Want to rank on Google for ‘logo design’ or related keywords? Due to shady tactics of some of the front runners, your odds are long. That doesn’t mean you’re completely out of luck. How using a ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ philosophy, we can all improve our site rankings.

SEO abuse of the logo design niche in most search engines has been a pet peeve for years now. Alas, Google and other search engines appear to be fighting a losing battle when it comes to enforcing their own webmaster guidelines, something that’s not terribly surprising, especially when we consider what they’re up against. With the cost of launching a website dropping every week, and the competition of all keyword niches heating up everywhere, it’s an overwhelming tide as websites tussel for a bit of the search engine ranking pie. Or, as is the case with some firms, all the search engine ranking pie. With the publication of several recent articles on major design blogs – David Airey‘s The folly of logo design SEO and Duane Kinsey‘s Google doesn’t understand professional logo design – seems a lot of designers are starting to notice that all is not right in search engine land. And they’re right. It isn’t. Probably time we had an in-depth look at what’s what, but I have to warn you that the following is long, grueling and in places, a little dry. It might be worth a read though, if you’re sincere in your desire to market design on the internet. Ready? Let’s get started…

It’s all about the link love

Used to be that a large chunk of any rankings success came from on page optimization. Title, description and keyword Meta tags under the hood. Combined with any way possible to stuff a keyword onto a page. ALT tags, hidden footer text. No longer. Those will get your site penalized by search engines, if not booted out of the index entirely. And while page titles and description tags are still important to ranking any website page, most of the search engines ignore the ‘keywords’ tag entirely. I only add keywords to a page for our site search field, not for any SEO performance. And rather than stuffing the phrase logo design into a post or article with merry abandon, I now edit a lot of instances out. See, even though I try to write naturally, just like the search engines tell me to, I use the phrase a lot because that’s what I’m generally blathering on about. And even though I could have used the phrase logo design about six times in those past couple of sentences, I didn’t. The point of the matter is that most SEO optimization now takes place off page. On other websites that link to your site. That’s viewed by search engines as a ‘vote of confidence‘ and factored highly into where your page shows up for your relevant keyword search. (It’s a little more complicated than that, but outlining that is a book not a blog post).

Anchor text is where it’s at

The other part of that equation is what’s known as ‘anchor text‘ – the text used in the actual link. Concise and to the point is the key. If someone links to an article on your blog about ‘fish ponds’, using the anchor text ‘fish ponds’, then Google will see your page as being pretty relevant to the search phrase ‘fish ponds’. Add to this topical page title and description tags and you’ll probably show up when someone is searching for ‘fish ponds’. Have a lot of people linking to your page using those criteria and you’ll show up pretty high on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. It’s pretty basic, yet completely logical stuff. How important are inbound or back links? Well, according to a 2009 SEO Expert survey, “keyword focused anchor text from external links” is the single most important factor when it comes to search engine rankings.

“I’ve often said that there’s more than enough business for designers to go around. It’s only when folks decide to ‘own’ a certain market, do the SEO shenanigans begin. Anyone that knows about James Bond’s baddie organization SPECTRE will realize that whenever global domination becomes the goal, ethics go out the window.”

‘Do follow’ and ‘No follow’

Should come as no surprise then that this is also where most of the shady SEO tactics are employed, as people find more creative and arguably devious ways to get a whole bunch of links pointing to this site or that. Before blogs came along, it used to be guest books that were the tactic of choice. As blogs increased in popularity, comment sections became the fave target of link spammers, and something which any blog publisher still combats on a daily basis, even though the advent of ‘no follow’ relationship (rel) tags back in 2005 neutered most of the SEO benefits. The ‘no follow‘ tag tells search engine spiders not to follow the link or transfer any page rank to the target page, and while there’s some evidence that its success isn’t 100%, its obvious that a ‘do follow‘ link is far more valuable than a ‘no follow’ one (‘no follow’ and ‘do follow’ links will become more relevant to our discussion in a bit). Google has recently taken a grim view of paid links and reviews, expecting them to be gussied up with ‘no follow’ links, though most folks aren’t bothering (that would negate the benefit of selling links and reviews in the first place). Alas, this is impossible to police, and Google has resorted to paid link snitch forms, though with the volume of one competitor ratting out another, such efforts have remained uneffective. Not just Google either. The FTC, seeing how paid links and reviews end up skewing supposedly unbiased reviews, are now demanding that bloggers reveal that they’re getting paid for such tenuous endorsements. That probably won’t work either. And if anything, such tactics are going to increase, not decline.

The wars rage on

Marketing design services, particularly anything specializing in logos, has become an increasingly cut-throat business. There’s not much the people behind logo design sites won’t do to increase their position in search engines through gaming this link love formula. Nothing. We’ve seen the rise of splogs (that’s worth a read for the update). There isn’t a day goes by when some designer sees their latest work lifted and placed on another site, either by blog content scraping or logo raiding, both practices whose sole function is to artificially inflate a target site’s ranking in search results. Our blog went into exhaustive detail how some top performing logo sites are doing it, referring to logo wars almost two years ago. If anything, these search engine wars have heated up. Unfortunately, many designers think that it’s a matter of setting up a pretty WordPress blog, writing some great copy around some great logo examples and the world will be beating a path to your virtual door. Alas, it’s not that easy. Used to be. But it ain’t any more. There’s one hundred and seventy eight million reasons why.

Logo designers on Google

Take a look at the top ten results of Google when you type in the words logo and design into a search bar. Three are owned by HP and their design division Logo Works. Two are owned by Guru Corporation, the company behind Logo Design Guru (#3) and Logoblog.org (#7). Just ten spots and half of them are owned by two companies. Let’s go to page two. Two of those spots are owned by the same company (who also own dozens of the top 100 spots, disguising them as USA based sites, while the actual company can be found in Karachi, Pakistan). One is owned by the same company who owns two on the first page. And so on. Getting the picture? There ain’t much room in the top 50 spots for your new logo design site, let alone on the first page. Running a similar exercise for the main related keywords – corporate logos, business logos, et al – will yield similar results and will often serve up companies that dominate a multitude of keyword combinations. All good for them, I suppose. Big business. The trouble is there’s no way to dominate search engine categories without employing grey and black hat techniques. That, unfortunately, is how it is.

How ‘they’ do it

Many of the top ten sites ranking for ‘logo design’ on Google do so by setting up massive numbers of inbound links to their sites, through tactics that range from White Hat (cool in Google’s eye), Grey Hat (so-so) to completely and utterly Black Hat (not so much). I know pretty well how many of the top sites rank well. I know exactly how one does. The first thing is that their website URL contains the relevant words. That’s a big help because every single page of their website contains the desired keyword combination. They also own a mess of other sites, the ownership of which is hidden to various degrees, often to sock-puppet company levels, which are optimized for relevant, related, and high demand keyword combinations. Business logos. Corporate logos. Company logos. You get the idea. At various locations throughout those sites, there are links, usually with the appropriate anchor text, pointing at the target site. That’s the beginning of a network that Google’s algorithm interprets as a series of ‘votes‘ appearing like a lot of related websites are vouching for one particular website. For each of these sites, there’s a set of support splogs and websites, often hosted on sites like WordPress or Blogger. Those sites toss inbound links at both the secondary level of the network as well as the target site. For what it’s worth, and other than content scraping and logo raiding for content, we’re still probably in Grey Hat territory.

