The Logo Factor Design Blog » Industry news

3D 2016 Rio Paralympic games logo

Steve Douglas — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:50:09 +0000

Thought this was kinda cool and worth a mention.

The 2016 Paralympic Games held in Rio, Brazil debuts its multi-sensory logo created by Tátil, a Brazilian design agency. The innovative logo is designed in full 3D, offering accessibility to everyone, regardless of a disability. Referencing the traditional olympic brand, the team devised an off-balance human heart formed from an infinity sign.

Nice little video too:

Rio 2016 Multisensory Paralympic Brand from Tátil Design de Ideias on Vimeo.

HP shutting down Logoworks

Steve Douglas — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:00:30 +0000

After ten years of selling logo design services, Utah-based Logoworks announces that it’s closing up shop.

Arguably one of the first crowdsourcing design sites, and since its inception in 2011, Logoworks was one of the top-ranked and successful logo design websites of the internet era. Purchased a few years back by Hewlett Packard for a princely sum (rumored to be in the neighborhood of $9 million) Logoworks was undeniably one of the largest purveyors of internet-driven logo design sales, so this announcement, posted on the Logoworks’ home page comes as a little bit of a surprise –

Dear Valued Logoworks Customers,

Recently HP has made a strategic decision to focus its web resources on non-design related projects. As a result, Logoworks will no longer be taking on new projects. If you have a design project in process, we will continue to work with you until you receive a logo or website that you love. You can continue to log-in and review your project using the link above.

We want to thank the tens of thousands of customers who have worked with us over the past ten years. In that time we worked on more than 200,000 different logo, website, and other design projects.

We also want to extend our thanks to our partners, affiliates, and suppliers who helped us grow and become the world’s premier online design agency.

Most of all we want to thank the many designers, account managers, and developers who created so much outstanding work—winning recognition from AIGA, Communication Arts, and other industry notables. We couldn’t have done anything without these incredibly talented people.

We anticipate that Logoworks.com will remain online until approximately March 31, 2012, so that you can access all of your design files. If you haven’t already, we recommend that you download any files you may need before that date.

If you need a new logo for your business or product, you can check out the free logo design tool at Logomaker.com where you can create and download a logo in 15 minutes or less.

The past ten years has been a tremendous experience for all of us, and we are grateful to have had the chance to work closely with so many small business owners. We wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors.

Sincerely,
The Logoworks Team

Whether this is indicative of larger forces at work in the logo design niche, or simply Hewlett Packard ditching services outside their core is anyone’s guess.

More logo design plagiarism controversy

Steve Douglas — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:09:20 +0000

Amid claims of plagiarism, Thailand has stopped using its logo for the World Expo 2020 bid.

Yet another logo. Yet another controversy. This time, it’s the design for Thailand’s 2020 World Expo bid which has been dropped, at least for the time being, amid claims that it’s a knock-off from the design currently used by Brasil Telecom. According to the Bangkok Post, “The Thailand Convention & Exhibition Bureau (TCEB), which will represent Thailand in proposing a formal bid for hosting the expo in Ayutthaya in 2020, has launched an investigation into the case and will meet with the logo and mascot selection committee tomorrow to discuss the matter.”

The logo flap doesn’t leave event organizers with much time, as a new design (if required) will have to be selected by next month. Course, the fact that the Expo logo was the winner of a design contest may be of interest to people opposed to logo design contests in general and more anti-crowdsourcing grist for the mill.

Personally, I don’t think the logo is enough of a knock-off to harp about, the similarity is but an unhappy coincidence and yet another example of how difficult it’s becoming to design logos that haven’t been dreamt up before. Your thoughts?

Update: The logo has now been changed.

99designs rakes in $35 million in venture capital

Steve Douglas — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:42:00 +0000

Guess it’s time to roll out the Borg graphic again, because according to Techcrunch, Facebook and Forbes backers Accel Partners has ponied up $35 million to invest in spec work and design contest site 99designs. That’s a healthy chunk of change (and props to 99designs’ founders for pulling it off) but with the money intended for ‘sales and marketing’, who knows how this will play out in the upcoming months and years.

