If there’s ever been an issue that ignites passion in the design community, it is spec work, its repackaged cousin design contests, and its cousin-in-disguise, crowdsourcing. There are two sides to the issue, and neither seems willing, or able, to give the other much sway. In this first of a two part series, we take a partially impartial look at crowdsourcing and design contests from a buyer’s point of view.

As with most passionate debates, a lot of the oxygen is sucked up by hyperbole, from both sides (guilty as charged), and there’s very little attention focused on the true benefits (it there are any) and the true pitfalls (if there are any). Some people behind crowdsourcing sites will state that “businesses are ignoring the debate” and that’s very true. They are. It’s boiled down to a “more for less” proposition that’s a terribly effective marketing gimmick. Designers aren’t “ignoring” the debate, because they’re the ones who ostensibly have the most to lose and are the ones most affected. And while you can find all sorts of “glowing” testimonials about how effective crowdsourcing is, what you won’t find is an admission that a ton of design contests on crowdsourcing sites end in cancellation, or a decision “not to award a winner”, as high as 50% on some sites, indicating that not everyone is thrilled with their “experience.”

So what’s the real deal? Seems time to look at both sides of the equations, warts and all, and take a somber, sober and partially impartial look at spec work, design contests and so-called design crowdsourcing. From all angles. While I’m fundamentally opposed to spec work and design contests – my old lefty leanings, hammered into my psyche by my union advocating father – I think I’m well enough versed in the issue to tackle the issue pragmatically and without railing against the practice as is usual with my scribblings. We’re going to take a look at things from the client’s point of view first. Then follow up with a look at how these things work for designers later in the week.

Design contests and crowdsourcing – setting a price

Most crowdsourcing and design contest sites will let you set your own budget. This is one of the main issues that has a good chunk of the design community up in arms. Understandably so. It can amount to hundreds of design concepts for a few hundred bucks, something that on the surface anyway, most small firms (including mine) and freelance designers can’t compete against.

Many design contest sites take an almost dual-personality disorder approach to how you should set your price. On one hand, they tell you that their service offers $200 (minimum) design services. On the other hand, they’ll also tell you that setting a high price will attract a higher level of designer. They’ll charge you extra to host a private contest, where the results and designs are hidden from view (something that most other designers and design firms already do, and often at a price that’s higher than other sources would charge in the first place). All of this seems to be at odds with their entire ‘democratizing of design’ meme, but no mind.

Private contests

Here’s something to keep in mind though – surprisingly, many designers avoid so-called ‘private contests’ like the plague. The reason? As the contest is private, and as they can’t use the designs they submit in their portfolios (thanks to a rather restrictive NDA they have to agree to in order to participate) there’s no real benefit for them to enter unless they win. Most designers with any experience know that’s unlikely (based on sheer volume) and participating on crowdsourcing sites has been sold to them as a way to build a portfolio. Private contests are at odds with that core belief, so many designers simply pass. While I understand the advantage of a private contest (the theory is your competitors don’t get to find out what you’re up to, or your client’s don’t get to find out you’ve outsourced their gig to a design contest), it doesn’t attract the so-called ‘quality’ designers the host sites tell you it will.

Number of entries

In terms of pricing, and realistically speaking, there really isn’t much rhyme or reason to the number of entries you’ll get, regardless of what budget you set.

I’ve seen $200 logo design contests with over 300 submissions. I’ve seen $1000 contests only receive several dozen. While contest site owners will tell you that the higher the prize, the better the designers attracted, this may, or may not, be true, but a higher prize would logically attract more designers of all skill levels.

Guaranteed contests that aren’t

Most crowdsourcing sites claim to have 100% money-back offers on their contests (technically, most aren’t 100% because most sites won’t refund your contest listing fees) but you’ll waive that if you hold what is referred to as a “guaranteed” contest. In essence, you “promise” (pinly swear) to pay a designer or the company that hosts the contest will select one for you. Oddly, in the real world, holding a contest and not awarding a prize breaks contest and sweepstakes laws as it’s treacherously close to fraud. Here’s a dirty secret that most design contest sites don’t want you to know. Even in “guaranteed” contests, buyers end up filing a dispute with their credit card company if they’re not happy with the outcome, regardless of how many entries they’ve received.

Don’t think credit card companies are really sure what the deal is with contest sites, so most unhappy buyers are successful in their challenge. I’m not sure credit card companies are comfortable with design contest sites picking an entry for their customers (as claimed in most “guaranteed” contests) either. Having said that, charging back a credit card for a service you’ve agreed to is pretty shady, so this isn’t to be taken as an endorsement of the practice, just an acknowledgment that it happens. In fact, I’d advise against it as, once again, it’s often the participating designers who get it in the throat, and nobody will be remunerated for their work. On some sites a designer will still get their design selected by committee and paid for their efforts (though often, it’s a slim percentage of the originally promised of your ‘award’). On others it’s approached as “hey, can’t pay anyone, the client charged back their card”.  Cynically, and in both cases, the crowdsourcing site gets to keep their ‘listing’ fee and any ‘upsells’ you’ve paid to promote your contest, while the designers get stiffed.

Work that’s ‘inspired’ by others

Here’s a rather large caveat about design contests and so-called ‘crowdsourcing’. The numbers of plagiarized design work as well as improperly licensed stock art (most stock can’t be used for logos or trademarks) submitted into logo design contests is astonishing.

Sometimes it’s not the entire logo, but bits and pieces cobbled together from multiple sources. If you’re after an illustrative logo, many of the submissions will be traced from photographs found on the internet, some of which are rights managed, or subject to copyright claims that may or may not be apparent. Whether these logos are “derivative” works or not is anyone’s guess and depends a great deal on the original creator’s tenacity. Realistically speaking, you probably won’t get found out. On the other hand, your logo may be a ticking time bomb. Does this happen with every design contest? No. But enough times to make it a concern.

Copying happens in traditional avenues too

Now, design contest and crowdsourcing sites will tell you that this happens in ‘traditional’ design avenues as well, and to a certain degree they’re correct. It does.