As an added ‘lift’ this company also parks dozens and dozens of themed articles, optimized with keywords, on free article sites, social media sites and just about anywhere else they can drop a link (though some free article sites are now using ‘no follow’ tags to get around being flagged by Google as a spam haven). Most of content for those articles has been scraped and re-purposed from other blogs, but in SEO tactics, still basic stuff. Where this company really shines in the Black Hat territory is through a free stats counter, offered through their parent company, that features a hidden, embedded link in either the counter image or as a text link underneath. That represents thousands of one-way inbound links, pointing at various sites in the network, upping their PR, which is then passed downwards towards the main site. While it’s probably Black Hat as hell, the target site is a regular feature of the top ten results for logo design on Google, and has moved up several spots in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, and despite Google’s protestations to the contrary, this stuff works.

If it works, can’t we do it too?

No. As much as it may irk anyone who’s either been squeezed out of the rankings, or can’t get any in the first place, nobody can really blame the sites ranking well. Nothing illustrates success better than success itself and as these sites are succeeding in gaming the SEO system, or coming pretty close, then it certainly behooves them to do so. If there’s a way to exploit a system, any system, many will take it once you factor in human nature, free market and basic greed. So, why shouldn’t you employ similar tactic? The first reason, a pragmatic one, is that you probably can’t afford the time. Or the money. Most of these sites employ people outside North America – many are actually located in South East Asia – and the cost of hiring a bunch of copy writers, bloggers and Twitter sock puppets is a fraction of what it would be in Europe and North America. It also explains why a lot of the articles on these sites don’t make a lot of sense, as they’ve been edited from one language to another, using content scraped from other sources. The second involves the sheer number of sites. Most Black Hat SEO for the organizations we’ve been discussing takes place far away from their main, flagship sites, which are kept as ‘pristine’ as possible. The other domains in their network are ‘throwaway’. Ever wonder why some of these companies created a multitude of similar websites, all with identical offerings and functions, but with different branding and skins? Now you know. This is also one of the reasons that many of these sock puppet sites can make outrageous promises and sales pitches that they never intend to keep. They don’t give a shit about the online reputation of their sock puppet business names, caring only about the rep of their flagship sites. And even then, some resort to bogus logo design review sites to carefully control that reputation too.

Google webmaster guidelines

Here’s the main hitch though. These sites aren’t supposed to be engaging in such tactics. That’s not me on a holier that thou soapbox either. It’s what services like Google tell us are against their webmaster guidelines. Supposedly, if one engages in such tactics there are severe consequences – penalties and even delisting for more egregious Black Hat efforts. Is it worth the risk? If you’ve got dozens, or hundreds of sites, perhaps. If you’ve got one or two, not so much. Here’s been my personal rule of thumb regarding our websites. As a bit of a Bad Luck Schleprock, I have a hunch that the minute I delved into the black hat bag of tricks, my domain would be nuked instantly. I’d be held up by big ‘G’ as the poster boy for Black Hat SEO in the logo design niche. I’m not willing to risk having our site removed from the search engine indexes, a death knell for any online logo design studio like mine. Alas, these other outfits seem to be able to get away with it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on our chances. If that weren’t enough to deter me, I’m also am stuck with a ‘fairness’ switch that I can’t seem to turn off. A bit naive perhaps, but I’m stuck with it. Like you, I’ve been waiting for things to level up a bit, and I’ve been waiting a long time. I don’t think that wait’s going to end anytime soon either. Not all is lost though. I used the phrase in the subtitle upstairs, but I’ll use it again here. “A rising tide lifts all boats“. We’ll discuss that in more depth in a bit. You should also know that getting to be top ten for ‘logo design’ isn’t as big deal as you might think.

Is getting a top 10 Google spot the only way?

No. It’s not. There’s only ten top spots on a Google front page for ANY keyword search. That’s it. If you’re #1 cool (though most searchers also click on spots two & three). After that, the number of clicks and visitors starts to drop off dramatically. Logically, if the top three spots on Google were the only positions that were worthwhile, there would only be three companies, in any category, doing any business on the internet. Or if it’s the top ten, it would stand to reason that there’d only be ten healthy corporations in any given internet niche. Obviously, that’s not the case. Take a look at this chart grabbed from Alexa, a site traffic monitoring site, yesterday. Our site, The Logo Factory, is the blue squiggly line.

Our site positively sucks when it comes to ranking for an exact “logo + design” keyword search. Last time I looked (and I don’t look often), we were hovering around the top of page six, bottom of page five. If getting on the first page of Google for that set of keywords was the key to our existence, we’d have closed our doors a long time ago, shortly after we slid off the front page around 2005. But take a look at our traffic, at least as judged by Alexa (above). We manage to hold our own, and often beat the traffic levels of some of the sites on page one. Having a site in the high, to mid 30,000 range is a pretty decent achievement for a small shop like ours, and we did it while languishing in the depths of a logo design keyword search. How? Long tail keyword searches. See, a lot of people do search for logo design. But a helluva lot search for related phrases too. Logo design studio is one example, and we’re number 6 for that. A lot of niche searches too, restaurant logos, is one. Logo design tips is another. I write a lot of content, on our blog and our site proper, about a wide variety of topics, some specific to design, others not so much. All of the traffic from those pages adds up to more overall traffic than we’d get if we did rank on the first page of Google. I gave up keyword stuffing and SEO focused writing years ago (I got tired of the same blather as everyone else in the game) and found that (hopefully) quality, original content ranked much better than keyword soaked nonsense that nobody wanted to read. I was happier. I’m sure readers were happier. And at the end of the day (hopefully) it makes for a better experience for everybody. Oh sure, I still optimize our pages for the topic at hand, but usually it has something to do with more than the two keywords that everyone else is battling for. Have it at hoss. It’s a waste of my time, and yours, angsting over a front page placement for two keywords, when there’s thousands of combinations that are much easier to obtain rankings for. Should point out that even long tailed searches involve inbound link love using the concept we discussed earlier. With social media replacing a lot of blog activity and natural inter-site linking, where can we get links to our site? Twitter and Facebook, right? Not really.