Reaction on Twitter was swift and furious this afternoon, with business types applauding the move while designers gnashed their teeth about yet another harbinger of doom for the design industry. I’m reminded of a few years ago when Hewlett Packard bought over Logoworks (for $8 – $11 million if I recall) and designers around the globe freaked out then too, likewise thinking the end was nigh. Same goes for this 99designs deal (fingers crossed).

Though if 99designs really believed in their business model, maybe they should have taken the money from dozens of venture capitalists, but only handed the keys to the one they liked the best. And as long as we have logo design review sites to keep ‘em honest, it’s all good.

A $700,000 update

Steve Douglas — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:15:30 +0000

Anyone remember the curious case of Jon Engle vs. Stockart from a few years back? What turned out to be an anti-spec work parable has become even more so, with an initial $660,000 judgment against the hapless designer.

Many of you will remember the weird tale of Jon Engle and Stockart LLC. For those who don’t, you can read the entire sordid tale here and here. For those who can’t be bothered to trudge through those two rather long-winded posts, let me recap. In April 2009, a young designer twattered that he was being sued for $18,000 by Stockart LLC (an illustration licensing company) and Art Laws (a legal firm specializing in copyright law). Engle claimed that not only was he being sued, but that the original work belonged to him, and that he was, in fact, being sued over his own work. Twitter reaction was fast and furious, with designer after designer retweeting his claim and asking for help. In what became the first Twitterstorm I’m aware of, both Stockart and Art Laws came under heavy fire from the growing internet mob. Death threats were sent, sites were hacked, legal defense funds were launched, savejon hash tags trended on Twitter and general mayhem ensued as designers rallied around one of their own. It was the stuff internet legends are made of.

The other side of the story

While everyone was losing their collective minds, I decided to reach out to Art Laws and try and get their side of the story. What they told me was an entirely different ball o’ wax. They claimed that a) Engle wasn’t being sued (they had simply billed him for work he had purloined – 68 images or so that were entered into various logo design contests (that’s the spec bit) b) they never contacted all of Engle’s clients as he had claimed, and c) all the work belonged to artists represented by Stockart. The further I looked into the story, Art Laws side of things seemed to be the only one that made a lick of sense. The owner of Stockart remained professionally calm throughout the entire affair, telling us only that the issue would be decided in a court of law, as opposed to the court of public opinion. And thus, this update.

The judgment

Turns out Stockart did take Engle to court (Stockart.com, LLC v. Jonathan Engle, 10-cv-00588-MSK-MEH (United States District Court for The District of Colorado), and won (in an initial ruling) a judgment against him for just shy of seven-hundred grand. Nope. That’s not a typo. Seven hundred thousand dollars. The amount (to be approved by a higher judge) includes copyright infringement, libel, legal fees – the works. That’s a lot of cash for knocking off some internet images and entering them into a couple of logo design contests. I talked with Art Laws attorney Jamie Silverberg this morning and he give me the brass tacks – I’ll update this post when more details are shot my way.

Takeaway

So what have we learned, using poor old Jon Engle as an example? I think the message of my original post still stands – it’s best to dig a little deeper before grabbing the pitchforks and torches and pillorying some poor sod on the internet, whether it be via FaceBook, Twitter or blog posts. If you perform a Stockart LLC search on Google today – almost two years after the event – you’ll still pull up blog posts outlining how they were beating up on Engle. Sure, some posted retractions and corrections (with links to this blog), but the unfair damage was already done. Besides, retractions never get the same traction as the original outrage. I also think the almost $700,000 judgment should serve as a pretty graphic warning against knocking anything off, even if it’s only to enter some lowly logo design contest. This is serious, serious shit. Naturally, clients should take heed here too – keep in mind that some of the images Engle apparently knocked off, won the contests they were entered into.

That’s a pretty messy position to be put in.

