point spawned 99 Designs earlier this year so the interview giving a glowing ‘review’ of design contests in general, and 99 Designs in specific, is hardly surprising. Apparently the lads from OZ have realized they’ve ruffled more than a few designer feathers, introducing the interview thusly -

“The topic of design contests is a polarizing one. Those who are against them are really against them, maintaining that they exploit designers and devalue the design industry. The NO!SPEC mantra has been adopted as a code of conduct by graphic design associations like AGDA and AIGA, and those who agree with this philosophy consider entering a design contest to be entirely unprofessional and just plain wrong.”

Considering that the piece is published by folks to whom logo design contests are a stock-in-trade, that’s an interesting use of the terms “against them” and “they exploit designers” when “against us” and “we exploit designers” could be considered a tad more accurate. But no mind. Similarly, while recognizing that two major graphic design organizations are opposed to design contests as part of their charter – ‘unethical, unprofessional, and just plain wrong’ – seems that these are quaint ‘mantras’, meaning nothing to a site offering, well, wholesale design contests at $39 a pop (see here for more on No-Spec and spec design work).

Probably like us to think they’re delightful rogues taking on the stifling antics of AIGA, AGDA, every design organization on the planet and 98% of the design community. Though it’s a little odd for a site that introduced themselves as a site ‘by designers for designers’. But I digress again. The quoted introduction prefaces an interview that’s so light in substance, self-serving and biased, it’s not really worth a point-by-point deconstruction (and if it were, design blog Positive Spaces has already beat us to the punch with their 99 Designs Stoops to New Low feature anyway).

While arguably a little shifty, nothing terribly surprising that the people behind 99 Designs (I mean Site Point) would use such a technique to tell us that design contests are just peachy-keen (thank you very much) are a great way for businesses to build a brand for their companies (well, of course they are) and that designers who enter contests are just trippingly happy about the ‘we’ll work for nothing pay us peanuts if you like my design‘ arrangement of the whole deal. But I’d expect that.

I understand why 99 Designs (and to be fair, other design contest sites) would defend their position – after all, it isn’t every industry that someone can pimp out supposedly skilled professionals, without paying a dime in product development, collecting their own fees up front and without risk. The term ‘pimp’ gives a hint of other industries were this might work. Not a bad deal either. It is a breathtaking advantage over their self-professed ‘competition’, legitimate design businesses saddled with the overhead of running a professional service – wages, hardware, software, staff training, client communication and support. Running a design contest site represents little investment, no risk and 100% gain (though I might quibble about some of the legal issues involved). In fact, I grudgingly salute these dudes for the unmitigated gall that’s required to pull the whole deal off. But to claim that entering design contests makes one a better designer – the very title of the ‘interview’ – is absurd.

The design contest model features an entirely artificial environment (actually – 99 Designs ‘contests’, by definition, aren’t even contests at all) and there’s so very little ‘real world’ experience to be gained that I’d argue that entering design contests would actually accomplish the exact opposite. At the risk of picking on the lovely chaps from Australia (though the Site Point interview did use them as the case study), let’s take a look at how a typical ‘contest’ works – as it’s sort of our bag, we’ll focus on a logo design contest – and compare it to how a more traditional approach would differ.

The Not-So-Exhaustive Design Brief.

When firing up a contest, ‘clients’ are directed to fill out a form that will be referenced by all the ‘entrants’. Pretty standard stuff. We kinda do the same, though the design contest version is mercifully short and consists of just 7 questions; The first three don’t count – Title (of the contest), Subtitle (displayed in the contest description), Short Summary (to get the designers attention) and the nub of the brief, four text fields – Brand Name, Description, What I Want, What I Don’t Want. I understand why this brief is so short – wouldn’t want to confuse the ‘client’ (often new to the design game in the first place) with a lot of unnecessary questions and techno-babble that they might not know the answers to. Planned usage. Market. Theme. Technical restrictions. Items that are critical to any successful design project but often outside a client’s area of experience or expertise. Generally speaking, it’s the designer’s job to educate the client about the design process, what works, what doesn’t and why this-or-that design solution is preferable over another. As designers, we’re supposed to know our stuff and be able to explain in simple terms, the crux of a decent logo. Why a pink fluffy kitten isn’t a good logo idea for a company that fixes tractors. On a logo design contest site, you get 100 different variations of a pink fluffy kitten.

As designers, we’re supposed to know our stuff and be able to explain in simple terms, the crux of a decent logo. Why a pink fluffy kitten isn’t a good logo idea for a company that fixes tractors. On a logo design contest site, you get 100 different variations of a pink fluffy kitten.

Ah, but hitting the client with so many confusing questions up-front may intimidate them. Lead to a whole bunch of questions (in traditional scenarios answered by an experienced designer) or worse, send them Googling about the various concepts involved and onto, heaven forbid, another design site. Rather than effectively gathering information, the submission forms are designed for one thing only – to quickly move the client to the next phase – submitting credit card information with as little headache as possible. All fine and dandy in the ROI department, but not so good in getting a sense of what the client needs in their project. Unfortunately, the sparse design brief is where project information collection ends.

In a more traditional design process, it’s very rare that a designer will begin designing a logo on first blush – there’s usually a more in-depth one-on-one interaction with the client. A meet-and-greet (even if by phone or e-mail) where more detailed parameters can be hashed out. Often a client is advised that ‘what they want’ is impractical, at odds with their goals, or technically unwise. One assumes that’s one of the main reasons a client would approach a designer in the first place, rather than picking up a demo version of Adobe Illustrator and doing it themselves. A designer’s job is not just drawing a pretty picture, but sharing experience and advice on how the client can obtain their design goals. Often what a client ‘needs‘ dovetails with what they ‘want‘. Sometimes it doesn’t. At the risk of sounding elitest, ‘what I want’ is often not what is possible or advisable for the client, especially if we’re keeping their best interests at heart. If I approach an accountant and tell him that I don’t ‘want’ to pay any taxes, I’ll (hopefully) be advised that while I can maximize my write-offs, I’ll still be ponying up to the IRS whether I want to or not. I’m paying for his advice and expertise, not telling him which deductions I ‘want‘ to be legit. The same concept should apply to design and designers.

As there’s no real follow-up, any logo contest begins without designer interaction at the concept level – the very essence of a design project. The project starts sans information that’s critical for a designer to evaluate the client’s needs, rather than simply what the client ‘wants’. We’ve had clients who ‘want’ War & Peace in their logo, but we’ve had to convince them that they ‘need’ a simple icon. Someone once said that the client is king, but they shouldn’t be art director. And that’s true enough. While ‘the customer is always right’ may work for Wal-Mart, there are times in design when the client is flat out wrong. It takes an experienced designer, with some fairly decent communication skills to tell a client this, at least without offending them or losing the account. Hopefully the client respects the designers gravitas enough to heed the advice or at least factor it into design decisions and direction. Simply taking ‘what I want’ and ‘what I don’t want’ and distilling it into a pretty picture that may not even represent a client’s best interests does not make one a ‘better designer’. It makes one a pixel pusher – a pair of hands for rent (since we’re talking design contests, a pair of hands for free) – not a capable designer able to help your clients make effective design choices.

I understand why the back-and-forth can’t happen with design contests – not enough time, too many disparate designers, contest holder isn’t paying enough money. All of them valid arguments from the contest site owner point-of-view, but as we’re talking about entering contests making someone a better designer, they have little to do with the equation.