Twitter & Facebook are groovy. But not for SEO

Whenever we finish writing a blog post or article, we’re in a rush to announce it via our Twitter accounts. We’ve got some auto-ack plugin that shoots out a message to our account shortly after a new blog is published (though I’ve never been able to figure out the seemingly random times it does so). That’s a pretty cool way to get ‘fast traffic’ and your Twitter followers will follow the link, read the piece, and then Re-Tweet it to their followers. That’s what it’s all about. But how good is Twitter for SEO? Not very I’m afraid. Firstly, most of us use URL shortening services like Bit.ly and TinyUrl.com. And that’s where the link love would be headed. If our Twitter pages were passing any link love, which they ain’t. All the external links from your Twitter account are tagged as ‘no follow’ links. Other than direct traffic, a link from Twitter won’t improve your search engine rankings at all. In the big picture stuff, this is a good thing, as sites that have ‘do follow’ links are abused without mercy by spammers and Twitter wouldn’t be half as cool as it is now. In the ‘how do I get rankings for my site‘ small picture stuff, and while Google occasionally publishes related feeds as part of their search results, any long-term SEO benefits from Twitter and Facebook are minimal.

Blog commenting is for conversation

Used to be that comments (and guest books before blogs) were great for SEO link love. Like most things that can be abused by spammers, they were, and most modern blog comments feature ‘no follow’ tags on name and comment fields (though by the number of automated comment spams and keyword soaked ‘name’ fields that are still submitted to any blog, you wouldn’t know it). See, comment fields were never meant to be an SEO tool, they were designed for, well, commenting. Taking part in whatever discussion, debate or full-fledged flame war that the post above them managed to generate. That’s not to say you shouldn’t comment on your favorite blog’s latest entry. You should. It’s what makes blogs fun and relevant. Any SEO benefits are marginal, but you will get traffic to your site if you offer up engaging opinions, and people click on your website link to find out more about you. Which is why automated comment spam like “I like your site. I have book marked if for future reference” and a link to a pharmaceutical site are completely and utterly pointless. If they got past the Akismet filters in the first place. With the ‘no follow’ tag, no SEO benefit. With the dopey vagueness of the comment, no-one’s likely to want more information. No clicky on the linky. There are some blogs around that advertise that their comment section features ‘do follow’ links, but these are few and far between. We experimented with ‘do follow’ comments on our blog for a bit, but shut it down el pronto when comment spammers found out. And told all their friends. Sadly, there are people who’ll ruin everything for everybody, and when it comes to SEO, that’s the rule, rather than the exception.

Sharing is where it’s at

Someone recently asked me this “why do you link to your competition on your blog?” And it’s true, I’ve never been shy about linking to any site using (in most circumstances) ‘do follow’ links. My answer is simple and threefold. One, I don’t give a crap about sharing a little link love with anyone, even people who are my competitors. If I’m mentioning them, often in critical ways, I feel I ‘owe’ them the link. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter to me, and if I can use a link to prove a point, or to give credit, I will do so. Second, and more importantly, it makes the internet what it is. The triple Ws at the beginning of any web address stand for ‘World Wide Web‘. Think of a spider’s web, and how the infrastructure is built. My site is part of that web and so, by the way, is yours. Thirdly, I don’t want to write every day how wonderful The Logo Factory studio is. Or how great our work is. That’s boring for readers. It also happens to be boring for me. If I find something that’s on another site that I find interesting, regardless of how tangentially it relates to logo design, there’s a very good chance I’ll write about it. Quote it. And link to it. Lest you think I’m being completely altruistic, or singing some internet version of Kumbaya, let me assure you I’m not. See, if I happen to crank out something you dig, I’d hope you’d do the same for me. Which helps us both. From an SEO point of view, we’re doing the same things as the guys we mentioned above, organically, with different related sites, and enjoying the same SEO benefits as they do on their network. Without all the subterfuge and shadiness. Isolating your blog or site, in order to capture any business that might stumble in is ultimately penny wise, and pound foolish. Is promoting your competition, and they promoting you, a wise idea? Why, yes it is.

Competition is nothing to be afraid of

I’ve often said that there’s more than enough business for designers to go around. And I stick to that basic premise. It’s only when folks decide to ‘own’ a certain market, do the SEO shenanigans begin. Anyone that knows about James Bond‘s baddie organization SPECTRE will realize that whenever global domination becomes the goal, ethics go out the window. This isn’t isolated to logo and design categories. Take a look at other niches – travel, legal, gambling and yes, even porn – and you’ll see the same kind of stuff. When dealing with a largely unregulated marketplace, which the Internet HAS to be, we have to deal with the lowest common denominators. It’s one of those sad, but true, facts of life. What people can do, as opposed to what they should do. So what should designers do? Link up our bloody sites, that’s what. But what about linking to your supposed ‘competition’ and losing clients? That, my friend, is a load of bollocks. See, I’ve always been of the opinion that if I lose a client, or some business, simply by featuring a link to another site on mine, then I haven’t made a very good pitch about our design services in the first place. Not only that, and in practical terms, most blog roll links, indeed most links throughout a blog, don’t really send a lot of people away from your site. I monitored my offsite clicks for about a month before realizing that. And if you’re still scared about losing a gig, open the window in a new tab. See, here’s the thing. Having the option to leave to a related site offers a whole lot more credibility than trying to trap site visitors like rats. In any case, say you do lose the occasional client (and that’s highly unlikely), you’ll probably make it up with someone hitting your site via a link from another site. Ebb and flow. Yin and Yang. I like how Graham Smith, a UK based freelance logo designer, explained his linking to The Logo Factory site:

“Some have said to me why would I send traffic, potential clients Steve’s’ way. Surely I am encouraging potential clients to go elsewhere. There may be an element of truth to this, but it’s all about choice at the end of the day. We all have our own styles, our own unique selling points, our own way of doing business. We are much more unique then just being lumped into the ‘logo design’ tag. My style is far different to Logo Factory, our prices are different, our approach is different. I have confidence in my own work to not worry about the odd client finding another designer. If they are happier working with someone else, for whatever reason, then so be it. What goes round comes round.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Shouldn’t have to point out that this page illustrates this concept very nicely. Now, I may lose some clients who click on the link to Graham’s I’m Just Creatve web site, but ditto on the “so be it“. As the chap says “what goes around, comes around” and let’s leave global domination to outfits like Logoworks, Logo Design Guru and SPECTRE.

A little bit of cooperation goes a long way

Not that this simple concept pans out in execution. Over the years I’ve had an open invitation for designers, companies and yes, even our competitors to send us their press releases. And over those years, I can count the number of people who’ve done so on my right hand. No idea why, other than the ‘competitor’ factor we talked about last paragraph. Here’s the thing to keep in mind. I have a logo design blog, one of the sections is industry news. I need content. When it comes to scouring the internet for content, I have to invest hours of time that I’d prefer not to spend. If you’ve got a worthy blog post that I might dig, or some news about your work, it saves me time if you send it in. If it’s newsworthy, I’ll publish it. With a link to your site. If you’ve written a great blog post that you feel all designers should read, hit me up with a link. I’d love to give it a mention. I’m only a a contact form or Twitter DM away. Naturally, I’d like the same from you. Not that I’ve been terribly persistent in my own sharing activities. I haven’t. I took a look at our blog roll the other day. Pathetic. Only features five links, when it should feature dozens. Or more. Over all the years I’ve been curating this blog, I’ve only had two people ask to be included. Despite telling people on numerous occasions that we’re open to exchanging some traffic. Funny thing is, I’ve never asked anyone either. Bad Steve. No donut. Seems I forget the rising tides concept myself. Anyway, here’s the takeaway for you and me both, of this 4,827 word diatribe. Designers shouldn’t be afraid to link to each other, creating an organic ‘network’ of sharing and caring sites. Because as we discussed earlier, that’s how many of the top 50 cats are doing it.