The dirty little secret that most spec, design contest & crowdsourcing sites don’t want designers to know

Steve Douglas — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:45:37 +0000

How design contest and crowdsourcing sites refund and guarantee policies protect their service charges while the risk and exposure of unpaid designers, working on spec, is almost 100% whether contests are ‘guaranteed’ or not.

We’ll begin this post with a simple question. What do spec, design contest and crowdsourcing sites sell? Logo design? Uh-uh. Web design? Not that either. Graphic design of any type? Nope. Most design contest sites sell contest listings. That’s it. Contest listings. That little nugget can be found in most of the ‘Terms & Conditions’ of most design contest sites. When it comes to prizes, awards or whatever else you want to call them, designers are completely, and utterly, on their own. Regardless of what designers are promised about contests being ‘guaranteed’ and regardless of how many entries, revisions and edits are pitched, And it all involves credit cards. And something called a charge back. And while contest sites are practically guaranteed their ‘listing fees’, participating designers are at the total whim of contest holders. You thought you had a slim chance of winning before? You have no idea.

The 100% Guarantee

Placing the words ’100% Guarantee’ in a starburst is one of the most powerful callouts a company, particularly a web-based one, can out on their site. All fair enough, I suppose, when dealing with widgets and trinkets and a seemingly simple concept. You don’t like the product, or it’s defective, return it to the vendor and get your money back. The rejected product is put back on the shelves for sale to someone else (or returned to the manufacturer). Marketing 101. Other than a few shipping charges here and there (often subtracted from the 100% guarantee) nobody’s out. When it comes to design and artwork, it’s a little more difficult to offer a 100% guarantee, especially based on some nebulous terms such as ‘like’ and ‘satisfaction’. Design is completely objective, so unless things are completely out-of-whack, a company name misspelled for example, there is no right or wrong. Design is a service, not a product, and if performed ethically requires a time investment that cannot be recouped.

How design contest & ‘crowdsourcing’ sites can do it

The only reason that design contest and ‘crowdsourcing’ sites can offer a 100% guarantee is because none of the participating designers, save the winner if selected, are getting paid a thin dime. If a project tanks, the host site isn’t out anything significant at their end, as the time investment is shouldered completely by participating designers, working on spec. Obviously, this is a system that’s ripe for abuse. Want to get some free ideas for a new logo? Launch a design contests, right-click- save the images then ask for your money back. Have an idea for a company that’s not been fleshed out just yet? Launch a web design or naming contest, and when you decide that the company idea isn’t so swell after all, cancel it, and get a refund. Notwithstanding the fact that dozens, or even hundreds, of designers wasted their time helping develop marketing material for a now-abandoned pipe dream. It’s a system that favors the contest holder almost exclusively.

Cynical word juggling to placate designers

When contest sites first started a few years ago, most of them operated on a ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed – Pay On Win’ concept. The contest holder was left to voluntarily submit payment to the winning designer via their own account at Pay Pal or Western Union. Like most things that are open to abuse, this one was abused heavily and it wasn’t long before designers began to get hip to the fact they were being screwed. Contest sites were presented with an issue. How to maintain the 100% guarantee starbursts and graphic callouts while still placating designers who were hesitant to enter contests where there was no guarantee for them. That begat the ‘Pre Paid’ contest, when rather than voluntarily submitting payment directly to the winning designer, the contest holder submits a payment with their contest submission to the host site, where it’s held, supposedly in ‘escrow’ until contest close. The contest holder could still walk, but the theory went that if they plunked down some cash, they were at least committed, on some level anyway, to see the project through to its conclusion. The number of contest holders walking, leaving participant designers holding the bag, was still high, and whatever safety they felt, frittered away. That begat the ‘Guaranteed Contest’ (or project) where the winner’s fee was supposedly ‘guaranteed’, and if the contest holder walked, the host site would pick a winner for them. And award the prize money, taken from the ‘guaranteed’ funds paid back at the beginning (less their cut of course). Some sites featured performance clauses – receive a minimum of X number of proposals and you can’t get your money back – and designers believed that someone, anyone, would get selected even if the contest holder took a powder. It was a lovely theory. In practice, not so much. Turns out most ‘guaranteed’ contests aren’t ‘guaranteed’ at all. Usually, the contest holder can still get a refund, regardless of whatever ‘guarantees’ the host sites are giving to designers. And rather than pay designers out of their own bank accounts, most contest sites shrug it off, telling participating designers a variation of “sorry about that”.

