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What we can learn from the new Gap logo debacle

Steve Douglas — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:38:53 +0000

Now that Gap has announced they’re abandoning their new logo, as well as passing on crowdsourcing for further development, perhaps we should take a look for lessons learned

After an Internet backlash about the new Gap logo late last week, the clothing retailer has now backed down, returning to their original mark, as well as nixing any plans to crowdsource a new design. According to company officials:

“We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognise that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community. This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowd sourcing. There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes, we’ll handle it in a different way.”

So, as designers, what can we learn? Several things I think. The first is this silly notion that ‘logos are dead.’ Obviously, logos still resonate with a large percentage of the market, consumers and customers. The second is that designers, when they work together, can exact change in their industry. Remember that when you want to gripe about ‘yet another spec work’ article. According to Ad Age, 80% of Gap customers surveyed, had no idea about the online controversy swirling about the ‘new’ Gap logo, so it’s a safe bet that a lot of the dust-up involved designers. It would therefore seem, despite all the spec work talking points, designers as a whole are still very much opposed to crowdsourcing and design contests.

It’s back!

Steve Douglas — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:10:55 +0000

After an extended summer hiatus, The Daily Logo has returned

A favorite feature of our legacy site, The Daily Logo is back, starting off with an oldie-but-goodie, Soupy’s Tequila Shack. Keep in mind that unlike our main design blog, new Daily Logos features are NOT announced on our Twitter feed, but exclusively via our Facebook fan page.

Animated logos for HD video using Flash

Steve Douglas — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 04:01:23 +0000

In this second half of a two-part tutorial, we’ll take a look at creating Flash logo animations of various complexity specifically for HD video intros. We’ll also show you how to reverse engineer-completed Flash files.

As we mentioned yesterday, the most important part of this exercise is to start your Flash animation with video in mind. The first aspect is the frame speed of your Flash document. Set that at thirty frames a second (30 FPS) so that the Flash animation will be compatible with QuickTime later on. The other is overall image size, either 1980px x 1020px or 1280px × 720 px (the recommended size for YouTube). Ironically, the first two examples we’ll take a look at were originally created for Flash presentation only, and reverse-engineered into HD video after the projects were completed. That requires a little more in prep-work that we’ll cover at the end of this post. As with part one, this tutorial assumes that you have a working knowledge of Flash and understand the basic concepts of tweening, symbols, movie clips and creating .SWF file.

Flash animations with vector objects

Flash animations that contain vector based objects (only) are the simplest to work with. Take this animation for CRW Promotions – a recent logo animation project at The Logo Factory. The logo design is relatively simple, contains vector shapes and I was able to break it down into 5 basic elements.

The ‘circles’ in the microphone were built using one Flash symbol (1) and the other elements (2 – 5) were set up as individual symbols, placed on their own layers in Flash and ‘tweened’ to create whatever movement we wanted.

As this movie was to be used on websites, we were concerned with file size, and by minimizing the number of symbols, and keeping everything vector based, the .SWF file is under 16K. This animation is a textbook example of a logo lick. Once the animation is completed, you can simply output the movie for HD video as outlined here.

Famous corporate logos & design contests?

Steve Douglas — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:30:22 +0000

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

Next up, Charlie shows us the EU Organic Certification logo (though the European Union isn’t exactly what I’d call a ‘famous company’ but I digress). While the contest did end up with a winner (three actually), not everyone was happy with how things panned out. I won’t re-hash, but quote the original post:

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]

Another Obama logo. Another Islamic crescent.

Steve Douglas — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:54:01 +0000

From the Here We Go Again Department. Fox News & right wing bloggers find yet another Islamic Crescent in yet another Obama logo. And just like the last time, they’re completely out to lunch.

In many ways, a symbolic logo design is like a Rorschach inkblot test. Unless they’re particularly literal or illustrative, our mind has to interpret what our eyes are seeing. And like its psychological cousin, interpreting a logo is often heavily influenced by our personal experiences and biases. In other words, we see what we want to see. And once again, a lot of people on the right side of the political aisle are seeing an Islamic Crescent in a logo that represents a US government initiative in general, linked to Barack Obama in specific. Last week, the US President hosted the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit with the stated goal of preventing “non-state actors from obtaining nuclear technology or materials”. Pretty historic stuff too, with Obama being the first leader to convene such a gathering – 47 nations in total – the largest since the formation of the United Nations. Ignoring all of this, and once again, Right Wing blogs and media outlets have sniffed out yet another Islamic Crescent in the logo for the event.