Except for the organic bit.

Postscript:

Here’s a little something to keep in mind. There’s some evidence that Google is suspicious of site-wide links to other sites, that is, your link on every single page of a website. If you run a WordPress installation there’s a plug-in that allows you to keep Blog Roll links as ‘do follow’ on your home page, while turning the subsequent page blog rolls into the ‘no follow’ variety. Only one link is active, so you’re sending link love, but there’s no suggestion that your blog is a link farm, while the majority of your blog pages aren’t leaking PR all over the place. We use it here. Also, this article has ruffled a few feathers with another logo design company who decided to ‘strike back’ against it. You can read about that little skirmish here.

Related posts:

1. 33,000 Google crawl errors
2. Should designers blog?
3. More flattery, I guess…

It’s not often that I snark on an individual blog post but will this time, partially to illustrate the lengths some companies will go to promote their design contest sites, but mostly ’cause Charlie asked.

Charlie B. Johnson (uh-huh) over at Graphic Design Blog is at it again, publishing a blog post entitled Do famous companies prefer Logo Design Contests – Yes or No? With Charlie’s awkward connections to Logo Design Guru‘s design contest site Mycroburst, I was willing to bet that the answer would be a resounding “yes”. Luckily, after reading the post, I wasn’t disappointed. But he did ask the question. So, I’ll try to answer.

Teeing up his evidence, Charlie tells us that there are “numerous irrational squabbles” going on about logo design contests, and that a “handful of designers, adverse to the concept of design contests, are lamenting over the emergence of this unique trend“. Irrational, Charlie? Hardly. There’s lots of designers who have laid out reasoned and rational arguments on blogs, forums and websites. Hell, even we took a rather sober look at the practice trying to avoid any lamenting. Tried to duck wailing or gnashing of teeth too. Ain’t a handful either Charlie. Practically every graphic design organization in the world. And a good chunk of the professional designers you’re going to run into. See, that’s the point Charlie. Only people who run design contest sites, Mycroburst let’s say, are completely gung-ho with the concept. Even participating designers would prefer to get paid for their work. You don’t have anything to do with Mycroburst or it’s parent company do you Charlie? Nah, of course not. ‘Cause that wouldn’t be very cool. Acting all independent and stuff, while pushing the site onto designers who’re not aware of your affiliation. There is that rather large Mycroburst ad on every page of your blog though, but I’m sure that’s just an oversight.

Toyota logo contest

Charlie then holds up a few famous companies to illustrate how they ‘prefer’ logo contests when it comes to their branding. First up: Toyota, who under their first family-oriented name Toyoda Automatic Loom Works Ltd., did just like Charlie claims, holding a logo competition way back in 1938, receiving 27,000 (or 200, depending on the source) entries (how a logo contest in 1938 illustrates how Mycroburst-like sites is an “emerging trend” is anyone’s guess). Trouble is, none of the entries sat terribly well with the Toyoda family (partially due to Japanese numerology superstitions), so they altered one of the logos themselves, adding a brushstroke which changed the company name to Toyota. The history is a little complicated, and even a bit murky, but overall not too good for the ‘pro contest’ argument. In any case, that logo’s pretty well gone, and other than some employee pins (left), watches (right) and stickers for retro car memorabilia fans, it’s been relegated to the Toyota archives. Ain’t famous either, cause I be a lot of people reading this post are seeing it for the first time. Once the automobile company went world-wide, they used a simple font mark that spelled out Toyota (I remember that one. Stared up at me from the steering wheel of an old Cargo Van I used to drive). Further, the design that Charlie’s holding up as an example of a ‘famous company preferring logo contests’ (above) wasn’t designed by a contest, but was launched in 1989, shortly after Toyota announced their new Lexus line of premium automobiles, in order to differentiate between the two brands. Where did I get this info? Why, straight from the Toyota website.

Olympic Air logo contest

When Olympic Airlines, the national airline of Greece, was sold by the Greek government to Marfin Investment Group, the new owners decided to change the name to Olympic Air and hold, tah-dah, a logo contest. Charlie’s got that part right. Now, take a look at the old logo (above left) and compare it to the new logo (above right). Not much difference between the two. See, this contest was a publicity gimmick, and didn’t involve the design of a logo, but the tweaking of what already existed. Couldn’t wander too far from the original brand because Olympic Airlines still existed for a while after the acquisition. While this may be an example of a ‘famous company’ using a logo design contest, it isn’t a particularly good one. Brand New does an excellent job of chronicling the contest and dissecting the results.

Google flavicon ‘contest’

Not much of a contest actually. After messing about with a whole bunch of different flavicons for Google related sites (and generally being hammered for most attempts) big G turned to users to ‘suggest’ some alternatives. They ended up going with a style that was ‘inspired’ by André Resende, a computer science undergraduate student at the University of Campinas in Brazil. Apparently, André was the first to recommend a white lower-case ‘g’ on a colored background. While being mentioned as the ‘inspiration’ for the new flavicon, Google didn’t actually use his submission as is, telling us on their blog that the new version was an “reinterpretation of one contest submission” and that

Although we changed the color layout slightly and moved the ‘g’ off center, his submission formed the basis for our new design. Incorporating all four of Google’s colors (red, yellow, green, and blue) into the four corners of the favicon was a theme we liked in many submissions. We also saw this idea in the designs submitted by Hadi Onur Demirsoy, Lucian E. Marin, and Yusuf Sevgen.

See, if this was a logo design contest, and as Google didn’t use any of the submissions, it would hardly be considered a ringing endorsement of same. But as a flavicon isn’t a logo, arguing the matter would be kind of pointless. So we won’t. Granted, Google does host on ongoing series of Doodle 4 Google logo contests, but they’re aimed at K-12 high school students and don’t represent logos per se.

EU Organic Certification logo contest

Not everyone was thrilled with the contest, or the three logos they had to choose from. Organic association Bioform issued a statement by director Leen Laenens, supposedly representing “many” in the industry, that read in part “they (the three proposals) have no visible link with the sector. One could ask the question whether the consumer is aware the an organic product is involved“.

Okay, you can’t please everyone all the time, so if the European Union was a ‘famous company’, I suppose this could be an example of a ‘famous company preferring logo design contests’. But it isn’t. So it’s not.