The credit chard chargeback

All of this involves something known as a credit card chargeback. That’s when a credit card holder disputes a charge on his or her bill, usually a charge that doesn’t involve a physical signature, and almost always involves an online sale. Having been involved with online logo billing since 1996, I’ve watched the evolution of credit card sales for over a decade, and over The Logo Factory‘s history, have been privy to almost every wrinkle and scenario imaginable. When ecommerce first began, online vendors were completely at the mercy of credit card holders. The bottom line was this – no charge slip with a card holder’s signature – the card holder could reverse any charge. Called a chargeback, this is when the person who owns the card claims they didn’t make a purchase on their bill, or that the company who charged their card didn’t perform the service, or deliver the product as promised. It didn’t matter if the service was provided. Or the product delivered. If the credit card company’s customer disputed the charge – and there was no point-of-sale slip with a signature – the CC company sided with their customer each and every time. And the money was unceremoniously yanked out of the vendor’s account.

Several years ago, credit card companies started lightening up on this absolutist policy. Online commerce accounts for trillions of dollars, and credit card companies wanted their piece. They don’t only make on purchaser interest rates and service charges, they also make from the merchants themselves. Processing and access fees. It is very big money. By making credit card sales so precarious for merchants, credit card companies risked losing large amounts of money. In order to encourage legitimate online companies, while still keeping a tight leash on the hucksters and fraudsters, credit card companies started listening to merchants and offering a little bit of protection. It’s a complicated formula, but the bottom line is that if an online merchant can prove they did what they said they’d do, what the credit card holder paid for, and they had a decent set of terms and conditions, then they’d at least listen to the merchant.

Chargebacks aren’t as arbitrary as they used to be, and it the credit card company sides with the merchant, they’ll refuse to allow the chargeback to go through. The money is released back to the seller, and the charge appears on the holders bill once again. Generally speaking, it’s not as easy to jam an online merchant over bogus chargebacks as it once was. This little back story is relevant to design contest and crowdsourcing sites, because that’s how most consumer level spec sites collect their money.

Proof of the purchase

When it comes to many design contest sites, the contest listing is a separate charge to the fee that the contest holder pays to participating designers. The listing fee is separate because it’s the only tangible item the contest site can prove to the credit card companies. If someone tries to chargeback the ‘listing fee’, all the spec site has to do is prove that the listing actually occurred. Of course it occurred. The project details are still on the server. The listing can still be found in the ‘browse contests’ area of the site. Credit card holder paid for the listing. Listing was placed on site. The terms and conditions are iron clad. No charge back. Some sites now offer listing ‘add-ons’. ‘enhancements’ and ‘up sells’ that are supposed to make contests more notable on a page with lots of other listings. Bold borders. Larger titles. Screened backgrounds. Little icons. Each are small enough to appeal to the most frugal. $5.00 for a bold border. $10.00 for a featured listing. By the time the up sell is finished, a $39.00 listing fee can become as $60.00, $70.00, $100.00 or more. And the same chargeback principle applies. You paid $30 for enhanced listing? There it is. You paid $5.00 for a bold border. There’s the bold type. I would imagine that listing fees are pretty well bullet-proof in the chargeback department. The contest site is practically guaranteed their ‘listing payment’, regardless of how the contest pans out for the designers participating.