The risk of business and reputation meltdown in the traditional arena makes it less likely, while the anonymity of design contests and the legal waivers that contest sites present to you on sign-up make it more so. There’s no real statistics either way, but a ripped off logo in the ‘real world’ is huge news in the media (witness last summer’s Kelowna City logo flap), whereas a pinched design being entered into a design contest is a regular occurrence and barely makes any news outside a post on Twitter. Usually by the designer who’s work has been abused.

Self-policing of submissions to your contest

In many instances, other designers will “catch” the knock-offs and tell you or the host site (they want the copycat turfed out – more ‘chance of them winning’), but often they either won’t have knowledge of the original logo, or the gallery of designs has become six pages deep and they don’t have the time to rummage through the various designs looking for knock-offs. Don’t look to the companies that hold these contests for monitoring of submissions – most design “crowdsourced” contests aren’t managed very well, if at all, and their sites generally play out like a free-for-all. Not that this should be surprising. If you work out the portion of the “take” for the site owners, there’s not much budget for monitoring each and every contest running in their forums.

Managing a “community” with tens of thousands of members is a challenge (ask anyone who’s ever set up even a modest sized forum or bulletin board) and companies that run design contest sites generally feature small teams of salaried employees. Most design crowdsourcing sites don’t even have graphic designers on staff (most are “customer service” personnel and developers tasked with keeping the sites up-and-running, a formidable task considering the system resources these sites burn) so you’re a little at the mercy of the goodwill, and keen eyes, of the people participating in your contest. Trouble is, in ‘Private Contests’ most participants can’t see the submissions of others, until you pick a winner, so any promised self-policing doesn’t happen on the more expensive ‘Private’ or ‘Blind’ contests.

Copycats aplenty

Also, keep in mind that even when designers are “caught” passing off other designers work as their own, they’re seldom “banned” from participating in future contests unless they’ve been particularly egregious. One major site “suspends” designers for two weeks. Another has something that verges on “three strikes you’re out” policy (though they claim that they don’t “officially” have a “three strikes you’re out” policy). In any case, there’s no guarantee that an unrepentant copycat, busted in an earlier contest, isn’t submitting work to yours.

The client as art director

In terms of setting up the contest, you’ll be expected to supply a pretty in-depth ‘creative brief’. As the back-and-forth between buyer and designer is somewhat muted (most design contest sites don’t want – for obvious reasons – designers and buyers talking off the ‘reservation’) that’s the entry point for most of the designs that will be presented. The details contained need to be pretty expansive, though you can change direction later if needs be.

Traditional design avenues (designer, firm, agency) will usually see the creative department taking conceptual lead on your project. With design contest and crowdsourcing sites, you’re almost expected to play ‘art director’. Now, that’s not to say every designer will take a ‘just tell me what you want’ position – some will suggest funky design options and worthwhile directions. But a large percentage of contestants are of the “hired hands with a copy of Illustrator” variety. That’s not bad if you’re comfortable with art direction. A little intimidating if you’re not. Might be worth remembering that many designers on crowdsourcing sites are inexperienced, and wary of offering up suggestions that are at odds with your original brief, lest they be branded ‘uncooperative’.

Expected comments and star ‘rating’

Keep in mind that you’re expected to comment on most of the designs submitted, even the ones that you don’t like, a task that can become quite challenging as the numbers of submitted ideas rises. Most sites also feature a star rating system that seems to placate most entrants if you opt not to submit a comment for their work. Pretty cynical attempt to keep designers cranking out work, but it does seem to work. Also keep in mind that asking one designer to incorporate an idea from another designer’s submission is a big no-no on contest sites. Sure, the designer you’ve asked to do it will probably comply with your request, but the frankensteined design will probably be yanked and the designer reprimanded. Despite the “community” vibe that’s advertised, designers are not working together, but rather against each other, so asking one entrant to incorporate another’s work is understandably taboo though many buyers, believing they’re working in a collaborative environment, often find this concept difficult to grasp. In terms of revisions, most design contest entrants are only too willing to submit revision after revision, so there’s no cap to the amount of work that you can ask for, an arguably big advantage over a traditional firm or designer. Here’s something to keep in mind though – if you focus on one design concept, and request multiple revisions, many of the designers will interpret that as the direction you want to head and incorporate these ideas into their future work.

The number of submissions

This is the main advantage of the design contest or ‘crowdsourcing’ model. And it’s true, you should receive a lot of concepts to choose from. Most design contest sites feature a “get x number of submissions or your money back guarantee” but most contests will go over that number by a wide margin. If it’s close – say the guarantee is 25 and you’ve received 28 – unless there’s something there you really like, it appears that many buyers get the refund anyway. There’s generally a few similar entries, say color changes and what have you, that it’s always arguable whether you received 28 submissions or 21 with a few variations that don’t count enough as unique.

Again, I don’t think this is fair to the designers that participated (I might go as far to say that guaranteeing a number of designs, from people who aren’t getting paid for those submissions verges on asshattery, but we’re trying to be somber here, so I’ll leave that for the designer portion of this feature). And here’s another aspect of crowdsourcing sites that as a designer I’d be horrified, but as a buyer, I’d think is just lovely. The usual way these things work is that your “contest” or “project” runs for a certain amount of time. The designers have been told that once the time frame is up, and as long as the minimum number of entries has been submitted, you have a finite amount of time to select a winner. If, after that time frame (usually a week), you haven’t selected a winner, the host site will pick one for you. Designers like these sort of promises, as someone is guaranteed to win. Here’s the dirty little secret. Most design contest sites hate picking a winner for you, especially if you’ve paid with a credit card and if you ask them, they’ll simply re-open the contest for more work. It’s terribly unfair to the designers who originally entered in good faith, but it is what it is. Also, even after you’ve selected a winner, feel free to ask for further revisions on the final entry. Turns out that most design contest sites don’t even expect you to take your selection ‘as is’. Some even suggest that there’s no limit to the amount of post-contest revisions you’re ‘allowed’ to request before accepting the design as final.

The end result

At the end of the day, you’ll probably end up with a serviceable logo, brochure or website. I’d positively love to tell you that you won’t – these things are an anathema to my profession – but I’d be lying. Will you receive stellar work? Slimmer chance, but yes you just might.