The Pitch.

Ah yes. The logo contest pitch – were entrants upload their work (often after taking hours of effort) onto the site for viewing by the client. Fair enough – waiting breathlessly for the client’s thumbs up, thumbs down is an unfortunate part of any design process. There’s a difference with design contests though, and it is this – most of the times entrants don’t get to explain the whys-and-wherefores of their design. The thought process behind it. The pros and cons. If I wanted to be a wag, I’d argue that this isn’t a factor in design contests as there’s very little back-story to be told. Cranking out icons and submitting them to various contests is the only way to earn any money, but as we’re being highbrow, we’ll assume that every project, on every design contest, is approached with only the purist of intentions.

Is a designer explaining the worth of a logo important? I’d argue yes. Judging logos on first sight (designs are eliminated, often without comment) can miss some design gems. Take a look at the FedEx logo, arguably one of the most famous logos on the planet. The concept, designed by Lindon Leader and now accepted globally, was originally nixed by the Federal Express board of directors. It was only Ceo Fred Smith who recognized the simple elegance of the design, after being told about the logo back-story (and hidden arrow) by the logo creators. Under a design contest scenario, that logo would have been eliminated. And if FedEx wanted pink kittens, well dammit, they’d get pink kittens.

What’s worse is that in most logo contests, holders aren’t obliged to tell designers why their work is eliminated. In many cases designs are uploaded, eliminated from the contest without so much as a how-you-do. In their favor, 99 Designs recommends that ‘feedback’ is left for every project, but a quick trip through any contest shows that this simply isn’t the case. Many comment threads under the designs feature one word postings – usually along the lines of ‘feedback?!!” as designers wait patiently to be told why their efforts didn’t make the cut. We’ve already established that there’s no financial reward for entering (other than the winner) and whatever critiques we’re told might be helpful are generally not forthcoming. Whatever feedback that is offered is usually along the lines of “I don’t like it” or “not what I’m looking for”. All fine and dandy if the designer is getting paid, but as the vast majority of designers aren’t, then the stated benefit is supposed to be ‘valuable feedback’ that one can utilize to hone his/her craft. “I don’t like it” isn’t much help. If the rationale for entering design contests is to have work critiqued, almost every design forum features a show-and-tell section where people will be glad to tell you what they think of your work. Often with brutal honesty. And that’s much more valuable. At least if we’re talking about becoming a better designer. Which, if you’ll recall, is the theme of this piece.

The Dog and Pony Show.

This is where design contests wander off the territory of actually being a contest at all. Generally speaking, a contest involves submitting an entry and then waiting for results from a presumably qualified judging panel. At least, that’s how contests are supposed to work (if they’re all nice and legal and stuff). Design contests are completely different – holders actually request that designers change their entries, often at odds with the original project brief (after the contest holder had begun to understand a little about how these things work) and without any sense that they’re demanding unreasonable efforts from designers, the majority of whom are marginalized in the first place.

While I might understand why a designer would spend a few minutes cobbling together a logo and entering it into a contest in the hopes of winning a few bucks, it is beyond me why a designer would engage in a full-blown design project, with virtually unlimited revisions, at a contest holders whim and without any form of renumeration (or even helpful feedback). And oh, what a dog and pony show these ‘revision rounds’ invariably turn into.

With the contest holder lording over the proceedings, and very little that entrants won’t do to win a contest, the ‘revision’ round of the contest often turns into a free-for-all. Designers are requested to encapsulate other designers’ work into their versions. Use font treatments featured on others. Some designers don’t even have to be asked, freely borrowing from other entries to create a hybrid Frankenstein logo that hopefully grabs the holder’s attention. Not that this isn’t unexpected – the contest holder hasn’t really been informed that this is a no-no, and anyone who speaks up about such practices is often branded as uncooperative by the holder, the other entrants, and comments pointing out the shenanigans are often deleted, lest the overall site ‘look bad’.

Read some of the comments before they’re nuked – sometimes it ain’t pretty. Accusations of plagiarism fly quite often, with one entrant claiming that another has stole his/her ideas. All of which continues until, hopefully, the contest holder declares a winner, or abandons the contest completely, which if recent observations are any indication, happens an awful lot. Once again, in their favor, 99 Designs has now offered a prepaid contest option – where contest holders prepay their prizes – but if the home page this morning is any indication, not a lot of contest holders avail themselves of the option. Meaning there’s no guarantee anyone will get paid a red cent. Accordingly, many designers enter the same designs in multiple contests, which explains why you’ll see so many shiny, chromed generic logos without any real purpose other than serving as a bookend or a mantelpiece for a line of type.

While this may make you a faster designer (a necessity if you’re going to enter a load of contests at once) but as far as honing one’s craft (and developing a career) design contests are certainly not the deal. You may make a few bucks here and there, but you will eventually move on to greener pastures, no doubt regretting the time you wasted jumping through hoops like a trained seal. If, in the meantime, that’s your bag, all fair enough but don’t claim that it makes you a better designer (bitter more like). Decent designers (like the guy in the Site Point interview) on these sites were decent to begin with (and could probably earn a reasonable living elsewhere). The designers who are piss poor will remain piss poor. There’s nothing to be learned on contest sites other than some sort of design Darwinism and how low people will stoop to make, or save, a few bucks.

Speaking of which, looks like 99 Designs has got themselves some stiff competition. New outfit in town, E Logo Contest, who love this contest site deal so much they lifted the idea. And they’re twenty bucks cheaper. And waddya know – they have even more gall than the cats from down under – not only does a contest holder not have to pick a winner if they don’t feel like it, E Logo Contest also want a 10% cut from the poor bastards who do win. They’ve actually figured out a way to get designers to pay to enter, pushing the sliding scale of scumbaggery a little bit further. Now, poor old 99 Designs will probably have to argue that they’re a better design contest choice because their prize money is higher, they don’t want a cut, and this higher payout attracts a better level of designer.

Which will be the definitive version of irony meet schadenfreude.

Related posts:

1. Battle for hearts and minds continues
2. Are logo design contests really that bad?
3. More on those fabulous logo design contests…

After spending some time on naming your new company, registering that matching domain name, we’re now ready to get down to business – the point of this entire series – designing a logo. Before we start scribbling away, we’re going to take a look at some things you’ll need to kick around during our upcoming brainstorming sessions. Some ‘rules of logo design’ if you will. By keeping these things in mind, you’ll be able to avoid some serious potentially costly missteps and common design errors. This is not the definitive list of design dos and don’ts – not by a long shot – but by keeping these pointers in mind you stand a decent chance of developing a workable logo on your own.

First, we’re going to talk about things you’re not going to do. Your first inclination may be to reach for some clip art images you’ve got lying around your hard drive, downloadable from some design site, or from one of these do-it-yourself logo generators (LogoYes.com, LogoMaker.com, InstaLogo.com, et al). Just stop right there. You want to design your own logo, not use logo clip art that’s available to anyone with an internet connection. This series is about designing a unique logo, and all of these do-it-yourself solutions are the very antithesis of unique. They may be cheap, but in very real terms you get what you pay for – thirty-nine bucks doesn’t buy a lot of logo. Granted, by designing a logo yourself, you’re paying nothing, but the cost is extracted via the very real effort you have to put into your project. Despite their claims to the contrary, do-it-yourself logo generators are repositories of someone else’s design offcasts, unoriginal in the extreme, and designed to convince you that you’re getting something that you’re not. A decent logo. If you’re only interested in slapping a pretty picture on a business card, and very little else, then stop reading right now and go for it. If you’re interested in developing a company logo that has longevity, originality and portrays your company in a serious light, then cast clip art from your mind and read on. I’ve assembled a series of notes, pinched from our logo design tips section, re-jigged and updated for our do-it-yourself series.