Contest fees and designer ‘prizes’

When it comes to prizes paid to designers, things get a lot more nebulous. What are credit card holders paying for when they launch a contest? A logo? A website? A company name? The terms and conditions of most contest and crowdsourcing sites are so nondescript as to what contest holders are actually buying, it’s extremely difficult to define. When you add words like ‘to your satisfaction’, and ‘like’ to terms and conditions, it’s no longer clear what the contest fee actually pays for. When it comes to a lack of clarity, credit card companies side, almost completely, with their client, the card holder. As they should. Do you actually believe that VISA or MasterCard representatives are going to read terms and conditions that are 5 or 6 monitors deep, most of which deals with how designers uploading work onto the host server are not employees, and the contest site isn’t responsible for their actions? Not likely. Judging by the number of ‘guaranteed’ contests that ened up in cancellation, and the number of contests that flitter away without a winner ever being selected, the number of chargebacks, or refunds, must be extraordinary.

And even if the refund is requested, because someone’s not happy with a contest, they’re likely to accept a $70 listing fee. A $1,000 charge for designs they don’t like? Hardly. Most design contest sites have no teeth when it comes to enforcing whatever ‘guarantee to designers’ they try to set up. Regardless of how well-intentioned they may be.

The guaranteed contest that isn’t

Here’s the fine print of one logo design contest site under a subsection that deals with “Other circumstances in which a refund may be paid”:

“…in (the contest site’s) sole opinion, (the contest site) considers that it is likely that the refund is necessary to avoid a credit card charge back.”

Let me translate. If a contest holder so much as hints at a chargeback, we’ll refund their contest fee to avoid the, hassle, service fees or both. Whether the contest is “guaranteed’ or not. Another cuts right to the chase:

“The contest listing fees of $19 and all additional services fess (sic) are NON Refundable in any case.

The caps lock is theirs. The additional service fees are upsells for “promoting contests” (isn’t that what the original nineteen bucks covers?), making a contest “private”, etc. By front-loading as many charges into the contest listing fees, which the majority of contest sites are doing, the host site makes sure they gets as much money into safe territory as possible, while the actual contest money, where the ‘award’ to the designer comes from, is pretty well open-season. Kinda gives you the warm and fuzzies about how far the guardians of these ‘design communities’ will go to protect the members of that ‘community’, huh?

Turns out, it ain’t very far at all

Dispatches from the crowdsourcing front

Steve Douglas — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:01:34 +0000

AIGA takes on Seattle music festival Bumbershoot, the crowdsourcing secrets ‘They’ are keeping from you (according to Mycroburst anyway) and an attempt to rebrand crowdsourcing itself by 99designs and Genius Rocket.

Previously, and every year, Seattle’s famous music festival Bumbershoot, has contracted a local designer, or design firm, to come up with the creatives for advertising and promotional goodies. From what I’ve seen, some of the stuff from previous incarnations was pretty sweet too (right). This year, supposedly to celebrate the festival’s 40th anniversary, officials decided to hold a logo design contest to develop a more permanent fixture that can be used in upcoming years as well. The winner of chosen logo won’t pick up any loot for their creative efforts, but will receive a VIP pass to this years event, scheduled for September. The reaction? Yep. Anti spec work freakout, with bunch of carping on Twitter, and dozens of negative comments on the Bumbershoot blog post that announced the gig. Interestingly, the Seattle chapter of the AIGA has come out pretty publicly on this one, and uncharacteristically prickly as this article on the Seattle Weekly website will attest to. In it, AIGA chapter president Jeff Barlow warned that “if Bumbershoot does go through with the contest, there will be a firestorm of negative reaction.” Pretty strong words that. Apparently, Bumbershoot officials are willing to talk things over with local designers and what not, but aren’t expected to back down on holding the contest. Alright lads, cue up the firestorm.

Update:

After discussions with board members of the Seattle chapter of the AIGA, Bumbershoot organizers have abandoned the logo contest referred to in this post, or at least altered it greatly. More here. Guess we can save the firestorm for a later time.