The main concern you should have with any design contest is originality (in terms of logos) and the rights managed images (brochure, web site, etc) featured in your work. The problem here lies in the issue of what designers rights the designers agree to give these sites upon submitting work. The designer ticks off a little check box, indicating that they own the rights (or adequate rights) to the work they’re uploading. The number of blatant knock-offs that are found on design contest sites tend to show that a fairly large percentage of participants don’t put any credence into those check boxes at all. The designer usually has to agree to transfer a non-revocable license to the host site (supposedly, so that the host site can show the artwork in their galleries). One little hitch. All stock image sites strictly prohibit the transfer of any of THEIR rights or license (for obvious reasons – it weakens their control over products). Bottom line – how can a participating designer give the design contest site a license for stock art or photography, when the original licensor strictly forbids them from doing so? I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that this little bugaboo is a wrinkle that’s going to bite someone in the ass at some point.

Conclusion

Are design contests and crowdsourcing an effective way to get design work done? Yes. No. Maybe. In terms of the amount of concepts you’ll get pitched at you, there’s no comparison between working with a design firm or a freelancer. They simply can’t match the output if output is your thing. And that number is going up. Some outfit even suggests that you’ll get up to 900 concepts for a few hundred bucks. Soon it will crack 1000, so if you wait a few months, I’m sure some site, now in BETA, will offer that. Crowdsourcing sites don’t technically pay their ‘workers’ (my main quibble), so there’s no practical limit on the number of revisions and ideas you’ll get. Are they all good ideas? No. A majority of the ideas you’ll get pitched are sub-par (to be charitable) and as we’ve discussed earlier, run a rather high risk of being work that’s pinched from somewhere else. Realistically speaking though, there should be a few pearls in the pile to ultimately choose from. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, I don’t think that’s a particularly efficient, or effective, way to design anything. But if raw numbers, for an often paltry price, is your thing, a design contest might be the Doctor’s prescription.

What does all this mean for people participating? We’ll look at that in detail when we take a look at crowdsourcing from a designer’s perspective.

Related posts:

1. Again with the design contests
2. Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. The platitudes of spec work.
3. Children designers on design contest & crowdsourcing sites?

As evidenced by features on NPR and in Forbes, spec work, crowdsourcing and design contests remain the darlings of the business media. Sadly, many of the inflated claims made are left unchallenged and become the accepted truth, when often times, they’re not really true at all.

Conversations about spec work and crowdsourcing have turned up in a few media places the last few days, so figured we might as well take a look at what’s what, and offer up our usually dissenting two cents worth. The first was an NPR interview with Crowdspring co-founder Mike Samson, hosted by Bob Garfield as part of his On The Media show. You can listen at the link (also includes a transcript). Nothing terribly earth-shattering, more of a typical puff-piece and glorified press release for Crowdspring. Trouble is, many claims made on the show, some of them quite debatable, are left unchallenged, so thought it might be worthwhile if we took the liberty of, well, challenging them. Fly in the ointment and all that. Don’t want to seem like I’m bagging on Samson, but this sort of stuff happens when the media conflates the issue of crowdsourcing and design contests, with the companies that host them. Having got all that out of the way, let’s begin with the rationale for the show:

BOB GARFIELD: When I wrote my most recent book about the chaos created by the digital revolution, I, of course, needed a cover. In the spirit of my subject matter, I crowdsourced the project through an online site called crowdSPRING.com. More than a hundred designers from around the world took on the project, and the winner got 500 dollars, plus the glory of illustrating The Chaos Scenario.

Glory of illustrating The Chaos Scenario you say? Some glory. When the author of the book hosts a radio show that extols the virtue of crowdsourcing and Crowdspring, and talks about the book cover project itself, he neglects to mention the designer’s name? For the record, the winner of Garfield’s book cover is a designer who no longer participates in Crowdspring contests, but now works for the company as one supposes, a salaried employee. Make of that what you wish.

BOB GARFIELD: Now, digital tools have made your business something like an inevitability, just like the steam engine made mass production of, say, shoes an inevitability. But the Industrial Revolution also spelled very [LAUGHS] bad news for cobblers, the shoemakers who were basically priced out of the market.

MIKE SAMSON: When shoes could be mass produced, all of a sudden many, many, many more people had access to high-quality footwear, and the quality of their life was improved. CrowdSPRING, and platforms like crowdSPRING, provide the same function in a more modest way for the consumers, the buyers of creative services.

The comparison between crowdsourcing and design contests as some sort of Industrial Revolution level event is, to be honest, a load of bollocks. The invention of the printing press, the weaving loom, compugraphic typesetting machines (and in the case of this example. shoe manufacturing assembly lines I guess) represented a bellwether change in the technology of the production system. What once took forty people to do, only took a few operators to accomplish. Or what took a skilled artisan to do, could now be completed by loosely trained, unskilled workers. None of that has occurred in crowdsourcing or logo design contests. Designers still use the same tools and technology. They still have to be fairly skilled and/or talented to cobble (pun intended) together a decent logo design or website. The only thing that’s changed is that rather than getting paid for their cobbling (yep, intented again) they’re not. All crowdsourcing and design contest sites are merely gussied up CMS forums. The method of production, the design process itself, remains largely unchanged and spec designers still put on their Illustrator one leg at a time.

Further, any of the bellwether changes mentioned represented the down-sizing of the work force that was needed to accomplish the exact same task, a ruthless application of capitalist efficiency. Crowdsourcing is actually the complete opposite of that. Hundreds of ‘designers’ now participate, rather than an individual designer or a small sized team. Up-sizing I guess. Crowdsourcing is not like the ‘industrial revolution’ for design but the industrial revolution in reverse. Whereas the industrial revolution increased efficiency, and reduced waste, crowdsourcing and design contests decrease efficiency and increase waste by enormous factors. See, if we insist on using these silly industrial revolution metaphors (I’ve been called a Luddite for opposing unpaid labor from designers), let’s get it right. The ‘steam engine’ event for designers was the advent of desktop publishing software and reasonably priced desktop PCs. That, for anyone keeping score, started happening in the 1990s. The second was the traction of the internet, which allowed designers to market themselves to clients outside their home town, using the same tools and technology as the so-called ‘gatekeepers’ and established majors that we keep hearing about. Those two events ‘leveled the playing field’ long before Crowdspring opened their doors, and are still available for many designers now participating in spec work dog-and-pony shows. They’d be much better if they did, too.