Keeping it simple.

An overly complex logo can be difficult to reproduce, difficult to remember and in terms of this do-it-yourself series, difficult for you to develop and render. There are times when illustrative logos are what the design doctor ordered, but development of same will probably involve the services of a fairly skilled designer. That involves hiring someone else – not what we’re talking about here. Unless you’re fairly adept at drawing stuff with a reasonable degree of proficiency, you’re probably going to focus on simple shapes and objects for your logo, as opposed to complex characters and illustrations. Conversely, if you still really, really want an illustrative design, there’s nothing to stop you from working up some rough ideas on your own, and presenting them to a professional designer who can then turn your doodles into rendered artwork.

Packing for Vacation school of Graphic Design.

Illustrative logos aside, and if this is you first (or near first) attempt at designing a logo, you’ll probably be tempted to ‘go to town’. You want your logo to graphically represent a whole bunch of different things – quality, speed, uniqueness what have you – and you want to squeeze as many visual metaphors into the design as possible. Don’t. While a war-and-peace design may be your idea of a great logo, it just won’t perform as well as a simple one. A complex logo can be difficult to reproduce and more importantly, difficult to remember. If you’re tempted to shoe-horn a load of distinct visual elements into your rough doodles, treat your sketches as you would packing for a vacation. Feel free to put them in, but force yourself to take them out.

A logo doesn’t have to portray exactly what your company does.

It’s true. While you may be tempted to create a design that illustrates, in very real terms, your core business activity, this isn’t a necessity. Sometimes it’s not even recommended. Think of the McDonald’s Golden Arches. No french fries or hamburgers to be seen. How about the FedEx logo? Not a truck or plane in sight. Look at the Nike swoosh – arguably one of the most successful logos of all time. No sneakers, golf shirts or track pants. While a logo that portrays an element of the company is sometimes appropriate, it’s often better to design a logo that’s void of graphic detail – a logo that can be adopted to whatever directions the company may take. Look at the Apple (computers) logo. It is an apple. But there’s no indication that it belongs to a computer company (good thing too – the company recently rebranded themselves as as Apple Inc. in order to embrace their expansion into the entertainment and electronics market).

Size does matter.

Actually, this is one of the most important things to keep in mind, if not the most important. Most company logos need to reproduce at a wide variety of different sizes – more frequently on the smallish side. Extremely complex logos can ‘gum up’ when reproduced as a very small image, especially on a website when we’ve only got 72 dpi (dots per inch) to work with. You should also think about business cards, fax header. How about promotional items like a key chain? Or a ballpoint pen? Look at the Nike ‘swoosh’. Not a terribly dynamic logo but it is recognizable on a shirt sleeve on the television where a complex logo wouldn’t be. There may be times when your mark is reproduced on mega-sized media as well. Something like a billboard. Or the side of a truck. Keeping in mind how your logo is going to be used, both in size and types of media, can help you design a mark that’s appropriate in terms of complexity.

Aspect Ratios.

This extremely important facet of any design is often overlooked, even by design professionals, and will determine how successfully your logo will integrate into various applications. The aspect ratio of your logo (the relationship between the height and width of a logo) is an absolutely critical consideration when laying out the basic parameters to your new mark. First of all, a logo that is too tall and skinny, or too wide and short, will not be visually pleasing. More importantly, you’ll end up with all sorts of layout issues when it comes to fitting your logo into various types of support artwork, especially when it’s to be combined with other graphic elements (ie: business card, websites, etc). Here’s a few types of aspect ratios;

A logo that is closer to a ‘golden ratio‘ (a business card is pretty good example of a golden ratio) is much more pleasing and more adaptable to working in other artwork. Square is acceptable as well – logos that use a circle logos are strong visually due to their ‘square aspect ratio’. While we’re at it, probably wouldn’t be such a bad idea to acquaint yourself with our design glossary if you have a few to spare.

Your Logo Footprint.

A ‘footprint’ of a logo is a term we coined several years ago when trying to figure out what made an effective logo, as opposed to just a ‘nice’ one. A simple concept really. The footprint of any design refers to the absolute physical boundaries that are required for reproduction of a mark. Quite literally, you can imagine your new logo’s footprint as the bounding box around the minimum area needed to reproduce your spiffy design. It’s important to note as part of this series, as this ‘footprint’ factor is often overlooked when inexperienced designers are developing their first logos.

When sketching your first logo, it’s important to keep in mind ‘trailing elements’ of the preliminary design – that is, parts of your logo that extend beyond the main image area. Let’s take a look at the Links logo featured above. This design incorporates a large trailing star element that extends outside the main area of the logo. This star element affects the logo’s footprint dramatically and will always affect the size of the design when used in artwork where width is a factor. Here’s another logo, this time for Sight Effects, that features a square aspect ratio and more orthodox footprint, that’s use won’t be dictated so drastically.

Separate your icons and text.

If you’re planning to use both an iconic logo and a textual treatment in the development of your business logo, it’s best to have the elements as distinct pieces of artwork (as opposed to overlapping, intertwining, etc). This way, you’ll be able to use either the text or icon solo, and the logo will still stand up as being representative of your company or product.

As an example of ‘walking the talk’, we often split up our own logo, using either The Logo Factory ‘house’ or text logo as distinct graphic elements whenever appropriate. The two elements are actually pictured together in the ‘true’ version of our trademark (above right).

Your logo is for your audience.

Naturally, you want to like your logo (we’ve know lots of times were people are reluctant to use their logo as they no longer ‘like’ it). On the other hand, keep in mind that your logo is to appeal to your customers, and should be created with them in mind. You may be the most conservative person on the planet, but if you’re trying to market to the hip-hop crowd, your sensibilities are probably different than your ‘audience’. A logo that you ‘like’ probably won’t appeal to them.

Your company’s essence and ‘theme’.

When we were dealing with naming your new company a few installments back, you probably developed a sense of direction for your business. A theme that will be the focus of all your branding and marketing endeavors. Quality services. Cheap prices. Boutique level attention to detail. Fast. Reliable. These are the types of themes that your logo will need to reflect. Are you a serious company, or one that revels in being whimsical. Are you appealing to a conservative, well-heeled market? Then a cartoon logo is probably not an option. Trying to brand a restaurant or a casual coffee shop? Then a logo that would be appropriate for a financial institution probably won’t cut it for your needs. Understanding your particular company’s ‘theme’ is important. It is this ‘theme’ that will form the baseline and creative direction your new logo will take. Think of it this way. You’d take a different approach to designing restaurant logos than you would when developing a mark for a heavy metal website (below).

Your logo has to have ‘instant impact’.

Your new logo will probably never have the luxury of being in your audience’s eye for a lot of time. More than likely, you only have a few seconds (at the outside) to ‘grab’ the viewers attention and tell your story. If your logo needs to be deciphered, or has an elaborate ‘back story’ (see metaphor light) there’s probably little chance that it will communicate the essence of your company, service or product effectively. And fast. Take a look at these examples – each dictates the core business activity pretty quickly while still being simple enough to reproduce at a fairly small size.