Spud Webb Enterprises logo contest

Charlie rounds off his examples of famous companies using logo contests with some outfit called Spudd Web Enterprises. I’m not a big basketball fan, but apparently that company is owned by Anthony Jerome Webb, who according to Wiki is “better known as Spud Webb, is a retired American NBA professional basketball point guard. He is currently the President of Basketball Operations for the unnamed D-League franchise in Frisco, Texas“. Qualifies as ‘famous’ I suppose, but oddly (not really) this is an ongoing contest on Mycroburst (quelle surprise) and is, as Charlie tells us, “a big slam dunk opportunity for logo designers who have the opportunity to win USD $300“. Cool and everything, but all this to pimp a link to a Mycroburst logo contest? Or some more SEO folly? Seems so. Out of common courtesy, I’m not going to hack on other designers’ work, or raid any of the logos, so you’ll have to decide for yourself how well this contest is panning out.

See Charlie, I’ve never been shy about debating the spec work and design contest issue. But if we’ve axes to grind, let’s be upfront about the axes. That’s not to say ‘famous companies’ don’t use logo contests. They do. There’s the Dish logo contest on Crowdspring. There was the CP+B gig for electric motorcycle manufacturer Brammo too. I guess Charlie doesn’t want to link to competitive sites so the examples he’s got to work with are sorta thin. Which kinda puts paid to the objectivity of the entire premise and his rather awkwardly worded closing question (which I’ll quote, running the risk of getting boned by Google for keyword stuffing):

“If logo design contests are allegedly bad, then why famous corporations have been opting for them? After witnessing such legendary cases of corporate identities, do you still believe that logo design contests warrant the cynicism they get? Don’t you think ”logo design contests” have been playing an important role in providing memorable logo designs to the industry?”

Must have missed the “legendary cases of corporate identities” in Charlie’s article, but no mind. Though I might argue that it’s posts like this driving some of the “cynicism” he refers to. And in closing, let’s take a look at the payouts of the examples, just to see how peachy keen logo contests are for participating designers. EU Organic logo contest: €6,000 prize ($8,006). Cool. Olympic Air logo contest: €20,000 prize ($26,690). Cool. Mycroburst logo contest: €224 prize ($300). Not so much.

Oddy, I’m reminded of apples. And a lot of oranges.

[1936 Toyoda Model AA (main photograph): Mytho88]

Related posts:

1. Fonts used in famous logos…
2. Again with the design contests
3. More on those fabulous logo design contests…

In the cut-throat game of online logo design marketing, some companies are using logo raiding, a tactic that creeps closer and closer to the boundaries of ethics, and perhaps treads over copyright itself.

Latest trend in the online logo design game? Logo Raiding. Never heard of it? You have now. That’s when blog publishers (often producing the blog as an SEO ‘booster’ for another target site), raid logo galleries or portfolio sites (the popular Logo Pond is a favored source, Brandstack is another) for dozens of logo examples from other designers. These logos are then assembled in a keyword drenched post that’s only purpose is to score high ranking in search engines, usually wrapped around some weirdly nebulous logo ‘theme’. Say ’50 emotional logos’, ’20 logos with movement’ or ’60 really cool coffee logos’. Or strange thematic battles that feature ‘This Type of Logos’ versus ‘These Types of Logos’. When people are looking for say, ‘emotional’, ‘movement’, or ‘coffee’ logos in Google or Yahoo!, they’ll find these pages. Like any kind of search engine marketing, this is to get eyeballs on a page. And convert those eyeballs to paying customers.

No credit, no link, no gain

Trouble is, the designs are usually presented without credit or linkage, and any benefit goes solely to the blog hosting the logos, and then onto the target site, either directly via a link, or indirectly through inbound link love. And while the site, or company, using the logos to boost their search engine rankings don’t exactly claim that they designed the logos, they don’t exactly ‘fess up that they didn’t. A perfectly reasonable person might assume they did, so guess who they’re going to ask to “design a logo like this one”? The site hosting the raided logo, or one of their linked ‘partners’, usually a universe, and often a continent, removed from the designer that actually designed it. Usually the company that actually owns, and operates, the blog in the first place.

In use corporate logos vs. concept designs

It’s not like these sites are using the marks of giant corporations (something which we’re all cool with I suppose). Designers write tons of blog posts that critique corporate logos, often quite savagely. So, what’s the difference with logo raiding? That’s the easy part. Most of the logos raided from online logo galleries are ‘concept’ logos, and as such, still the property of the designer. Bottom line, designers’ ‘raw’ work is being used, without credit, permission or link love, to promote another website and the logo design company that’s behind it. I don’t imagine ‘Fair Use’ would cover the practice either. From what I understand, uncredited use of others’ work, for commercial gain, remains taboo, DMCA or not. And from were I sit, this use ain’t very fair at all.

Using competitor’s work to compete against them?

While I get the whole design community ‘we’re in this together vibe’ these sites try to germinate (usually by going to extraordinary lengths to hide their true ownership), the naked truth is most of these blogs are run by cut-throat bastards who are using the work of their competition to promote themselves via search engines. They’re not trying to promote the designers presented, nor send link love or actual business their way. You know, in a quid pro quo hat tip for use of the work. And while sites like Logo Pond and Brandstack feature profiles and links and contact methods for potential clients, on these “40 best logo” posts, the designers aren’t even mentioned.

Displaying design work is for promotion

Oddly, I’ve read comments from some designers stating they’re “honored” to be featured in these spurious gallery pages. Not sure why anyone would be honored by a potential competitor using their logo design work, especially when the designers aren’t credited, nor their sites linked to. Their profiles on the page, save the logos themselves, are non-existent. As far as I understand this internet marketing thing, promotion is the main purpose of showing logo design examples in the first place. More often than not, the designers featured have no idea of the real purpose of the post their work is presented on. Or who’s really doing the presenting. And while it may be cool to see one’s logo ‘in lights’, the promotional gain for the use is zero. Even weirder, the copyright notices on these blogs, usually blanket statements at the bottom of each page, technically claim copyright for the logos presented above it.

Nature of the web

Am I being nit-picky or absolutist? Perhaps. I must admit I do like control of my work. And yes, like many design blogs, I sometimes feature logos that I really like, but I always try to ask permission first, and if that’s not possible, try to track down the designer so that I can at least credit them. Maybe send a little business their way. That’s the ebb and flow nature of the internet and online design marketing. We all pinch a little, stitching various bits and pieces of other people’s work into our own, unique posts and articles, presumably with credit via a mention or link. The designs used in logo raider posts are the post. It’s simply a cynical ploy to pepper search engines using other designers’ work. Without asking to use that work. Or to credit for it. So why would supposedly legitimate logo design companies lift, en masse, other people’s work to feature as wonky galleries on their blog? For the answer to that, we need to understand why these companies hide their identities in the first place.

Why all the subterfuge?