SAMSON: That buyer who comes to crowdSPRING with a 500-dollar book cover project or a 300-dollar logo project couldn’t afford the fee that a traditional designer charges, so their options before a platform like crowdSPRING were very limited.

This chestnut, a very close relative of the $5,000 logo’, is simply not true. Before ‘platforms like Crowdspring’ came along, there were loads of choices and options already available. There still are. Outfits like Crowdspring have to convince the market that so-called ‘traditional’ designers charge far more for design work than they actually do. Besides, and if we wanted to be snarky (not I), and take Samson at face value, before Crowdspring came along, there was always 99designs, where Crowdspring cobbled (never gets old) their business model from.

BOB GARFIELD: But there’s a second question, Mike, and that’s an ethical question concerning the new labor force. When they participate in crowdSPRING, when they bid on my book cover or somebody else’s logo or a webpage design or what have you, 100 or more entries for each project come in. One winner. The winner gets paid poorly, according to the professional scale, and the others get paid not one red cent. Can you explain to me why this isn’t exploitation?

MIKE SAMSON: All of the work that was created for your project, except for that one winning entry, remained the property of the person who created it. They can resell that, they can use it as a template, they can use it in their marketing materials.

I may be a Luddite (snooty too), but I’ve never understood how hundreds of designers working on someone’s project without pay can’t be considered exploitation. But, for the purposes of this discussion, let’s take Samson’s main argument against designer exploitation, that they maintain property rights to their work, at face value. Swell. A hundred designers with an unused book cover design for ‘The Chaos Scenario.” All peachy I suppose, when someone else publishes another book by that title ’cause I’m sure they’ll be just thrilled to buy one of these ‘custom’ designs, the fact that they’re second-hand and recycled notwithstanding. Having said all that, I’m still not sure how this negates the ‘exploitation’ criticism.

SAMSON: We give them the opportunity to create.

More than a little bit of hubris there. Before Crowdspring came along, no-one could ‘create’? Hardly. People could always create. Crowdsourcing sites have only given designers, most of them painfully unaware of the realities of these platforms, the opportunity to submit their creations, to free-for-all contests, while the site charges contest holders a non-refundable listing fee for the privilege of ‘leveraging’ all this lovely free talent. Nothing more. Nothing less. Actually, with the lack of protections in place for participating designers, often a lot less.

BOB GARFIELD: Okay, schnooks like me have used crowdSPRING, and I guess a lot of mom and pops, but others who are not mom and pops have also used platforms like yours. I’m talking about Random House, Barilla Pasta, Epic Records, the metal band Judas Priest. Doesn’t that kind of confirm the worst fears of the established design community?

MIKE SAMSON: Well, yes and no. Big companies do come in and post their project with us. Now, the reason they do so isn’t just to get the artwork or the written content. They’re trying to learn how they can leverage this platform and this process to engage audiences. Judas Priest, frankly, they’ve got plenty of designers who could have designed that tour poster for them. Epic Records has lots of designers on staff who do this every day. But what you can’t do with an in-house design department is you can’t engage the fan base in a way that makes them want to buy merchandise and want to be associated with the band. So when Epic Records posted that project for Judas Priest, they put the word out to the fan clubs and the fan sites, and the fans flocked in to participate.

We touched on this in our Crowdspecking article a while back. This all boils down to intent. When major companies employ design contests, they’re generally of the ‘fire-and-forget’ variety. As Samson correctly points out, large companies have lots of designers on staff, but they use contests to engage their fan base. Getting cheap design stuff isn’t even part of the equation, and participants enter because of their love of the product, service or in this case, rock band. Even then, a major risk of crowdsourcing – plagiarized entries – can raise its ugly head (witness the Cadbury Chocolate label contest, where the winning entry turned out to be knocked off). See, conflating this kind of ‘social media marketing’ with spec work and crowdsourcing (where designers complete projects through revision steps, and even when selected as winner, and awarded the vaunted prize, aren’t finished complying with contest holder revision requests) is to be charitable, apples and oranges. Crowdsourcing, in its current incarnation, is marketed to small business as getting lots of stuff cheap. And I’m left wondering if those Judas Priest fans are still counted as part of Crowdspring’s ‘community’ numbers, cause I got a nickels to donut bet that sez they ain’t hanging around to design pet food logos on Crowdspring.

BOB GARFIELD: You know, it’s funny how a person’s reactions can be different based on whose ox is being gored. What were vague ethical qualms I had when doing my book cover suddenly have me in a full-blown panic, because I can see very clearly that the amount of money that I can fetch for the kind of writing I do, just by virtue of the law of supply and demand, has to go down.

So ethic ‘qualms’ about exploiting the unpaid efforts of others only raises its inconvenient head when it applies to Garfield’s own industry, namely writing? That’s swell, though to be fair, a hat tip to Bob for realizing it. This argument has been used by designers for years now (“As an [insert profession here] would you do work on spec? No? Then why would you expect designers to?”). Trouble is, designers are guilty of the same kind of ethical hypocrisy, largely ignoring the pleas of photographers a few years back, when micro-stock services hammered the professional photography industry. Alas, it’s an easy trap to fall into.

BOB GARFIELD: Them’s pretty words, Mike Samson. They have not, however, been all that soothing to the people on what is called the “no-spec movement,” a group of design schools and businesses and individuals who themselves refuse to produce work on spec and are trying to rally the rest of the crowd to follow the same ground rules. Are they a threat to you?

MIKE SAMSON: No, we don’t think so. We have a community of about 64,000 designers and writers. About 50 percent of those are U.S. based. The membership of the AIGA, which is the leading professional organization of graphic designers in the United States, has a membership that’s a fraction of that size. And that’s nothing against the AIGA as a professional organization, but what it says is there is a need and a hunger out there.

