Or rather, Hewlett Packard comes clean. A while back, home computing giant HP bought up Utah based Logoworks, freaking out a sizable chunk of the graphic design community (I remember being pretty non-plussed, even duking it out on a few graphic design forums about how really detrimental the news really was). While I’ve never been a big fan of Logoworks and some of their allegedly shady tactics, seemed like a whole lotta good news to LW, but threatening little impact on the industry itself. My big issue with LWs has always been the same – while seemingly trashing freelance designers on their website, the majority of LW projects are farmed out through the back door via their parent company Arteis to the very same freelance designers. Something which, at least until just recently, LW hasn’t exactly been too upfront about, earning them the ire of many design forums and blogs. Well, to their credit (or HP’s credit) they’ve finally started to be a little, ahm, more ‘descriptive’ in how they actually work.
Via an arguably parsed statement in an interview with HP CMO Michael Mendenhall featured in Brandweek, when describing how Logoworks operates, Mendenhall has this to say – “In practice, Logoworks links several hundred graphics designers worldwide with small businesses seeking new logos”. The statement is a little thin on details, but does acurately describe an intregal part of the LW model – outsourcing a good chunk of their client projects to freelance designers around the world, paying as little as $25 per logo via a semi-contest format on the Arteis site – a process that critics (guilty) might argue is just another freelance bidding site with fancy lipstick.
For those paying attention, there’s even been some subtle changes to the LW site copy, indicating that not only do they use freelancers, but in typical LW fashion, they’ve now decided that this is somehow an advantage(!) to studios and independents that don’t farm projects out, even going on to state that “some design companies are limited to a small in-house design team, or do not have any freelance designers”.
Jeebus. Talk about trying to have it all ways (and here I was, trying to be all positive and stuff).
For people keeping up with the ongoing LW sagas, this is a complete 180 to their original pitch – originally trashing freelancers and small independent designers as somehow inferior to the LW machine (that page can still be found here, though only for a limited time I’d expect. The page also features a retraction to our humble shop as a result of the original ‘freelancer vs. in-house’ tussle, blocked out from search engines using a robots.txt file). While it’s still a variation of the “everyone but Logworks is crap” theme, the new copy gives a little more of a accurate peek ‘under the hood’. And oh yeah, – apparently, if you want to speak directly with a designer (what client doesn’t?), Logoworks’ new packages’ start at just over 1300 bux.
Guess the marriage with HP has had some, ahm, influence. Well done fellahs…
Related:
Logoworks gets ripped?
Logoworks vs. The World
Hackery, Dickory, Dock.
Related posts:
I don’t get it, on the LWs page you link to:
http://www.logoworks.com/logo-.....tions.html
They state that independent designers often charge a few hundred dollars, but you get what you pay for. You should always get what you pay for, so the same applies to how LWs can charge $299 for a logo design.
Interesting apology to you on that specific page.
Looks like you’re not the only one talking about Logo Works and HP this week. Check out the jungle [8] McBranding article for more on HP entering the design game.
For all those who serve the same market niche as Logoworks, it’s been a shame what they did. Ultimately, they haven’t solved the cause of their plagiarism scandal: Outsourcing projects to freelancers out of creative control. It’s just a matter of time to find them through the same situation again.