Before spec work and logo design contests started taking some of the heat, many graphic designers were fundamentally opposed to online logo companies. Hated ‘em all. Yes, even our humble shop, referring to the genre as “logo mills” and “logo factories” (the latter one’s unfortunate, especially when your company name is The Logo Factory). It’s something that we’ve kinda put up with over the years, but other than a couple of flame wars here and there, we’ve nestled into our own little niche in the design community. Other companies think, perhaps with some validity, that designers opposed to the business model wouldn’t engage their main sites, and thus they’d miss out on all the benefits of such engagement. No comments, no inbound links and in the era of Twitter and Facebook, no social media love. Solution? Create a pseudo-entity (or entities) that while hiding all ties with the mothership, aim the SEO benefits towards it. Designers, none the wiser, link to the blog, join in the comments and ‘retweet’ posts they like around Twitter. It’s pretty cynical, but it works. Pragmatically speaking, these disguised blogs aren’t supposed to belong to the target company, so they can’t use their own work ’cause If they did, the jig would be up. Trouble is, a blog needs content, multiple blogs need lots of content and producing original material is extremely time consuming (one of the reasons for blog content scraping, which some of these sites also engage in). Raiding other logo gallery sites is so much easier. Taking minutes vs. hours, it’s cheaper too. These 20, 30, and 40 best logo posts all follow the same format. An somewhat oddly worded introductory paragraph that pitches the supposed ‘theme’. Then 30 raided logos plastered over the page. It is an exceptionally effective way to produce blog content and in this era of ROI (Return on Investment), the ROI on these posts is phenomenal, especially when it comes down to search engine penetration, the primary purpose of the activity. Accordingly, logo raiding is starting to be used by a lot of pseudo design blogs (belonging to other companies, they’re more splogs than not) and I’m not the only one who’s noticed. David Airey wrote an excellent post about the practice last week.

I don’t think it’s the last we’re going to hear about it either.

Related posts:

1. Do you know who’s designing your logo?
2. Publish a blog? Here’s why websites that scrape content are a pain. Why you shouldn’t do it.
3. Again with the design contests

Exaggerated size of design ‘communities’

A few months ago, we took look at the ‘community’ numbers of crowdsourcing and design contest sites and found, to be charitable, that they were wildly inflated. Bottom line, most design crowdsourcing sites are supported by a fraction of the designers claimed on the home page. Most decent designers that have a go at crowdsourcing either don’t enter anything, or bail shortly after they do, having discovered that entering design contests is a woefully inefficient way to earn a living. While the aggregate appearance is that of monstrous sized design communities (designers who are no longer active are still counted in the numbers), the reality for the individual is something different entirely. After winning one contest in twenty (about the average of designers who know what they’re doing, the win-ratio is much lower if they don’t) most people move on to greener pastures. That’s not anti-spec rhetoric. It’s economic common sense. It could be argued that a great deal of the people left on these sites are bad at one of two things, design or business. Or they’re teenagers earning a few bucks on the side.

All about the logos?

I think we can all agree that logo design is a niche discipline, albeit an important one, of the entire graphic design field. Accordingly, here’s another dirty little secret (though to be fair, it’s not really dirty, and as it’s publicly available info, not terribly secret). Most crowdsourcing sites are supported by logo design projects. Not brochure design. Not stationery design. Not website design. Not presentation folders. Not the recent addition of writing on spec. Other than logo contests (or “projects”), and despite being marketed as “creative marketplaces” that offer the full range of graphic design services, not much else is going on. Takeaway here? Other than some high-profile exceptions, logo contests make up of the bulk of so-called design crowdsourcing. You don’t accept my word for this little pearl of info either. You’re welcome to check for yourself (or see the screen shots throughout this post).

“A quick trot through most of the high-profile ‘crowdsourcing’ sites reveals that anywhere from 60% to a whopping 92% of the current contests involve logo design.”

A quick trot through most of the high-profile ‘crowdsourcing’ sites reveals that anywhere from 60% to a whopping 92% of the current contests involve logo design. It could be argued that if it weren’t for logo contests, most so-called crowdsourcing sites would have shuttered long time ago. Some, Logo My Way and Logo Tournament for example, don’t even attempt the pretense. As these kind of offerings have been with us since time immemorial, it kinda puts paid to the “innovative” vibe that’s been tossed around too. I guess the innovation bit was meant to describe the expansion of web-based logo design contests into other areas of the graphic design profession. How successfully is the question. Not very is the answer. Alas, it would appear that despite having a few years to build up the concept to mainstream acceptance in all the graphic design disciplines, only logo development has gained any real traction in the crowdsourcing arena. Trouble is, with the “more for less” appeal of logo contests, they’ve always been accepted by many in the medium, small and micro business market. Crowdsourcing and contest sites just make it easier.

Why all the logos?

Why, on the surface anyway, does it appear that curated spec work sites (cause that’s what they are) appear to have failed to gain traction with anything but logo design? I’m willing to go out on a limb and hoist a couple or theories. The first might concern small business owners’ view towards their logo itself, with many seeing it as a pretty picture that’s only real function is to be slapped on a business card or website header. With a very basic understanding of the digital tools involved, some buyers probably view the logo design process as something that takes a couple of minutes and in the long run, isn’t terribly taxing, time consuming or even important to the overall health of their business. Designers probably share part of the burden too, with some treating it as a ‘quick and dirty’ process, resorting to some pretty predictable and overdone approaches to designing a logo. The buyer thinks it takes ten minutes. Many people entering design contests only take ten minutes (explains some of the rampant copycatting that goes on). The contest holder thinks they’re being magnanimous, shelling out a couple of hundred bucks for ten minutes of someone’s time. Would be designers see it as an acceptable risk – ten minutes time for the chance of winning that couple of hundred bucks. An “it’s all good” kind of equation.

“The contest holder thinks they’re being magnanimous, shelling out a couple of hundred bucks for ten minutes of someone’s time. Would be designers see it as an acceptable risk – ten minutes time for the chance of winning that couple of hundred bucks.”

Risk vs. Return

While some buyers, and some “designers” (bunny quotes mine), might think of logo design as a quick and dirty process (erroneously I would argue) it’s a little different with other artwork. When it comes to designing collateral material, brochures and websites let’s say, everybody shares a common attitude, the accuracy of that attitude notwithstanding. It looks like there’s more work involved. Buyers and contest holders still accept this premise, and are willing to spend more time, money and effort. Spec work designers, knowing how much time might be involved in the production end of things, are less likely to participate in a website or brochure contest that’s going to take a huge time investment with only the “hope” of getting a return. A minimal one at that (crowdsourcing design contests featuring large prizes are another matter entirely but we’ll cover that in an upcoming post).

“Amazingly, what is actually a weakness of the curated spec work model, has paradoxically become one of the primary appeals for people that own them, people that purchase services on them, and designers who participate.”

As a brochure, website or vehicle wrap requires a certain level of expertise to pull off, technically speaking, it’s a lot easier to fake what looks like a logo in Illustrator or Freehand than it is to fake what looks like a brochure using In Design or Quark. Or fake a website using Fireworks, Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Amazingly, what is actually a weakness of the curated spec work model, has paradoxically become one of the primary appeals for people that own them, people that purchase services on them, and designers who participate. Bottom line, logo design contests, or “projects” depending on the site, will continue to flourish. The rest of the graphic design disciplines are relatively protected from spec work decimation. For the time being anyway, as I may have to eat some of these words at a future date.