Ah, the numbers game. But hey, if we’re going to throw around stats and percentages, let’s take a look at all the numbers. And all the percentages. See, here’s the thing – as we detailed here, the vast majority of people who sign up for sites like Crowdspring do so without ever entering a single contest. Not a single one. See, it’s free. And you have to sign up to view the ‘community’ forums. At present there are 65,000 ‘creatives’ claimed, yet according to their own stats, over 30,000 registrants have never entered a single ‘project’. Nor, judging by their ‘last seen date’ will they ever. The number of ‘creatives’ that have entered 1, 2 or three contests is similarly in the tens of thousands (Judas Priest fans I guess). The vast majority of designers that do register as participants bail shortly after, so It’s safe to say that most spec and crowdsourcing sites are supported by a fraction of the numbers claimed. The numbers trotted out equal registrants and people who’ve clicked a check box that states they’ll act as ‘creatives’ on the site. For the record (and while I’ve never been a big fan of AIGA or a big believer in trotting out statistics for the reasons I just illustrated) the AIGA claims 22,000 members. Those are paid-up, participating members by the way, so Crowdspring’s ‘our dick is bigger than their dick’ claim is a tad silly. And doesn’t really mean jack.

BOB GARFIELD: Their claim is that not only does a user of spec material prey on an exploited class of labor, it also generates inferior results. However, the Wright Brothers were bicycle mechanics. Do you have to be a professional designer to create professional designs?

MIKE SAMSON: No, you don’t, frankly. The Nike logo was produced by a student who reportedly received about 20 dollars in payment. I understand she did get some Nike stock which paid off over time. But I think that history is rife with examples like those of, quote, unquote, “amateurs” producing phenomenal work.

You would think that after trotting the Nike logo chestnut out for the umpteenth time, Mike would at least start getting the story right. The Nike Swoosh logo was created in 1971 by graphic design student Carolyn Davidson, who was hired for the job and billed $35.00, based on a rate of $2.00 per hour (around minimum wage at the time – I was making $2.35 an hour for my first job five years later, the result of mandated minimum wage increases). Using this price tag, from the seventies, to somehow justify design contests in 2010, is an often employed tactic, though ludicrous at first blush. And as Samson points out, Davidson did get more of a payday from the athletic company in 1983 when Nike gave Davidson a gold Swoosh gold ring and an envelope filled with an undisclosed amount of Nike stock to express their gratitude. See Mike, it’s not about ‘amateur’ vs. ‘professional’. It’s not even about whether work designed through crowdsourcing is ‘inferior’ or not (that’s another argument entirely, but directly tied into my next sentence). It’s about paying people for their work.

Up to now, a fairly basic principle in supposedly civilized societies.

Related posts:

1. Snippets: Crowdspring to offer spec writing, NEA holds a spec work contest & other news
2. SXSW “Is Spec Work Evil?” panel transcript
3. Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. The platitudes of spec work.

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…

“We provide you the battlefield and weaponry to conquer the creative world. Creative soldiers have the opportunity to battle their enemies for monetary prizes, develop a reputation by climbing the ranks, construct professional profiles and meet new creative allies. Enlist and prepare your artistic weaponry. Victory can be yours!”

Oh wait. Sorry, that’s from the about us page from Guerra Creativa, another one of these design contest sites, when describing their services to designers. [Guerra Creativa]

Several Pint Tips I should get out of the way before we get too much further. Anyone who’s been following the logo design game, especially as it relates to the internet, is probably aware of the shenanigans some people get up to in order to place well in search engine result pages (we’ve touched on it before in our logo wars post from a few years back). Looks like designers are starting to notice, which is good, and starting to tell folks about it, which is even better. UK based logo designer Graham Smith takes a look at what’s going on in a great post on his ImJustCreative blog, delving into some of the questionable (and sometimes downright unethical) approaches some logo design companies are taking. In a similar vein, Australia based designer Duane Kinsey opines that Google doesn’t understand professional logo design on his Logobird site. If that weren’t enough, Logo Design Love reveals the folly of logo design SEO in a post by UK based David Airey. All three articles are excellent summaries of the minefield that anyone’s presented with when they type in the words “logo + design” into a Google search bar.

Speaking of design contest sites (oh yes, we were) there’s yet another game in town. Calling themselves White Label Design Contest, this outfit has a newer angle than most of the others now plying their trade all over the interwebs. Their home page asks us tantalizingly “Want to create a website that works like 99designs?” and then goes on to describe how they can help you “set up your own design contest site with [their] hassle-free application. Our platform has the same functionality as 99designs, you can use it to create a website based on the concept of designers submitting their work to design projects (“contests”)“. Oh, that sounds just peachy. The money bit? Don’t worry your pretty little head: “Our business model is based on revenue sharing, which means that the revenue generated by your site is shared between us and you, and you only have to pay us once your business starts making money“. No mention how designers get paid, though if it’s like most design contest sites, that’s not part of the equation. As they won’t be. [White Label Contests].

Best selling author John Winsor is gung-ho about crowdsourcing and what have you, but as he’s one of the founders of Victors & Spoils, billed as “the worlds first advertising agency built on crowdsourcing principles” can’t really blame him. Brimming with enthusiasm, John’s just published a blog post entitled “It’s only the beginning”, in which he tells us that the current buzz around crowdsourcing is, well, only the beginning. Standard pro spec work and crowdsourcing fare, except for one notable exception. John tells us about the future of the genre which includes “the expectation of transparency, the further digitization of the workforce and the rise of the curator class“. Rise of the curator class? Jeezus, that doesn’t sound snooty at all. John mustn’t have got the memo. [John Winsor]

Crowdsourcing: Opportunity or Time Suck? That’s the question asked by Entrepreneur magazine in a website article published last week. I’m thinking time suck, but then again, no-one’s ever accused me of being the most unbiased cat on the subject. Unlike most rah-rah design contest and crowdsourcing puff pieces, author Michelle Goodman takes a decent, level-headed look at the issue, outlining the generally accepted pros and cons of the practice (unfortunately falling for the crowdsourcing numbers game used by most of the outfits mentioned in the piece). Her overall conclusion? Crowdsourcing may not be for everyone, but it’s here to stay. Alas, she’s probably right on both counts. [Entrepreneur]

Looks like AT&T is messing around with their logo. If the video at the link is any indication, they’re not rebranding completely, but simply removing the AT&T typography that’s been featured below and at the right of their little death starish icon. The people at Gizmodo are less than impressed, wondering if the phone company could focus their funds on addressing dropped calls first. Fair criticism I suppose. [Gizmodo]