Strive to be ‘different’. Your logo needs to be unique.

You’d be surprised how many clients have asked our designers to create logos that are very similar to their competitors (answer’s always no). You’d probably be shocked at the number of times people have wanted to purchase a logo that’s featured in our logo design portfolio section. (Again, the answer’s no) Kinds misses the point of the whole deal. The idea of your own logo is just that – your own logo. Unique. Memorable. While it can be helpful to look at logos that your competitors are using (or even people in the same industry), this should never be used as a guide to creating your logo. The idea here is to be different than your competitors. To stand out in a cluttered marketplace. To have a logo that’s better than theirs Or, at the very least – different.

Color isn’t important in the initial design phases.

Colors don’t mean diddly in the first concept phases, the most important initial part of your logo project being the design itself. You may already have corporate colors picked out and to be sure, it’s nice to see your logo in the colors that you’ll eventually use, but when we’re first doodling rough ideas, colors are of secondary importance. They can always be changed, or edited later. I’d even go as far to say that any logo that relies too much on color (or tones) to hold it together visually, always runs the risk of being mediocre. There are even times when we’ll need to reproduce our spiffy new design in black and white. In fact, we’re not even going to touch color yet (we’ll be doodling in black and white anyway) other than to suggest that you brush up on the main types of color reproduction that will come into play later on – Spot color and Four color process. We’ll visit these concepts some more when it comes to adding color to your new design.

Keep your logo ‘metaphor light’.

While it’s an admirable goal for bits and pieces of your logo to actually ‘mean’ something (i.e. – this swoosh represents growth, this dot represents our product) sometimes first-time logo designers wish to write ‘War-and-Peace’ with their design metaphors. An overwrought logo is not a pretty sight. Bottom line – the most memorable logos are also the most simple; the memorable complex logos are often highly rendered illustrations, not a bunch of geometric shapes slapped together. Dozens of swooshes, dots and colors – all professing to ‘mean’ something will not mean anything to the first time viewer even though it might be a ‘cool’ back story to tell. See here for more on what makes a great logo.

Having reasonable expectations of your new logo.

Keep in mind that your new logo is but the beginning. True, it’s an important beginning, but a beginning nonetheless. You shouldn’t expect your logo to single-handedly develop your company’s ‘brand’ and turn your new company into the latest commercial empire. Far from it. It is only by repeated use of your logo on marketing material (business cards, letterheads, website, etc) as well as some old-fashioned elbow-grease (business ethic, customer service, etc) that will develop your ‘brand‘ or corporate image in today’s over saturated business market. Still, your new logo is the corner stone of these efforts, and it’s pretty important to get it right. For some more logo design ideas, you can always rummage through our library.

Next up: Design no-no’s. We’ll look at stuff that you’re positively, absolutely, not going to do as you struggle to design your own logo (even though the temptation may be great). These are the common mistakes that inexperienced designers (and do-it-yourselfers) often make, and are practically guaranteed to muck everything up.

Related posts:

1. Internet Marketing – 11 basic pointers…
2. 12 completely random logo design tips
3. Building a Brand – Some pointers

An important part of naming your company is how that name will impact, or be impacted by, your web address. If you’ve already established your company moniker, and registered a reflective domain, you can skip this part. You’re on good stead to move forward. If, on the other hand, you’re struggling to come up with a company name, the availability of a suitable domain address should be factored into your ‘chicken and the egg’ decision.

Domains registered on a daily basis numbers in the thousands, and there’s a pretty good chance that the perfect address for your company is already gone – either in use by someone else, or being held hostage by cyber-squatters , folks who’ll be more than happy to sell you this prime bit of internet real estate for tens, hundreds or even thousands of times more than what it should actually cost you. Not much you can do about it (unless you have prior-use of a trademark, then you may be able to force cyber-squatters to turn over the address).

When it comes to actually deciding your web address, here’s some things to keep in mind. It’s best if it matches your company name exactly. It should be as short as possible (yeah, I know, TheLogoFactory.com ain’t short) and as immune to misspelling as possible. If you hope to market your company using the internet, it’s probably best to have at least some descriptive keyword in the address. All of which might impact how you name your company in the first place.

Using our industry and domain as an example, here’s how this works. Having the term ‘logo’ in our web address helps us in logo design search engine listings. That our URL is missing the word ‘design’ doesn’t. A better alternative would be TheLogoDesignFactory.com – but then we’d be weakening our brand (or have to re-name our company). We’re stuck with the domain that we have, lackluster search engine performance be damned. Ultimately, our unbastardized brand name is more important that whatever SEO benefits we’d gain by changing it (though we do own the domain TheLogoDesignFactory.com, lest some smart ass decides to be clever).

Also, while it’s important, shoe-horning an SEO friendly word into a domain address shouldn’t be the primary factor. Might lead you to name your company something that, while performing well in search engines, will lessen the appeal of your brand itself. Take our market, logos, and some of the bizarre verbal gyrations people go through in order to get ‘logo’ into their domain, using available addresses, but with little thought of how the resultant name might influence customers when they arrive at the website. Some names are excellent, LogoWorks.com for example. Some not so good – LogoBanana.com, LogoJeez.com, LogoDog.com etc. While they may feature the word ‘logo’ in their web address – and probably born out of necessity (what ‘logo’ domains were available) – I’d suggest that any SEO benefits are outweighed by the lack of sophistication in the company name itself.

Without getting into who’s better at design than whom, I think that Logo Works has far more appeal than Logo Dog. Or Logo Jeez (sounds like the expression of frustration with a logo than a reputable studio). Someone’s even called themselves AAA-Logo, a name that might get them to the top of a page in the phone book, but certainly has little effect on SEO. More importantly, it doesn’t evoke an image of decent design services. Not that I’ve always been particularly clever at this web address aspect of company names. When we set-up shop as The Logo Factory (back in 1996), I bought the web address LogoFactory.com. A few months later, I realized that to be more accurate, the name needed to include ‘the’ in the URL, so I also registered the domain you’re now sitting on. When it came time for renewal, and in a classic case of penny-wise, pound foolish, I let the original web address go (figuring I’d save the $19 per year in domain fees) and it was quickly snapped up by some embroidery outfit in Florida. One of my less-than-clued decisions and and one I’ve regretted to this day. A few years later, the new owner offered to sell us the logofactory.com domain name for a princely sum of $14,000 (I turned it down). All to save nineteen bucks a year.

If the web address that matches your name is already taken, you can always opt for the .net, .org or even hyphenated version; My-Website.com vs. MyWebsite.com. Keep this in mind – folks are always more likely to type MyWebsite.com into their browser address window than a hyphenated version. Hyphenated versions are only effective if people are arriving at your website by clicking on a link from somewhere else.

Also, the .com version is the default domain extension of every single browser. Accordingly, you might end up driving traffic to the non-hyphenated version of your web address, and if that site belongs to someone in a similar business, giving away your potential clients. That’s not to say you can’t use a hyphenated version (I’d suggest that once you’ve obtained the absolute address – MyWebsite.com – it’s a worthwhile investment to purchase the hyphenated version as well, just to stop others from mowing your internet lawn) but it’s a second-best alternative.