The other night I received a Twatter from a nice chap in Karachi, offering to reveal the “5 Things they Don’t want You to Know about Crowdsourcing“. DIdn’t know who this helpful lad was. Or who ‘They‘ were. Or why ‘They’ would keep such important crowdsourcing knowledge from me. Apparently he had been very helpful, practically a Twitter spree of helpfulness, hitting up a lot of designers with the same message. Lots and lots and lots of designers, many of whom I recognized as being vocal critics of spec work and design contests at one time or another. He wasn’t the only kind soul either. The link they had so thoughtfully provided led to a Mycroburst blog post that did indeed offer to tell us the “Five Things they Don’t want You to Know about Crowdsourcing”. Trouble is, according to the weirdly confrontational ramble, I would be one of the “They, ” ie: a critic of design crowdsourcing, and apparently one of the people keeping people from knowing the five pearls of goodness that is spec work. Who or what is Mycroburst? Why, it’s another ‘me-too’ logo design contest site, operated by the same organization as Logo Design Guru and the nice people we met in last week’s Dear Nora brouhaha. Though, if I could offer just one suggestion to the folks at Mycroburst? You should make it “Six Things they Don’t want You to Know about Crowdsourcing”, the sixth being established crowdsourcing sites don’t like the name no more, because of sites like yours using it. To whit:

Despite the ‘democratization of design’ and ‘leveling the playing field’ tub-thumping, apparently there’s some snootiness breaking out in design contest site circles. A couple of early arrivals to the scene, 99designs and Genius Rocket, have decided that they don’t like the name crowdsourcing any more. Too crowded, doesn’t fit and it “doesn’t distinguish (them) from all the others in the crowdsourcing space.” Which might be seen as a tad elitist, and all kinds of extraordinary, considering the effort they went to, trying to get themselves called just that. They’ve even launched this exercise in cognitive dissonance, a website entitled Project: Rename Crowdsourcing (above left), which asks people to come up with an alternative name, for the chance of winning a thousand bucks for doing so. Oddly, and while I’m often behind the curve on most stuff, looks like I was a little prophetic on this one. Just last week I had written a piece that opined that design contest sites were conflating a couple of concepts in order to market their services under the crowdsourcing banner and even offered up an alternative name, crowdspecking, to more accurately describe what’s what.

They can use that for free

London Olympic Mascots

Steve Douglas — Fri, 21 May 2010 16:47:55 +0000

The London Olympic Games organizing committee unveiled their new mascots Wenlock and Mandeville Wednesday. Kiddies loved them, adults scratched their heads and the interwebs went nuts. Again.

In this era of internet freakouts and Twitter Storms, seems there’s not a brand related rollout that doesn’t ignite one. Especially when it comes to Olympic branding rollouts. Particularly when it comes to the 2012 London version. Continuing with that trend, the internet was awash with criticism and derision, shortly after the London 2012 mascots were introduced Wednesday. The mascot flap seems to be continuing the pattern started by the 2012 London Olympics logo unveiling, which ignited it’s own internet firestorm almost three years ago. When the graffiti-like brand (designed by Wolff Olins at a reported cost of £400,000) was introduced, the design was derided by anyone with an internet connection. Organizers argued that the logo was “supremely adaptable and perfect for the digital age.” Fair enough. Though their case wasn’t helped when it was discovered that an introductory animation, supposed to explain how brilliant everything was, had the potential to trigger epileptic seizures. Schadenfreude aplenty that design blogs had a field day with. But back to the London Olympic mascots, that in my humble opinion, owe a little to B.O.B. from Monsters vs. Aliens (left above) or Kang and Kodos, two alien characers from The Simpsons (sorry, couldn’t help myself).

Still stinging over the shellacking they took over the event brand price tag of 400 grand (though that wasn’t just the logo itself) organizers were hesitant to give an exact figure on the development cost of Wenlock and Mandeville by London-based design agency Iris, saying only that it was “a few thousand pounds” with large parts of the work being done “in house” and with the assistance of corporate sponsors.