Chicken Little or reason for concern?

While it might be relatively safe to crib Mark Twain and say this – “the rumors of the demise of the graphic design industry have been greatly exaggerated” – if you’re a designer specializing in logos, or want to specialize in logos, you may want to roll up your sleeves a bit. Because the growing number of websites offering logo design contests isn’t going to die down anytime soon. When there’s a ton of people looking to create a clone of Crowdspring and getting quotes back for $750, it’s a safe bet that it’s gonna get a lot more crowded in the upcoming months and years (while others are already suggesting that crowdsourcing is broken). In terms of graphic designers as a whole, does all of this mean a lot of the hand-wringing about crowdsourcing has been a reactionary chicken-little freakout? Maybe, but there’s still lots of reasons for designers to be concerned. The main issue is that design buyers are beginning to accept the basic premise of curated spec work sites – that designers are willing to work for free. That doesn’t necessarily translate into more business for “crowdsourcing” sites, but more requests at the buyer level, straight to the service provider themselves. And paradoxically (liking that word), this is also a very real risk to curated spec work sites themselves. Why pay a $39 service fee, or 15% off the top to some site on the internet, when it’s a matter of sending a few e-mails to designers on the local level, or found through a Google search. And those requests aren’t going to be limited to logo design.

Related posts:

1. Twitter graphic $6 proof that design crowdsourcing works? Not quite.
2. The demise of the logo design industry?
3. Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. The platitudes of spec work.

According to news reports, Google has taken legal umbrage with Goojje, a Chinese language search and social-networking site whose logo (above) bears a striking resemblance to the design made famous by Big G. If that weren’t enough, the Goojje logo also features a paw print component, nicked from Baidu, China’s most popular native search engine. Google knock-offs in China are nothing new with a copycat site of YouTube (YouTubecn.com) offering videos from the real YouTube as a way around Chinese censors who’ve blocked the originating site.

Google’s ongoing woes with the Chinese government

Google’s issues with the Chinese government have been plenty in recent months, with disputes over censorship issues and cyberattacks on the G-mail accounts of free speech advocates and human rights critics. The relationship has become so strained that there were several reports of Google leaving China completely, including a post on Google’s own blog, unless authorities didn’t get their collective act together. Ironically, the knock-off site was launched, practically overnight, as a result of that threat when the group behind Goojje saw a potential opening in a very big market. They’ve become cyber-heroes of a sort, with their website shelling out an average of three million page views per day.

Google has stepped things up a notch, sending cease and desist notices to the allegedly infringing site, demanding it quit using the trademarked logo design. Been some action too, perhaps at the ISP level with Goojje no longer resolving at its original domain, www.goojje.com, but redirecting to another site that seems to be offline more than it’s on. Officially, Goojje’s response has been something along the lines of “get bent”.

Goojje is Chinese play on words

For what it’s worth, the phrase Goojje is a clever little word play – apparently the “gle” in Google sounds similar to the Chinese word for “older brother“, while “jje” sounds just like “older sister“. Interesting turn of events, as the Chinese government has been reluctant to enforce intellectual property rights, especially from the west, and are probably still a little sore over the very public shellacking they took in the press, blogs and tech forums last month.

Related posts:

1. Google removes Olympic luge logo over concerns it exploited Vancouver tragedy?
2. Doodle for Google design competition
3. Design faux pas – when a logo turns political

Speaking about Apple, seems that front-man Steve Jobs isn’t terribly happy with the folks over at Google, especially over their foray into the cell phone market. Jobs referred to Google’s famous corporate mantra “Don’t Be Evil” as “bullshit” (or “crap” according to Wired) at a post iPad release conference for Apple employees. Googlers were not impressed and Paul Buchheit, the dude who coined the phrase was quoted as saying “I don’t know where people get the idea that competition is evil.” Others were quick to point out that Apple has been holding Google iPhone apps “in limbo”, refusing to approve them for iStore distribution. Oh yeah, Jobs then went and called Adobe “lazy“. There goes that kindler and gentler vibe I guess. [Gawker]

Speaking of Google, their annual Doodle For Google competition is underway. That’s a design contest where K-12 students are invited to have their way with the logo that rests on big ‘G’s search engine home page. This years’ theme is “If I Could Do Anything, I Would …“. Registration is open till March 17, entries are due March 31 and the winning logo will be featured on the Google website May 27. [Doodle for Google]

Speaking about Apples’ iPad, if you don’t have the peanuts to shell out for the Jobs and Co’s latest electronic toy, you can always impress your friends by setting up this paper version on your desk. [Mashable]

Speaking about rebrands (oh yes we were), MTV has taken a hatchet to their logo, a design that’s been a ubiquitous piece of pop culture for almost 30 years. Not terribly much to write about – there’s only a little bit of change in the overall logo design, specifically the removal of the redundant Music Television strapline, lopping off the bottom of the large ‘M’ and a slight perspective tweak. The logo, like many of us who were around for its inception, is also a little wider and fatter. Gone are the vibrant primary colors, textures and pattern fills that were a part of the logo for all these years. (Random trivia: First ever music video on MTV? Video killed the radio star by The Buggles).

The logo revamp is in no small part due to MTV’s expansion beyond “music television” and into reality shows and other forms of entertainment. Apparently, the new logo will serve as a frame for photographic images (below), similar to the AOL treatment rolled out last year. [Black Book Mag]

Related posts:

1. Crowdsourcing is broken. And how to fix it.
2. Snippets: The Stock logos on Crowdspring, logo tattoos & Doodle 4 Google flag flap edition
3. Doodle 4 Google logos

Victors & Spoils front-man Evan Fry doles out some great advice for designers entering design contests a.k.a. crowdsourcing projects. Runs the gauntlet from forgetting about getting paid, to doing lots of revisions and forgiving hungover contest holders who neglect to give any feedback. In other words, cough up lots of free shit to show Victor & Spoils paying clients while Evan heads off to the pub. Awesome. [Talent Zoo]

Speaking of the “world’s first ad agency based on crowdsourcing principles“, Victors & Spoils got so excited about their Dish Network design contest they forgot about pesky licensing and copyright issues, uploading the Adobe Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk font set to the 99designs server so that grateful participants could “Grab it. Download it. Use it. Be brilliant with it“. Shortly thereafter, they removed the font, due to pesky “licensing and copyright issues“, telling everyone that this was a “bummer“. [99designs]