A few years back, hyphenated names far outperformed others in Google searches and their was a rash of websites featuring “this keyword, hyphen, that keyword, dot com”. That benefit was tamped down by a Google algorithm update, and a lot of people were stuck with web addresses that nobody will be able to type into their address bars. Tossing an LLC or an INC. at the end of any web address isn’t really an effective option (though, due to the limited domains available, becoming more common). Most folks will never think of adding the extension into the address window of their browser, and you’ll end up sending your customers to the website that featured the name before you.

If your perfect company name is already taken as a web address, all is not lost and there’s still something you can do. Use creative spelling to develop a unique brand (developing a ‘fanciful’ name – something we discussed in our earlier types of trademarks post). Another example from our history – a few years back I wanted to develop an animation and web design division of The Logo Factory. Wanted to call it Pixel Works. Pretty neat name, obscure enough to be ‘trendy’, kept in line with the factory motif, and was memorable to boot. Trouble is, someone had already beaten us to the punch, the web site was gone, and mindful of the hyphen problems we’ve already discussed, I kicked around alternative names. Couldn’t come up with anything as suitable, so I developed an alternative spelling – Pixel Wurx, a name that invoked the original idea, but for which the web domain was available. When it came to designing the logo, I tossed in a few omlauts for added effect. As the words didn’t exist, the name was easy to trademark. It was memorable. And it was kinda cool. The wurx motif also allowed me to expand the brand if I needed – Flash Wurx, etc (though naming a company Logo Wurx may run afoul of the Utah based Logo Works‘ trademark of their name). Creative spelling can sometimes defeat the entire purpose of the exercise (there’s actually a website for logodsign.com for which I’d expect very few people to realize that the ‘e’ is missing in ‘design’), but it is a possibility when faced with a “I don’t have any other choice” decision.

Up next. Design your own logo – tips and pointers. In our continuing series, we’ll take a look at some basic design stuff to keep in mind before you hit the sketchbook.

Related posts:

1. Unintentionally funny website names…
2. Naming your company, product or service
3. Logo trademarks & company names

We left off the previous installment of our designing a logo series after discussing various aspects of naming a company. This time around, we’re going to discuss ways to protect your new company name. We’ll also touch on various trademark conventions that might influence your decision on developing a unique name in the first place (and conversely, why you shouldn’t copy from others during your brainstorming sessions).

When it comes to your new name – and the logo you’re going to develop for it – there are several types of intellectual property laws that we’ll need to have at least a passing acquaintance with. Trademarks (word & design) and Copyright. Each offers various levels of protection, and each has a unique role to play when it comes to naming your company, and designing a logo for that name. As no-one at the shop are practicing lawyers, this is to be considered a basic overview only – for legal advice you’ll still need to consult with someone bearing more official credentials (you can check out our trademark resources and copyright information for more extensive material).

Copyright

Literal translation of ‘right to copy’. Copyright protects developers of creative works such as books, articles, music, movies, photography and artwork from any unauthorized copying, reproduction or re-distribution of their work. Copyright protection is automatic (but can be registered with the government). In the context of logo design, copyright would protect any drawings, figures, and unique designs incorporated into the design. Copyright is not as absolute as trademark (artwork can be similar without infringement). You may have heard about the so-called Poor Man’s Copyright (sending artwork to yourself as registered mail and stashing it away, unopened, as proof of the creation date). Forget it – doesn’t work.

Trademarks

A literal extension of Marks of Trade. A TM protects the name or mark associated with the product or company to which they are attached and can be specific to the the type of activity being carried on (Apple Computers and Apple Auto Glass for example). The main test of trademark infringement (legally speaking) is whether or not a conflicting mark is going to confuse consumers (either by accident or design). A trademark can be a word (real or imagined), name, symbol, color or even sound that is claimed and used by a company to identify its identity or products and distinguish them from those offered by others. For all intents and purposes, a service mark is the same as a trademark but identifies a service. A trademark offers more protection than copyright (ie: even marks that are similar can be considered infringement) but the bar is set much higher for registration. More expensive too – filing a trademark registration usually involves the services of an attorney (but if you’re a persistent do-it-yourselfer it is possible to handle most of the process yourself) and time. A trademark can take up to a year to be granted, and costs (at the bare minimum) about $300 for the necessary paperwork.

When you boil all this legalese down to a ‘what does it really mean’ level, both copyright and trademarks are dictated (generally speaking) to who used what first. When we applied to trademark The Logo Factory back in 2000, we were first told that we wouldn’t be successful because a ‘similarly named’ entity had been using their trademark since 1998 (the name – using Branding instead of logo – was seen by the Trademark Office as being likely to ‘confuse consumers’ – an important benchmark as we’ve noted earlier). I was able to prove earlier use in 1996, and claim earlier use in 1993 – when I had first developed the name and concept. We were first – and could have challenged the other guys’ claim to whatever TM had already been awarded. All fine and dandy, but such challenges involve lots of suits (law and apparel), court time and legal paperwork. Tons of cash too. Eager to avoid a potentially expensive trademark battle, The Logo Factory and the other party agreed to peacefully coexist, and our TM application was granted in late 2000. Cost us a few bucks in legal fees though, so it’s always beneficial to do some homework before hanging out your new company shingle. Unique is always better. Just because you think your company name (or design) is unique enough doesn’t mean that others will agree. Witness the recent logo design flap between Apple & NYC where Apple (Computers) is claiming that the New York City GreeNYC environmental logos are likely to ‘confuse consumers’ (there it is again) with their apple-themed design. I’m willing to bet that no-one in the NYC design department saw that coming.

Types of Trademarks.

When it comes to developing a name for your company or product there are 4 main types of trademarks you should be aware of (there’s actually five, but the four we’ll discuss are the most practical and in the context of this article, trademarks that are easier to protect). I introduced these concepts as methods of naming a company in our previous piece, and here we’ll take a look at fanciful, arbitrary, suggestive and descriptive company names as they relate to trademarks.

Fanciful Trademarks

A fanciful trademark is a made-up name, created for the sole purpose of functioning as a trademark, and has little meaning other than the name of a company or product. Think Xerox, Verizon or Kodak as examples. Fanciful trademarks are considered the strongest trademarks and it’s very difficult for your competitors to claim they were accidentally influenced by (read ripped off) your name.

Arbitrary Trademarks

Arbitrary trademarks use words that have some very-real meaning, but when used in the context of a company name, don’t really offer any clues to what the company does, or what the product is (there might be some abstract, or creative way that the name does offer a description – Google, for examples, is an actual word that describes a really, really big number). An arbitrary mark may still be a strong trademark, unless a number of other companies have adopted similar names in other fields. A classic example of this would be the name Acme (from the greek word meaning the peak, zenith or prime) and used famously to identify the various companies that supplied Wile E. Coyote gizmos, used in the endless pursuit of his nemesis, the Roadrunner, during saturday morning Warner Brother cartoons.

Suggestive Trademarks

These type of trademark names might hint at some quality or character of the company or product represented without actually describing the product. If they’re available (ie: not in use by someone else) suggestive marks can be relatively easy to receive a trademark for. Trouble is, suggestive trademarks can be difficult to protect, as they come awfully close to descriptive trademarks, which run the risk of not being protectable at all. The Logo Factory is an example of a suggestive trademark. The Logo Design Studio would be an example of a similarly themed descriptive trademark, much more difficult to register, and difficult to protect if someone did manage to get a TM in the first place.