Olympic symbolism

The design and accoutrements of the mascots aren’t arbitrary, but chock full of symbolism. Mandeville features a London taxi light, and Wenlock sports Olympic rings for bracelets. The name Wenlock comes from the town of Much Wenlock, supposedly where Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the Olympics, first thought about modernizing The Games.

Stoke Mandeville is the hospital that inspired the Paralympics games. The odd characters are from a children’s story by Michael Morpurgo, called Out of a Rainbow, which tells how they were crafted from bits of steel from an Olympic Stadium, and brought to life by the beams of a rainbow (the colors of the Olympic rings). Typical Olympic mascot stuff. Also typical was the criticism of the mascots, which was fast, furious and plentiful.

According to the online edition of The Telegraph, Stephen Bayley, a prominent design critic, is on record as saying:

“What is it about these Games which seems to drive the organisers into the embrace of this kind of patronizing, cretinous infantilism? Why can’t we have something that makes us sing with pride, instead of these appalling computerized Smurfs for the iPhone generation?”

Aaron Shields, a partner at the design agency BrandInstict, had this to say:

“I don’t think people are going to relate to these very modern creations. The first rule of mascot creation is to make something familiar and accessible, not something alien. This is just going to be seen as another disappointment coming out of the Olympic games.”

Design and graphic blogs were less diplomatic, referring to “backwards assless chaps” worn by one of the characters, and a ‘huge package’ that one of the characters seemed to sport. Others opined that the characters were some sort of bizarre reincarnation of the Teletubbies.

Ad Age published a piece that outlined how folks on Twitter had reacted with horror. The comments posted there weren’t much kinder either. A quick poll found that only half of marketing professionals quizzed even liked the new characters, with 22% describing them as ‘dreadful’, 12% saying they were ‘very poor. On the plus side, 16% opined that the mascots were ‘very good’ and 8% gave them a thumbs-up ‘Excellent’ rating. Well, you get the idea.

Canada gets the last laugh?

Meanwhile, Canadian Winter Olympic fans, obviously still smarting over the criticism the Vancouver Winter Games received in the UK press, had a field day mocking the London mascots, comparing them to the furry critters that represented the Canadian event earlier this year. The Globe and Mail got into the action with an article entitled Canada gets last laugh with terrifying Brit Olympic mascots. Nice sentiment, but Canadians shouldn’t be too smug methinks.

The Canadian mascot rollout didn’t go so smoothly either, when a prank blog photo of Quatchi (the sasquatch), Miga (the sea bear) and Sumi (the animal spirit) ended up finding its way into the mainstream media. That photoshopped image also included Pedobear, a character used to mock pedophiles in online forums. The internet had quite a field day with that too. And if memory serves, not everyone was onboard with the 2010 WInter Olympics logo either. If anything, it’s the Russian Olympic organizing committee that should be sighing a relief. When they unveiled the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics logo, hardly anyone noticed. And those that did only commented that “at least it’s not 2012.”

Ouchie.

Belgian design agencies shutter websites in virtual ‘strike’ against spec work

Steve Douglas — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:02:19 +0000

Over the next week, if you visit the website of any leading design or advertising agency in Belgium, you’re likely to find a white screen and message that looks something like this:

A spec work manifesto?

Interesting stuff. Seems a group of Belgian advertising and design firms have banded together in a ‘virtual strike’ to protest spec work (speculative pitches in which the agency or designer performs an entire unpaid design gig, in the hopes of getting selected FOR the gig). The websites are linked together, and each ‘page’ of the online manifesto takes you to another participating website (the image above is the introduction). The HTML title tags of the websites now state “Website Closed“. You can start reading about the campaign on the Ogilvy (Belgium) website.

The online protest was organized by some outfit called ACC (the Association of Communication Companies), a self-regulating body whose goal, at least according to their mission statement, is to “upgrade, promote and defend the profession (creative communication)”. At issue here is our old bugaboo spec work, more specifically protection for the unpaid intellectual property involved and companies ignoring an earlier agreement that limited the number of firms participating in high-profile spec pitches. It’s a noble effort, but unlikely to have much in the way of resonance with anyone BUT people already in the choir, as is usually the case with any anti-spec initiative. There’s the usual push-back too, with some quarters accusing the participating agencies as ‘whining”.

