Readers of The Factor and visitors to our main site know that a pet peeve around here is the advent, and spread, of the logo design contest. Alas, our repeated teeth gnashing and venting did nothing to stem the tide, so we’ve pretty well given up on pointing out how bad logo design contests are for business and designers alike. Generally speaking, we only mention a design contest when it’s particularly noteworthy or has an aspect that makes it unique over the usual hack-and-dash offerings. Here’s one that qualifies – The Indianapolis Colts football team have just announced a logo design contest on their website for something they refer to as a ‘secondary logo’. The Colts want fans to pony up (heh, Pony up) the artwork and are offering 2 season tickets and $1,000 to the selected design (picked from 5 finalists via voting on the website). On the surface – typical promo stuff.
I did find this particularly interesting though – when creating their logos, would-be designers are forbidden to use player images. Or a horseshoe. Or the name Indianapolis Colts. And in case anyone was planning to be clever, you can forget about using the word Colts as well. Yowzah. A logo design contest in which you’re not allowed to use the name of the outfit. That’s a first. Could result in some interesting entries though.
On a more typical logo contest note, a required check box on the entry form asks entrants to agree that “the enclosed design is my own creation” (good idea with the number of logo copycats trolling the webs) and to state that – “I hereby assign all rights, including intellectual property rights in it to the Indianapolis Colts, Inc.”
Okay folks, one more time – this is not cool. This little proviso means that people who don’t win jack give up all the rights to their artwork, so that a well-heeled football team can plaster their artwork all over promotional material without shelling out a dime. A bit cheeky, especially for an outfit who, judging by the number of copyright and trademark notices plastered over their website, are keenly aware of how important ownership of intellectual property rights truly are.
Ah crap – just wrote another logo design contest screed. Sorry…
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Tags: Contests, crowdsourcing, spec, spec work
Definitely not a cool contest.
Signing over all rights without earning one cent is always going to be a bad idea.