Descriptive Trademarks

These are names which describe, in absolute terms, a characteristic or quality of the company and/or products for which they are used. This is the least desirable of all tradenames – in fact, most descriptive TMs are generally considered unregistrable and unprotectable by most courts. In the internet age, many people are tempted – for search engine keyword density – to name their company in absolute terms. Athletic Shoe Sales for example, might offer some search engine advantage if you were to own the domain AthleticShoeSales.com. Unfortunately, it would be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to register the TM and avail yourself of trademark protection. Your competitors could quite literally use your name to further their business (not such a good idea, huh?). If you’ve come up with a company name that is absolutely descriptive in nature, time to hit the drawing board again.

Descriptive Trademarks

“Should I use a TM in our logo design?” is a question that comes up often during the logo design process at the shop. The answer is as follows. Yes. No. Maybe. If you have the rights to use a TM in a logo (ie: you’re laying claim to the trademark – either as a design like the Nike ‘swoosh’, or for the name – ie: the phrase Nike itself) then yes, adding a TM is probably worth while. Here’s where the maybe comes in. If you have a legitimate claim to the TM, you don’t have to put the little T & M beside your spiffy new logo to protect it. And while adding a TM to a logo indicates that you’re claiming trademark rights, it also might be interpreted that you haven’t been awarded them just yet. After all, if you’ve already registered the name and/or mark, your logo would feature an R in a circle (only permissible to use if you’ve officially registered with the government). That may get your competitors thinking that they can poach your TM turf. At The Logo Factory we generally left the TM off any publication of our design, until we had obtained official recognition, at which point we plastered the registered trademark symbol over everything we own.

And that’s about it for our look at trademarks and how they relate to your new company name. Granted, a little ‘dry’ but ultimately worthwhile stuff to keep in mind when asking yourself the basic question “what do I call my company?”

You’re probably chomping at the bit for the ‘how I design a logo’ stuff to begin, but I gotta hold off on that for a wee bit longer (we are calling this a definitive guide after all). We’ve got to cover just one more step in the naming process – and that’s how a website address may, or may not, affect your ultimate decision. We’ll cover domain and website names next time around.

Related posts:

1. Naming your company. Website & Domain names.
2. Naming a new company
3. Google catches heat for keyword trademarks

Shouldn’t be surprised really. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a fairly in-depth article addressing one of my pet peeves – are logo design contest sites legal – which garnered quite a lot of attention via blog and forum links. The majority of comments on the feature agreed with my basic (though admittedly non-lawyer) premise, that some logo design contest sites may be skirting applicable contest laws when it comes to the way they conduct their ‘business’. Others took offense, and I received quite a few e-mails informing me why my opinion was woefully out-to-lunch, and into which orifice I could insert it. Somehow I had missed the market-forces angle of the phenomenon, and was being a ‘cry-baby’ (among other things), whining about a natural development of the internet, the capitalist system, and the design industry itself. Like the dope that I am, I just wasn’t ‘getting it’ and like many outdated sages before me, should ‘evolve or die’ (one memorable quote).

It was if I had taken on a sacred cow, and the very freedom of the Western World (and a good chunk of the Eastern) were at stake. Many e-mails claimed that I was missing the point – that logo contests allowed small ‘mom and pop’ enterprises to get a great logo, selected from dozens of choices, while paying far less than the going rate. Fair enough I suppose. Could it be that I’m simply shortsighted? The eyes are going a little bit – the new bifocals will attest to that. At the end of the day, are there benefits to the ‘client’ of logo contest sites, and am I simply missing the entire point of the exercise? Some folks think so –

It’s true that 90 out of 100 logo entries are poor, but the client can eliminate the really bad ones. This is simply supply and demand working at its best. Not every business owner can afford to work with a professional designer and by holding a logo contest, the client can have hundreds of designs to choose from while staying on a small budget.

Wasn’t really up for a design contest debate, but not much else going on, so what the hey. Okay, so let’s take a look at this contest issue from a client’s point-of-view, keeping in mind the end goal of a logo contest – a decent mark that’s worthy of representing this or that company. A unique piece of graphic real estate that stands out in the crowd. Notice the emphasis on unique. On two contests running right now (on a high-profile design contest site), there’s an identical design (from the same designer) entered into both. Trouble is, that logo is a blatant knock-off of yet another design that won a different contest last week. Happens so often that designers are advised (in the Terms of Service) not to discuss these kind of issues ‘in the open’ – as it might make the site look ‘bad’ – but often ignore this ‘suggestion’ and get into very public skirmishes about who ‘copied’ who in the comment threads. This is frowned upon by site owners, for obvious reasons (and more often than not, the comments are quickly redacted by admins), but the process isn’t exactly as transparent as the site owners would have us believe.

Keep in mind that I found the examples I refer to within a few minutes of knocking around, and personal experience has shown me this happens all the time, on every contest site there is. We’ve even had unauthorized knock-off designs entered into logo contests (one actually won) before other entrants, and then the holder, discovered the origins of the design. Alas, when a design project is driven down to the Darwinesque ‘suppply and demand’ model that pro-contest folks seem so fond of – this stuff is bound to happen.

Entering the same design, in as many contests as possible (until it does win) is the only way that the system can work for designers – from a financial point-of-view anyway. Not so much for the ‘client’ who is being told that a logo design contest is a professional alternative – in some cases a superior one – to working with a designer or design firm one-on-one. The problem is that it isn’t.

People who are pro-contests talk about the number of designs made available – like some Bulk Barn of Logos – as if that is somehow germane to whether the system works or not. Or if it’s any factor in deciding what a good logo is worth. It isn’t – a large percentage of the logos presented are poor, rudimentary and some even include photographs pinched from other sources (the stuff of copyright and reproduction nightmares). Not that this should be any surprise – these are the kind of mistakes that one would expect of ‘newbie designers and hobbyists‘ (as designers are described by a logo contest site owner in the comment section of a related Graphic Push post). Boasting that someone can get 99 or so designs – when 95 of those designs are demonstrably poor – may be a great way to market to people’s greed, but it is NOT an effective way to develop a company logo. In simple terms, selecting the best of a bad batch is certainly not a sensible approach to anything that I’m aware of.

Regarding the contest model, there’s one very big problem that no-one’s seen fit to mention – the framework of the model itself – splattering design concepts all over a publicly available forum. Logo design projects generally happen behind closed doors, with only the final version being made public. There’s a very pragmatic reason for that – during any logo project, there’s a ton of preliminary designs, concepts, variants and derivative works, all of which are close to the final, but just different enough to be confusing in the copyright and/or trademark department. These ‘close but no cigar’ designs are socked safely away to avoid potential feuds about who owns what, and who had what first. Intellectual property basics really.

To keep ownership hassles down to a minimum, only the final version hits the public eye and only after certain protections – prior use, trademark registration and/or copyright ownership are in place. Steal that final design and it’s pretty cut-and-dry in the legal department. In a contest, people are free to steal preliminary designs, derivatives, slight variations – a virtual grab bag of logo concepts that would be ever-so-appealing to ethically challenged folks who’re not above partaking in the first place. These preliminary designs (as well as the final logo itself) are available on a public forum from the get-to, released into the ‘wild’ before any protections are in place, and before ‘prior use’ can be established. What’s to stop me stealing a derivative design, changing it slightly, establishing first use and then demanding that the contest holder not use their design because it’s too close to my newly registered logo? Ethics aside, nothing at all. This just can’t happen when a client works with an experienced designer or graphic design firm.