Speaking of logo design and video games (we sorta were, alluding to it in the War or Warcraft bit) seems there’s now a company that will design logos for people to use in the Second Life universe. According to this post on the Second Life blog pages, your design will be tackled by someone with “in-game experience so that you receive the highest standards of design“. They also tell us that a logo is important to “establish brand Identity”, “retain loyalty”, “gain more clients” and “increase sales”. Whether this is in the real world, or the make believe world of Second Life is anyone’s guess, but hats off for these cats finding a niche that no-one had even though about. [Second Life blogs]

Designers are always going on about how a logo adds an air of legitimacy to any business offering (guilty as charged). Looks like spammers have now caught on to this principle, using the IRS logo to legitimize a fairly cynical phishing scam to try and score personal information. As this is tax time, the spammers are trying to fool people using subject headers like “You’ve Overpaid” and offering fast-tracked tax refunds. The official looking e-mail will take you to a website that also looks legit, asking you to provide personal information goodies which can then be used for identity theft, or to drain your bank account. To counter the scam, the IRS has put out an official statement that explains they’ll never ask for your personal information over the phone or online so, if you get one of these e-mails either just hit delete or forward it on to phishing@IRS.gov. We got a ton of these last week, pretty well to every mail account at our domain, but while the IRS has a long arm indeed, it probably doesn’t stretch across the 49th. [Channel 9 News Syracuse]

Happy Tax Day.

Have an interesting blog piece, logo or ‘different’ take on the graphic design industry that might make interesting fodder for an upcoming Snippet feature? Feel free to drop us a line. You can also hit us up on Twitter.

Related posts:

1. Tip o’ the Pint design snippets. September edition
2. Snippets: Spring Tip o’ the Pint edition
3. Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition

Speaking about legal threats, just received one ourselves. A rather ominous, threatening and very lengthy Cease & Desist from some huge IT company out of Karachi, Pakistan. Seems someone took umbrage with a four-year-old blog post that we had kinda forgot all about. Actually, not the blog post itself, but a 55 word comment posted by some anonymous dude, also from Karachi, almost four years after the post was published. Even threatened to throw us in jail, they did. Usually, this would necessitate a call to our Mum, but figured this time, we’d not only comply with the C & D, but update the post to boot. You know, to set the record straight. [Updated Post]

Speaking about 99designs, a little bit of buzz about their ‘ready-made logo‘ service that they launched a few weeks ago. Their new ‘logo store’ mostly features outcasts and rejects from 99designs logo design contests (for the time being, only designers who have won a contest on the Australian ‘crowdsourcing’ platform qualify to upload images), and offers customizable logos starting at $99, for non-exclusive stuff, to just under three hundred for exclusive stuff. Some designers were none-too-impressed with the announcement of the plan, partially due to the spec work nature of the endeavor (designers only get paid when the logos are sold), the amount designers are getting (30 points of the sale provided they ‘hop to it’ when revisions are requested) and the fact that many people can purchase the same logo design over and over again, at odds with the point of a logo in the first place (so-called ‘non exclusive’ logos are nothing new, and can lead to all sorts of interesting situations). Anyhow, and despite the criticism, Matt Mickiewicz, one of the founders, was thrilled that 99designs managed to beat iStock Photo to the punch, (iStock announced it would be selling stock logos last fall) and twattered about the coup via Twitter (above). I guess it’s true that 99designs did beat iStock out of the gate, so if this sort of thing is important, congrats are in order. But if this kind of thing is important, should probably point out that 99designs failed to beat a host of others to launch. Outfits like Logo Yes, Logo Snap, Brand Stack, Logo Maker, Insta Logo, Logo Ease, Pixel Logo and a bazzilion others, all of whom have been flogging logo templates, stock logos and other variations of a theme for years. Hell, we launched our own stock logo website, Logos in a Box almost ten years ago, back in 2001 (courtesy The Wayback Machine). Even charged $99 too. And like the lads at 99designs, we offered multiple purchases of our stock logos (limited to 10 per) but scrubbed that idea shortly after launch. After having an fair play epiphany, we realized that selling multiple logos to multiple people was impossible to police, an affront to the idea of a logo, unfair to the customers buying them and smacked of general design dooshbaggery. [99designs]

Anyone remember the fairly in-depth look we took at logo design review sites a year and-a-bit back? Let’s bottom line it. Evidence suggested that some, ahm, “independent” logo review sites weren’t as “unbiased” as they claimed, looking like they were owned and operated by, quell suprise, the frikkin’ company that owned the sites they were doling out top marks to. And several other of the top spots too. With that in mind let’s looky here. In the current Logoblog.org “independent” reviews of “The Top 10 Logo Design Companies“, the number one site, Logo Design Guru, is still number one. No real surprise there. They’re always number one (wink, wink). Now there’s a new reviewee, Mycroburst, a design contest site that’s been parked in the number two spot of the “unbiased, reliable and independent” reviews, pretty much since the day it launched back in the fall. How this site got into the “Top Ten” list of logo design companies within a few weeks of launch is anyone’s guess, but get in they did, and as of today, Mycroburst boasts 4.4 stars out of five, while bigger, older and more established ‘crowdsourcing’ sites like 99designs and Crowdspring don’t even rate a mention. You can probably figure out where this is headed, but guess who operates the Mycroburst site? Uh-huh. None other than Guru Corporation, the company that claims Logo Design Guru as one of its “brands” on their Guru Corporation website. Right beside Mycroburst. To make matters even more, ahm, interesting, Logoblog.org recently ran an article ‘Spec Work in Logo Design: Boon or Bane?‘ that was supposed to take a look at both sides of the contentious debate about spec work. You know, the way Mycroburst operates on a day-to-day basis. Besides figuring out that spec work isn’t so evil after all (guess Mycroburst were relieved), and suggesting designers “chill” about the entire thing, the article also reveals this little nugget: “My message for aspiring designers…big logo design companies claim to hate spec work but then discovered to be owners of contest sites.” You don’t say. [Logo Blog]