Worthwhile effort or publicity stunt?

Arguably, the virtual ‘strike’ is a publicity stunt (I would have thought a good one too) but so far, the mainstream media has been relatively silent about the effort. Will it have much of a impact? It’s unlikely, but have to applaud participating firms for putting their ‘virtual’ money where their mouth is, even though the real impact on their actual bottom line is probably pretty minor. Don’t think many of these players, Ogilvy and Saatchi for example, get much in the way of surf-in business. Also gotta give them kudos for managing to get so many design firms and advertising agencies, competing ones at that, on board. At the same time even. Organizing creative types is notoriously difficult, and has often been referred to as ‘herding cats’.

Who’s participating?

Decent turnout for a relatively small European country. Participating agencies include VVL BBDO, Boondoggle, Famous, Punta Linea, LDV, AIR, N-BBDO, Saatchi, Open Here, Fe Online, Kunstmaan, Bubka, Polygone Group, Tagora, Mccann-Lowe, JWT, LBI and Ogilvy.

Logo design Schadenfreude: Anti-piracy organization logo infringes on copyright

Steve Douglas — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:39:11 +0000

Wiki defines Schadendreude as a German word that translates into “pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others” and often involves some form of chronic, comical irony. If there was a case of logo design schadendreude, this might be the poster-child, as French-based file sharing enthusiasts are taking great glee in pointing out. To wit:

As a result of a controversial ruling late last year, the French government tabled a series of copyright centric HADOPI laws, the lofty goals of which are “promoting the distribution and protection of creative works on the internet”. Using a fiercely contested “three strikes you’re out” principle, HADOPI attempts to encourage compliance with copyright laws and is an acronym for “Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Œuvres et la Protection des Droits sur Internet” (High Authority of Diffusion of the Art Works and Protection of the (Copy) Rights on Internet), replacing a previous agency, the ARMT. Anyhoo, despite howls of protest, the French government unveiled a web police force – also known as Hadopi – and touted them as a agency that was going to stop piracy and clamp down on illegal downloaders. Fair enough, I suppose, and like any other government agency Hadopi needed a logo, the final version being breathlessly introduced to the public by French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand, who told everybody that with the new design, Hadopi “finally had a face”. Nifty so far.

Que up the schadenfreude…

Only took a few hours before graphic designer Jean-Francois Porchez realized that the logo incorporated Bienvenue, a font he had created for, and sold the exclusive rights to, communications giant France Télécom back in 2000. Oh dear. So who’s Jean-Francois Porchez? Glad you asked. Only a world-renowned French typographer and former president of ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale), a leading organization of type designers. Porchez has designed custom typefaces for customers such as Beyoncé Knowles, Costa Crocieres, France Télécom, Peugeot, RATP (Public Transport in Paris), and distributes his retail typefaces internationally via his typofonderie.com website (Facebook page here). Further, Porchez has won a slew of international awards and prizes for his work and he is, in the French typography industry, a very big deal.

Logo Faux pas used by opponents of HADOPI

So what we have here is a government anti-piracy organization, quite possibly using a pirated font set, from a very high-profile typographer, in their logo. Worse, the logo had already been officially registered for 2 months with the National Institute of Industrial Property. After a lot of red faces, Plan Creatif, the design agency responsible, had to admit it used the typeface “by mistake” and a hurriedly “tweaked” version of the logo was rolled out using officially licensed fonts purchased from several other foundries. France Télécom have stated that they’re not going to take legal action, but Porchez is quoted on several websites as being “in talks” with his lawyers. Naturally, this faux pas is being used by opponents to the HADOPI law, particularly the “three strikes” portion, to illustrate how draconian the copyright infringement punishments are. Official launch of that bit has been delayed until August.