Often, many logos that are featured on logo design contest sites find their way into collections of template logos, either pinched outright, or sold by the designers themselves for a few bucks (ever wonder where logo template sites get a lot of their offerings? Shouldn’t surprise you to find out that it’s from logo design contests). Take a stroll through any of these contest – ‘designers’ aren’t terribly sure about what constitutes conflicting ownership in the first place. There’s tons of examples where designers – often at the request of ‘contest holders – pinch various design elements from other designers (often resulting in wails of protest in the comment threads – quickly nuked by site administrators, ever mindful of ‘looking bad’). As a result, who actually owns the various derivative designs becomes extremely muddy. As most of the designers (except for the ‘winner’) aren’t paid. they’d argue – with some validity – that as no-one actually paid them for their work, it’s theirs to do with what they see fit. And that’s exactly what the designer ‘guidelines’ say. Accordingly, no one has any idea where these derivative designs – (sometimes strikingly similar to the selected final version) will end up.

As I mentioned earlier, duplicate designs have a habit of showing up in multiple contests. Who’s held responsible when ownership goes awry? That’s not clear – the site owner’s TOS states that they’re not responsible for the behavior of their ‘designers’ – though as they’re also collecting a contest fee, I’d expect that “those guys are” isn’t worth the HTML it’s written in. They might not ‘want ‘ to be responsible, but if my experience in business is any measure, the minute you take a fee, you’re legally culpable to some degree. It’s like the nightclub coat check that insists they’re not responsible for your leather jacket after taking five bucks to look after it. They are. The ‘we’re not responsible’ sign stops 95% of people who’ve found their coats missing, from suing. Same goes for the car wash that just tore your windshield wipers off. They’ll pay to fix it, despite their claims to the contrary.

Logo contest sites could avoid all of this – if they cared one iota about their ‘clients’ or their ‘designers’ – by ‘locking out’ contests from public view and more importantly, search engines. They don’t, as the logo design search engine ‘hits’ they get from a mass of listings in Google are far more important than protecting their ‘clients’ or ‘designers’ properties. They hope that by finding the contest in a search engine, and seeing the myriad of designs offered up, more business owners can be convinced to host their own contest. It’s a never-ending spiral of limiting protections for ‘clients’, the ‘designers’ and the end product itself. These sites are designed for one thing, and one thing only. To collect the initial $39 contest ‘fee’ while actually doing as little as possible for it.

I understand why these ‘design crowdsourcing‘ entrepreneurs would set up these sites. What I don’t understand is why ‘designers’ play along, or why ‘clients’ – often completely overwhelmed by the process itself – would think that this is a good way to develop one of the most important investments their fledgling company will make. Their logo.

Not that I’m entirely sympathetic – the number of ‘closed’ contests – without a winner being chosen, or the ‘client’ being ‘disappointed’ – is staggering. Seems many take these sites’ advice about abandoning contests quite literally. One contest holder decided to close his/her contest (for a web interface) after receiving dozens of entries, because – and I’m not making this up – ‘I’ve changed my mind’. Here’s one comment that I snagged just before a recent contest had closed. Apparently the contest holder had made some PM requests that a contest entrant had found to be ethically challenged, and the designer had subsequently withdrew his entries. –

If it’s gonna be like that, fine. I’ll tweak your idea, and not pay you since you have withdrawn it. Do me a favor and don’t submit anymore designs, I don’t want to waste your time.

That’s right – the designer withdrew his entry but the contest holder was going to use it anyway. Without paying. You don’t have to take my word for it – root around these sites yourself. Read the comments. Check out the designs. Search for various keywords.

It’s all there out in the open. It just takes a little work to connect the dots.

Related posts:

1. Okay I’ll bite – Design contest debate
2. Design contest war breaks out.
3. The dirty little secret that most spec, design contest & crowdsourcing sites don’t want designers to know

Before I begin I should probably point out that I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the tee vee. Thus, my legal advice, and whatever opinions I offer, are worth exactly what you paid for them. Nada. Having said that, I’m of the opinion that logo design contests, not the cute effort where the local church asks the kiddies to design some artwork for the Sunday picnic, but these logo design contest sites popping up everywhere on the web, are skirting very close to the law, if not breaking it altogether. At least from what I understand about contest law and my admittedly limited experience with it. The design risks of these contests has been done to death. Any designer worth their salt knows that they’re bad for business. The opinion of the design community is well documented. But what if these sites are breaking a ton of laws, in jurisdictions all over the world, as well as running afoul of state and national lottery and gaming laws? A little far-fetched? I thought so at first, but after fairly intensive research, I’m beginning to think otherwise.

Should probably start with a little history as to that research got started and why I’d pursue this seemingly absurd line of thought. Was talking with a colleague this afternoon, and we were reminiscing about design gigs from days gone by. In one of those previous incarnations, I was a magazine art director and was often tasked to come up with new and zany ways to publicize our humble publication. One such promotion was a ‘Holiday in Maui’ contest – a four month marketing blitz during which we’d give away posters, T-shirts and magazine subscriptions culminating in the grand prize, a two week cruise and vacation in Hawaii, thrown in by one of our advertisers. The sponsor hoped to get a promotional buzz going on with their logo plastered over 6-page magazine spreads that advertised the contest. We hoped to pick up a few percentage points in newsstand sales and some additions to our subscriber list.

Was a great idea – everybody would win – but we were advised by the legal beagles to tread ever-so-lightly. As the contest would technically be held in various jurisdictions (the magazine was published in several international languages) we had to be aware of some pretty nit-picky laws about what we said, didn’t say and our overall intentions when it came to allocating prizes. We had to use the legalese “void were prohibited by law” on every single bit of propaganda and ignore entries that came from various locales. We had to hold prizes in escrow (holding a contest without giving away the ‘prize’ is fraud, and breaks several gaming and contest specific laws). We had to very clearly announce that “no purchase was required.” In some regions, charging people to enter contests opens up a Pandora’s Box of regulations, rules and provisos and redefines what the contest can be called and how it can be described. All told, setting up our contest cost thousands in legal fees, and our ‘terms and conditions’ pages took up 1/3 of the advertising space, even when typeset in 8pt helvetica condensed type. Bottom line, because we were holding a ‘contest’ and giving away ‘prizes’, we needed to obey a wide-range of state and national consumer and gaming laws, all of which were set up to protect contest entrants from shady practices, unfair dispersement of awards, and to ensure that – once the contest had concluded – entrants were awarded what we had promised in the first place. Would not the same types of laws apply to companies marketing their services as ‘logo design contests’? As mentioned earlier, I’m not a lawyer, but I think they just might.

The concept of these outfits is quite simple. Customers (sponsors) pay the site owner to have their fabulous logo design contest listed. Designers (the entrants) work up design concepts and enter their logo artwork in order to ‘win’ a prize (the money offered by the sponsor). Despite all their lofty verbiage, sure sounds like a typical run-of-the-mill contest to me. But what type of contest? I would assume that your average logo contest site offerings would fall under the ‘skill testing‘ category (an important distinction, as we’ll discover later). Turns out there are very important laws regarding running a contest of any kind, in this case a ‘skill-testing’ contest, and there’s some hefty demands (varied by location) regarding the content and subsequent publication of said rules and regulations. Among a lengthy list of recommendations found on their site, the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) offers a list of disclosures that are required under US law, including; The number of rounds or levels of the contest, the maximum cost to enter all rounds, the method used in judging (we’ll see later that “cause we like it” ain’t good enough) and the date prizes will be awarded (I’ve seen logo contest deadlines extended by months to squeak in more entries from hapless designers). Many will carp that these are only ‘little’ design contests, hurting no-one. US-based cyber lawyer and internet specialist Parry Atfab has this to say about contests on the internet, regardless of the size -

“Most web operators don’t realize that there are laws that apply to even the most innocuous contest – and that, because of the reach of the Internet, they must comply with all the myriad contest laws in the world. Because that’s far too cumbersome to deal with, the first thing web operators should know is to limit their contests to the United States. So now there are only 50 different sets of laws to deal with. And the contest has to comply with all of them – or make clear that residents of a particular state are not eligible to participate.”