Logoblog.org, an “independent and unbiased” logo design review site that has absolutely nothing (wink, wink) to do with Logo Design Guru (“reviewed” at number one with 4.73 stars out of five) have fallen positively in love with design contest site Myrcroburst, placing it at number two in their “Top Ten Logo Company Reviews” and awarding the site 4.7 stars out of five. And just like having nothing (wink, wink) to do with online design company Logo Design Guru, the “unbiased” Logoblog.org review site has nothing (wink, wink) to do with Mycroburst, which happens to be owned by The Guru Corporation, owners of Logo Design Guru. Hooray for transparency and unbiased reviews. [Guru Corporation]

Adobe, like a jilted lover, continues to have a hissy fit over the Apple iPad‘s lack of Flash support. Taking the feud public, the makers of every graphic design program in the history of ever, published a blog post calling Flash the Apple iPad’s “broken link.” If that wasn’t enough, Adobe platform evangelist Lee Brimelow published a series of screengrabs to illustrate what this lack of support meant to the average surfer. Alas, one of the screengrabs was from a notorious porn site (right). When tech bloggers guffawed that Adobe had “played the porn card“, Adobe went all passive-agressive, just like a typical ex, claiming the inclusion of the Bang Brothers image was only a joke dammitall. Others pointed out that Adobe was bang on the money, because if you can’t surf for porn on the iPad, what’s the purpose of the bloody thing in the first place? [Wired]

Related posts:

1. Crowdsourcing is broken. And how to fix it.
2. Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition
3. Snippets: Battling logos, a couple of Pint Tips, just like 99designs & the IRS logo scam edition

Crowdsourcing platform Crowdspring has announced that they’re going to be offering writing ‘projects’ using the same spec-work model that graphic designers never seem to tire carping about. Which means we can expect a whole bunch of tireless carping from professional writers too. This ‘taking over the creative world’ thing kinda reminds me of a sci-fi movie from the 70s. Tall dude with a mask, respiratory issues and a really bad attitude. Answers to another dude in a cape. Live in a big metal planety thing. Can’t quite put my finger on it. [Crowdspring]

Speaking about spec-work, apparently the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) may be arty and all, but apparently devoid of a sense of irony. To wit, they’ve decided that one of their lofty goals is to remind society in general, and business people in specific, that “arts workers are real workers” and “part of this country’s real economy“. Further, the NEA would like us to remember that artists “earn salaries, support families, pay taxes. Artists are also entrepreneurs and placemakers, who revitalize towns, cities and neighborhoods“. Cool. In order to illustrate these ideals, the NEA would like a logo designed, so they launched a logo design contest. On spec. Facepalm doesn’t begin to describe how well this went over with designery folks. [LA TImes]

Stock logo website Brandstack announces their new service Upstack, supposedly a custom version of their stock service that dodges the spec-work bullet by paying participating designers a portion of the design fee. All cool and all, but that just happens to be how Logoworks, formally the poster-child for all that’s wrong with online logo design, works. And has worked since 2001. When half the world freaked the fuck out, because of the way Logoworks worked. [Brandstack]

Speaking of innovation, yet another new design contest site has opened its doors, pages or whatever a web company opens when they launch. Graphicster promises to be different than all the other innovative companies hosting design contests. Which is pretty much what all innovative companies hosting design contests promise. Getting off to to a flying start, Graphicster’s blog told us “We are going to eat our own dog food by creating a project for the logo of the site itself“. Dog food you say? Awesome. With that accomplished, they promptly launched a fake contest. [Graphicster]

How much is a Twitter account? Free. How much is a stolen Twitter account? $1400. Now compare that to a stolen MSN account that only fetches a buck forty on the black market. Completely unscientific conclusion? Twitter is way cooler than Microsoft. Even with criminals. [IT World]

Related posts:

1. Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition
2. NEA Art Works logo contest update. When it comes to government, even spec work gets mired in red tape
3. Snippets: Images Without Borders, MSU Spartan logo to stay, AIGA speaks out & the $15 logo design contest

Logorama, a stunning film by French collective H5 (filmmakers Francois Alaux, Herve de Crecy and Ludovic Houplain), is a violent, profane, action-packed caper set in a world comprised entirely of well-known corporate logos and mascots. A satirical look at how pervasive corporate imagery has become in today’s society, the 17 minute flick features a gun-toting Ronald McDonald (yes, that Ronald McDonald) who goes on a shooting spree on a street festooned with 7-Elevens, U-Hauls, Wal-Marts and Pizza Huts while the Michelin Men are featured as bumbling, foul-mouthed cops on his trail. The film reads like a copyright lawyer’s wet dream, yet according to the filmmakers, they haven’t heard from any of the corporations whose logos and trademarked characters are included. So far, the movie (showcased at last year’s Sundance Festival) hasn’t garnered a large audience but that’s about to change. The film was nominated for an Oscar (in the short film category) this morning, and a lot of folks are now furiously Googling Logorama to find out what the buzz is all about.

Logorama is sometimes available on YouTube, but the video version has repeatedly been taken down as a result of (irony alert) copyright claims by the film makers. I managed to find a couple of active clips, so here’s a look at Logorama in two parts (as long as they remain available, I suppose). Before you click on the play buttons please note this language warning – with a generous helping of cuss words, this is decidedly Not Safe For Work.

Update:

Logorama YouTube links have been disabled. Here’s another version. And it’s just as NSFW as the other one.

Logorama: The Movie

Here’s a fun exercise. See if you can identify the number of corporate logos and mascots included (you’ll lose your mind trying). Personally, I loved the Pringle‘s dude as a truck driver, and the MSN butterflies in the opening frames. For more on Logorama, you can visit the film’s official website. There’s also an interesting behind-the-scenes interview over at Creativity Online.

Update 2:

Sunday, March 7, 2010. Logorama won the Oscar for best animated short film. Congrats to all involved.

Related posts:

1. Logorama wins Oscar for best animated short film
2. Snippets: The Oscar weekend, Logorama, Blog Fail & new Ubuntu logo edition
3. Oscar best picture nominations and their logos

Apple does what Apple does. This time, it seizes 16 domains from some poor schmo who had registered domains with the words iPod and Macbook in them, having done so with the purest intentions. Like redirecting Googlers to competitors of Apple. [TechCrunch]

Speaking of Apple, did anyone miss their new announcement about their new iPad thingy? If you were one of the few, you can check out this moment-by-moment blog about the event. To get the whole effect, you need to start at the bottom. [Engadget]

Speaking of the iTampod (sorry, couldn’t resist), if you’re thinking about coming up with an off-color joke about Apple’s new light days computer (sorry, again), you’re a little late to the party. [Globe & Mail]

Speaking of the iPad, right after the unveiling, Adobe got all huffy because the revolutionary tablet doesn’t support Flash. Apple has yet to respond, but it will probably be along the lines of “suck it”. [Mashable]

Our humble shop got named as logo company of the year over at Famous Logos blog & porftolio site. All things considered, that’s a pretty cool way to start 2010. [Famous Logos]

Related posts:

1. Snippets: Crowdsourcing advice for designers, IE6 must die & more unbiased logo reviews
2. Molson Canadian logo, new MTV design, Doodle for Google logo contest and more.
3. Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition