When it came to logo design contest nonsense, always thought I was the King of bitter screeds. No more. I’ve been bested. Beaten. Taken out to the woodshed and thoroughly thrashed. Ladies and gentlemen – I present for your reading pleasure; Kevin Potts‘ of Graphic Push’s world-class rant about logo design contests that is the most awesomest anti-contest screed I’ve ever read – 99 Designs: Bullshit 2.0 Yep, it’s a little ‘colorful’ in the language – but worth a read if you don’t mind your prose a little salty.
The guy’s right on the money about 99 Designs (a love child of Site Point) – this the very same outfit that we wrote about a few months ago in our are logo design contests really that bad feature.
As usual, David Airey’s on the case, while Mark Harbottle, one of the 99 Designs‘ founders formally requested the owners of Graphic Push to remove “defamatory” comments from their post, a demand which Potts reluctantly agreed to (Damn. – that was before I read it. Must have been good).
If you’re interested in more mundane scribblings, you can read why logo design contests are bad for business. Yours.
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Well thanks very much.
I was in a piss-poor mood when I wrote that, which helped tremendously.
Was having a rather crap day myself till I read your post. I laughed for quite a while. Classic…
Likewise, Steve, Kevin cheered me up too.
Hey David – welcome back. On a more serious note, I find it telling that ‘logo design contest’ site owners carp about the democracy of design, and how it’s peachy that designers risk making nothing for their efforts, but insist in getting their own cash up front. Don’t see them offering up their services under a ‘pay if you like’ scenario. They’d be out of business tomorrow if they did.
It still amazes me that some designers actually defend their ‘right’ to work for free. All philisophically sound I suppose. However, I have the right to smash my head against a wall, but realize that it’s not a particularly good idea. Take for example – the protection for designers when contest holders abandon contests, probably absconding with the designs and images posted by entrants. Amounts to none. Nada. 99 Designs offers this suggestion in their ‘guidelines’ -
That’s nice. Holders can stiff the designers humping their designs, but 99 Designs would prefer if they didn’t, because designers wouldn’t like it. As far as client expectations go, a spokesperson for 99 Designs had this to say in the comment section of Graphic Push –
Must have missed it, but I couldn’t find that little nugget mentioned anywhere on the site. Rather 99 Designs offers themselves up as an equal, if not superior, alternative to working with a serious designer in the development of a new company logo. If these logo design contest sites offered themselves up as a quilting bee kind of gig, I would be non-plussed. Unfortunately, they don’t and try to have it both ways. “Hey, we’re a professional solution” when boasting to potential customers. “Hey, we’re not really a professional solution – lighten up” when deflecting criticism aimed at them by the design community.
Did like the working at McDonalds comment though. Judging by the number of ‘entrants’ and ‘payouts’, the odds lean towards making a lot more money shoveling fries at the corner Micky Dees.
For what it’s worth, Positive Spaces takes a look at 99 Designs – The Evil That Changed Names.