Now, that doesn’t square with any logo design contest site that I know of. Some states even require that companies offering prizes worth (in aggregate) over $5000 need to register the contest and post a bond for the prize amount. One of the newer logo contest sites proudly boasts on the footer of their home page that the amount of “prize money up for grabs” is in the tens of thousands. Wouldn’t that qualify them for registration and the posting of prize money bonds? In some jurisdictions, and where applicable, I’d think yes.

Also, most state and federal laws require that contests “must have a closing date, and the distribution of prizes to the winners must be carried out in a timely fashion, without any undue delays.” On another of these logo sites, contest sponsors are actually advised that they can ‘abandon’ the contest if they like (thus, the ‘prize’ is never paid out) but probably shouldn’t, because the the entrant designers’ feelings might get hurt. I’d assume abandoning an advertised ‘contest’ and not paying any prize money to entrants is a lot more legally provocative than just hurting someone’s feelings. I’d also expect that it would be the site owner, not the sponsor, who’s on the hook for the prize money and whatever legal fallout there might be. In any case, there are legal protections for the awarding of prizes after a contest has run its course. These sites seem to believe that it’s the designers’ tough luck when the sponsor walks with the prize money without selecting a winner, but I’m willing to bet that contest and gaming laws state otherwise. There has to be a winner. The advertised prize has to be awarded. See, that’s the point of a contest and why there are laws about running one.

Major sites and corporations aren’t immune to the plethora of laws either. Craft sales site Etsy tried to have a rather simple sweepstakes giveaway recently and found the process rather daunting -

“Contest law is very complicated due to, for example, lottery laws, gaming and gambling laws, consumer laws, trading laws, and tax laws. And to make things even more complex, contest law varies from state to state and from country to country. In fact, depending on the contest, certain states require the posting of a bond.”

When they contacted their lawyers, Etsy staffers were told that in order to hold an international contest (logo design contest sites boast about their international cadre of designers), they’d have to consult a licensed attorney who is a specialist in contest law “for each and every country eligible for the contest.” In many cases, the contest rules would need to be translated into the various languages by certified lawyers in the applicable country. In the end, Etsy gave up, opting for a contest that was ‘open to US residents only’ and slapping ‘void were prohibited by law’ all over place.

Then, there’s the issues of chance, skill and the requirement of payment to enter. Generally speaking, contests of chance can fall under lottery laws (that’s why many contests require the answer of a ‘skill testing question’ to get around this restriction). Logo design contests, as mentioned earlier, might qualify as a skill-testing contest (though such contests require a clear definition of who’s doing the judging, the procedure and the rules). Surely that should be cut-and-dry? Maybe. Maybe not. Tech Firm has an excellent look at internet contests, and weigh in on what constitutes ‘judging’ , appropriately when it comes to creative work – -

“The bad news is, if you fail to provide objective criteria for picking a winner, your game of skill could degrade into a game of chance. Therefore, be sure your rules are clear and describe the objective criteria for picking a winner, whether you run an objective trivia contest or a subjective essay contest.”

Office.com has a little more on what constitutes ‘judging’ -

“Judges should apply objective criteria, which bear a reasonable relation to the contest, when evaluating the entrants. Contestants should be advised of the standards of comparison that will be applied by the judges – not that the “best” entry will win. For example, acceptable criteria for an essay contest might be: appropriateness (25 percent); creativity (40 percent); clarity (25 percent); and sincerity (10 percent).”

Once again, this is nothing like any logo design contest site that I’ve poked around on -’I like that logo’, the usual barometer wouldn’t seem to cut it. Nor would ‘wow, that groovy icon is the best’. Further, as every logo design contest on these sites has a different prize, as well as arguably different judging criteria, shouldn’t every single contest feature its own unique set of terms and conditions? I’ve also seen ‘ties’ on logo design contests, where ‘winners’ split the ‘prize’ or the winner is determined by a ‘draw’. Apparently that’s a no-no too. In many jurisdictions, ‘skill-testing’ contests that end in a tie must pay both winners duplicate prizes. Any other method might turn the contest into a sweepstakes type contest where the outcome is determined by chance. And if your contest is judged as being one of chance, then any payment for entry will constitute a lottery. And that, my dear friends, falls under gambling and lottery laws – a much more serious kettle of fish. Many logo design contests seem to be free for designers to enter, but even that may not be cut and dry -

Besides making certain that you don’t charge a fee to enter, you’ll need to ensure that no purchase of your goods or services is required to win. But the problem is, some state courts might conclude that even though you didn’t charge a dime to enter, your Web contest still wasn’t “free.”

In some jurisdictions, simply requiring someone to register on a website can meet the threshold of paid entry. Some contest sites even charge entrants a ‘membership’ fee. Most contest laws require that the judging criteria, number of ‘entries allowed‘ and ‘maximum number of rounds‘ be stated beforehand, as part of the published contest rules, not as the contest progresses or as the sponsor sees fit. Accordingly, I’d imagine submitting multiple logos and variations at different times as requested by the sponsors could even be looked upon as ‘consideration’ – legalese for payment. And payment can represent illegal wagering. In some states the mandatory ‘purchase’ itself is a violation of the law. Etc. Rummaging through these legally complex factors would determine what laws apply to a contest, as well as the obligations that the contest would have to meet in order to remain legal. And as the contests are internet-based, in a mess of jurisdictions than span the globe.

While I’m not sure if the methods logo design contest sites employ are completely illegal or not (hence the question mark at the end of the title), I’m reasonably sure that many of these sites are skirting contest and gaming laws, especially when it comes to their rules, regulations and their payment of advertised prize money. If nothing else, I’d think they’re on murky legal territory and judging by most of their TOS, aren’t too acquainted with anyone in the legal profession in their own backyard, let alone around the globe. Contest rules on logo design contest sites are positively spartan compared to the typical rules required for other contests. Everyone else has to pay excruciating detail to state and national level contest laws and gaming restrictions. Why shouldn’t logo design contest sites? They want to be treated as professional design ‘alternatives’? Fair enough. Following laws and regulations is part and parcel of being a professional, and especially if you arrange a legion of contests as part of your business promotion. As we’ve seen, the laws regarding contests, on and off the internet, are complex, varied and difficult to navigate – even for the biggest companies – and I’m willing to bet that most logo design sites haven’t even thought about most of these issues. I’m thinking it’s time they should.

As usual, this post is open for comments and I’d especially like to hear from anyone with experience in these areas. Unfortunately, my legal knowledge only goes as deep as can be expected with a few hours on Google and a couple of pots of coffee.

Related posts:

1. Children designers on design contest & crowdsourcing sites?
2. Numbers – The ever-shifting realities of crowdsourcing and design contest sites.
3. The dirty little secret that most spec, design contest & crowdsourcing sites don’t want designers to know