Speaking about oddities and Mycroburst, the “Boon or Bane” article on Logoblog.org is a thematic doppleganger of the “Spec-Work: A curse or a blessing for Graphic Designers?” article that ran over on GraphicDesignBlog.org a few months ago. Funny enough, author Charlie B. Johnson also discovered that spec work wasn’t so evil after all, advising graphic designers to “join in hands to contribute to the changing world of graphic design.” You know, kick in with the spec work. Odd thing though. That piece was written shortly after this post, in which Charlie positively raves about Mycroburst as “A New Warehouse for Graphic Designers“, telling readers to “Go for it!!“. Even stranger, and while admitting that “design contests are not live yet” (wonder how he knew Mycroburst was gonna be so peachy?) Charlie told designers that it was “high time to get ourselves registered, so our creative juices get flowing as soon as the contests are announced“. Seemed odd that a graphic designer would gush over yet another design contest website so enthusiastically, advising young designers to sign up for a spec site that had yet to prove itself, not having launched (at the time) a single, solitary contest. As the resident spec work ‘fly in the ointment’ I did what I usually do. Ask the question.

To date, no answer (though between you and me, I didn’t really expect one). Now, a few months later, Charlie’s site is replete with tons of Mycroburst ads and this odd little coinky dinky. A clicky on his free logo linky will lead you to Logo Snap. You know, Logo Design Guru’s flash logo generator thingamajig. That’s awfully sporting Charlie. [Graphic Design Blog]

On a completely unrelated matter that we weren’t talking about, anyone heard about the new FTC blogging regulations? Actually, debuting back in December, they’re not that new, but I’m sure a lot of bloggers and site owners are unaware, so let’s take a little time to have a looksee. Apparently, it’s now an issue if you endorse, or review, a product or service without disclosing your relationship with, or payment from. It’s supposed to level the playing field and protect consumers and, I dunno, designers, from unfair or unethical stuff they call “stealth marketing” and “conversational deception“, especially through the ever-growing area of social media. This isn’t the first time someone has tried to stem internet asshattery with search engine giant Google claiming to have taken a stance against “paid links“, particularly those designed to inflate ‘inbound link love’ to other sites, artificially inflating the PR of the target. Judging by some quick searches, as well as some discussions with others, Google’s campaign has been less than successful. Now, the Federales are getting in on the action, but not without some resistance. Seeing the move as an assault on “free speech“, some positively hate the idea of the Feds barging into the wild-west nature of the internet. Others think it’s a worthy effort, hoping the FTC nails “blogging scoundrels” seeing the regulations as a predictable price for “collective bad behavior“. Not sure how they’re going to enforce it with over 10,000,000 blogs, and I suppose it won’t have any effect on sites that are parked outside the USA but taking a look at Communication Overtone‘s summary of the regs, it’s a noble goal, I suppose. Don’t you agree Charlie? [New York Times]

Related posts:

1. Tip o’ the Pint design snippets. September edition
2. Snippets: Crowdsourcing advice for designers, IE6 must die & more unbiased logo reviews
3. Snippets: The 10% better than 99designs, more stock logo shenanigans and the strange story of Brandstack edition

Step #1: Find a suitable image

First, you should take a look at what the contest is all about. In this instance, you’ll be entering a contest for a marina boat repair business. Cool. That would need some boat artwork, so let’s hop over to Google and run a search for related terms. Ah hell, cut right to the chase and type in ‘boat logo‘. Awesome. Lots of stuff, and Big ‘G’ even doles up mini images as part of the search. Liking the first one, from some online outfit called The Logo Factory. That would be perfect for a marina boat repair design, no?

Step #2: Adapt said image to personal tastes

Lessee. You don’t want to submit a complete knock-off as that wouldn’t be cool (logo contest value and all that). Also wouldn’t want people to notice our ‘homage’, so we’ll need to perform a few perfunctory changes to make the design completely ours.

Step #3: Upload new image and hope nobody notices

Once we’ve finished, ahm, tweaking the logo into its new form, we can upload to the 99designs contest and hope for the best. If our entry doesn’t win, it falls squarely under the “nothing ventured, nothing gained” category. Even if it doesn’t win, let’s not forget all those lovely, ever-so-important stars we’ll receive from the ever-so-grateful contest holder. Not really sure how, but apparently these will make us a better designer. And if we win, huzah! 150 bones straight to our handy-dandy PayPal account, or in this case, the PayPal account of some user called [re]Design (alas, I wish I was kidding) who uploaded our beautifully reworked logo thusly:

Step #4: Let someone else have a go

Having invested five or ten minutes with this contest (the maximum you’ll wish to expend to keep things ‘profitable’), you should probably stand back and let other participants have a go. Let them use Step #1. Find the image and rework it from a different angle. Perhaps removing the portholes and the waves was a little spartan for the contest holders tastes, so the next entrant may want to leave the waves in this time. A word of caution. Two (or more) people entering a logo ‘homage’ from the same source is going to require some designery soft shoe as we mix things up a little.

And we still wouldn’t have to design anything.

Related posts:

1. Spec work hackery redux. More of our work copied & entered into 99designs logo design contest
2. The Design Contest Factory
3. How to win a logo design contest

From the “Here We Go Again” Department. No point in rehashing the dangers of logo design contests, save this simple “spec work is bad” equation:

A whole bunch anonymous people who may, or may not, be actual designers +
A very small chance of getting paid for their design work +
A web-based logo design contest on ANY ‘design contest’ site =
An extraordinarily high risk of copied work.

The proof, as they say, is always “in the pudding“. So let’s take a look at some recent pudding from our old pals at 99designs, this time in a logo contest for the good folks at Storm Factory, undoubtedly nice people who like to think of themselves as an “awesome entertainment company“. The brief for the $270 contest is pretty straight forward, asking for a design that incorporates “a factory and/or a storm in some kind of creative way.” Cool. This tanning salon logo (designed by our shop back in 2003) features a factory (right), so let’s add some lightning bolts (in a “creative” way I suppose) and we’re all set. Not that this is the contest holder’s fault (other than holding a contest in the first place). They can’t be expected to know every logo in the history of ever. And as 99designs can’t, or won’t, monitor every single contest on their server, identifying knocked-off stuff is left to other contest participants. As is notifying 99designs administrators about the hackery (though “please do this very quietly, lest contest holders realize they’re paying for a bunch of copied logos that they can’t use” seems to be the policy de jour). Not that this “let’s leave monitoring contests to the plebes” concept always works out so well. Anyone remember this spec work parable when it didn’t?

As is generally the case, and after being notified, the lads at 99designs quietly withdraw the copied design (or as in this case, multiple variations) from the contest proper, but leave it on their server so that others can be, ahm, inspired by it (or for search engine rankings, whichever comes first). You can’t imagine how thrilled I am to have work that’s been cribbed from our logo design portfolio, being used to promote 99designs and their services. Nor, how positively chuffed I am knowing that when 99designs claims they’re a better alternative to our shop, or other designers, because “clients” get “more design options“, some of those “more design options” are ripped straight from our galleries. And those of other designers and design firms. While we’re at it, wonder if ripped designs count in the “97 designs” average submissions per contest these guys claim?

Meanwhile, the would be designer who’s now shown us that he’s not above lifting others’ work so blatantly, is free to enter more contests held by unsuspecting contest holders. He’s active in six right now. Ain’t the first time this nonsense has happened. Or the second time either. Copied designs being entered into logo contests and so-called crowdsourcing sites is a regular occurrence. Or is this just another example of someone being a snooty designer who won’t get with the program?

Related posts:

1. Yet another 99designs logo contest knock-off
2. New! Spec work. Schmeck work. Proudly announcing our groovy new design contest factory!
3. How to enter a logo design contest in ten minutes flat. Without having to design anything

Spec work. Design contests. Crowdsourcing. Does it really matter what label we hang on them? The dangers always remain the same. For years now, we’ve been barking about design contests, and their recently re-packaged cousin crowdsourcing, as an extremely risky way to have anything designed. By anybody. For anything. One of our major caveats is that clients and buyers always run the risk of purchasing copied work. Simple theory really, and a predictable problem when you ask a whole bunch of anonymous people to submit designs into a contest, without paying them to do so. Someone will always take a short cut, helping themselves to somebody else’s stuff. Maybe submit free vector art, downloaded from some obscure design blog. Maybe some stock art, pinched from iStock, Shutterstock or some other image library. If the design doesn’t win, no harm, no foul. If it does win, let’s just hope that nobody notices. This isn’t reactionary hand-wringing from some bedwetting designer either. It happens over, and over, and over again. I did, however, think that fan-based contests were pretty well immune to the “copying bug“. Rather than a potential way to may a couple of bucks (in this case Euros) in some $250 logo design contest, this is heady stuff for a product you’re supposed to love. Social medializing and all that. With the large prize money involved, and the personal identification that’s usually required, nobody would enter pinched material into a high-profile crowdsourced contest. Right? Oh, I dunno. Maybe you should ask Cadbury Chocolate.

Cadbury Chocolate €10,000 wrapper design contest

Curated by advertising giant Ogilvy Mather, the Dublin-based division of candy giant Cadbury, asked fans to design a wrapper for their Dairy Milk bar, jumping on the trendy ‘crowdsourcing’ bandwagon. Up for grabs was €10,000 (about $20K give-or-take), certainly a little more than chump change, which attracted a ton of entries from designers and non-designers alike. Judging of the design contest was web-based through Cadbury’s Facebook page, after the designs where whittled down to a final 5, and votes ran in the tens of thousands, with the two top entries garnering about twenty-five thou a pop. So far, so good. Alas, when the winner was introduced, it very quickly became apparent that the winning design bore an uncanny resemblance to someone else’s artwork. Facebook freaked out. The winning designer (we’re not going to mention her name) nuked her Facebook account and disappeared. Cadbury’s Twitter account was flooded with complaints, accusations and reports of plagiarism. Red faces all around no doubt. This morning, this very carefully worded comment was quietly added to The Apprentice contest website homepage.

I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of this either, so we can label this story as developing. In the meantime, congrats going out to Paul Ruane, who’s now getting a little bit of the glory he should have had in the first place.

[Hat tip: Benjamin Royce. More details and comments at the link]

Related posts:

1. Spec work hackery redux. More of our work copied & entered into 99designs logo design contest
2. Creative crowdsourcing & design contests. Hype or reality? Contest holder & buyer’s edition
3. Logo design contest with a twist

From the “All’s Well That Ends Well Department”. Back in 2007, the EU (European Union) announced plans to introduce a compulsory organic labeling scheme across all 27 countries, and a couple of years later, revealed the program logo, designed for mandatory use on products that are 95 per cent or more organic and free of genetically modified organisms (GMO).

Not everyone was happy with the design, including Germany-based retailer Aldi, who raised some concerns (and eyebrows) over the similarities between the new green logo and its own trademarked organic brand symbol (left). After a lot of frantic phone calls, a few red faces and probably a few strongly-worded lawyers’ letters, EU officials backed down, the logo was shelved and the launch, originally scheduled for 2009, delayed until this year. The responsible commission decided that they’d try again, this time opting for a Europe-wide logo design contest, open to art and design students. Final voting was available to the public via the contest website, and some 130,000 Europeans chimed in, helping decide the official design.

Fast forward to today when, after tallying all submitted votes, The European Commission officially announced the winning design (above left) by Dusan Milenkovic, a German student, who gained 63% of the overall vote for his “Euro Leaf” logo. The icon shows the EU stars in the shape of a leaf against a green background and is meant to convey two messages: “Nature and Europe“. Over the past two months, people have voted online to choose the new organic symbol from three finalists, whittled down from nearly 3,500 logos by an international jury. The three logos (above) were featured on the competition website with voting ending on January 31.

“I’m delighted that we now have a fresh EU Organic Food Logo,” said Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, who first proposed the competition when the original blew up. “This exercise has raised the profile of organic food and we now have a logo which everyone will be able to identify with. It’s a nice elegant design and I look forward to buying products carrying this logo from July this year.”

The three top logo designers will be honoured by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development at an official award ceremony that will take place in Brussels later this summer. The three winners will receive prizes of €6,000, €3,500 and €2,500. In case you were wondering, those little squiggly symbols are Euros, each worth about a buck thirty five (or thereabouts).

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“.

Ah well. Can’t please all of the people, all of the time.

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2. Human Rights logo design contest winner
3. Doodle for Google design competition

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