Michael Goodwin, a columnist at Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post got the ball rolling:

“The first time I saw the swirling logo for the Nuclear Security Summit, it looked familiar. I soon figured out what it reminded me of: a crescent moon. The kind of crescent moon you see on the flags of Muslim countries (from left: Turkey, Algeria, Tunisia and Pakistan)…I am certain the crescent-like design of the logo is not a coincidence, especially at an event where Iran’s nuclear ambition and al Qaeda’s search for a bomb are prime topics”.

Right Side News published a long screed that started off telling us that the Nuclear Summit Logo is an Islamic-Shaped Crescent. Atlas Shrugs loon Pamela Geller breathlessly regurgitated the story on her blog. Never missing an opportunity to stir the conspiratorial pot, Murdoch owned Fox News got in on the action,

To me, as a humble logo designer, the logo appeared to represent a sunrise over the Earth. You know, typical logo symbolism that portrayed a ‘new day’ or a ‘new dawn’ in graphically simplistic terms. Even though that might have been appropriate, turns out the symbolism is even more literal than that, and is linked in very real terms to the summit, especially the nuclear part. According to White House spokespeople, the logo is an abstract variation of a Bohr Model. “What’s that?” you ask. Pretty complex stuff, but the first paragraph of the related Wiki page tells us all we need to know:

In atomic physics, the Bohr model, devised by Niels Bohr, depicts the atom as a small, positively charged nucleus surrounded by electrons that travel in circular orbits around the nucleus—similar in structure to the solar system, but with electrostatic forces providing attraction, rather than gravity.

And here’s what one version of a Bohr Model looks like:

You’d think we’d have learned our lesson the last time. That’s when the Right Wing side of the internet freaked out because they found an Islamic Crescent in Obama’s new Missile Defense logo. Trouble is, that one wasn’t a logo, wasn’t new, and didn’t feature a crescent, Islamic or otherwise. Just like this time. For more on this, take a look at Jon Stewart‘s skewering of Fox News’ “Logo Gate” on the Daily Show. [White House photo: Pete Souza]

Snippets: The Easter weekend, spec work, new freelance site & Pink Ponies round-up edition

Steve Douglas — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 21:21:03 +0000

Sparkles & Pink Ponies: Despite being a snippy old crank, didn’t really intend for our blog to become ground zero for design bitterness and negativity. It just kinda happens from time-to-time. Last week, and with that in mind, thought we’d lighten things up with a Sparkles and Pink Ponies Snippets edition. You know, rather than ranking on design contests, spec work and general internet asshattery, toss around a few well-deserved pint tips to design related websites, sans the snark and sarcasm that we’ve become known for. That post wasn’t live ten minutes before we received several e-mails and Twitter messages from people that, while appreciating our positive and uplifting attempt, requested that we get back to the sarcasm and the snark. El pronto. Yay! Seems there’s a place for bitterness in the design business after all. Which is good. Cause we’re currently working on a new blog post entitled “The Dirty Little Secret that most Design Contest Sites Don’t Want You to Know“. Sparkles and Pink Ponies it ain’t. And Easter weekend notwithstanding, neither is most of the following…

The Logo Factory April Fools Gag. Huge thanks to everyone for playing along with our April Fools gag from a couple of days ago. Special kudos to David Airey who jump-started a lot of the frivolities, twattering to his 7,000+ followers that “Former No-Spec proponent Steve Douglas back-tracks and launches The Contest Factory“. Heh. I’m sure that got the attention of a few folks. Overall, I had a lot of fun putting the irony laden piece together (though it wasn’t that far removed from the realities of most actual design contest sites) and seems like everyone that read it, got the gag, lulzing it around various social media platforms. Everyone, that is, except the couple of designers who contacted the studio, wanting to sign up for our new ‘contest thingy’. And the cat who e-mailed me, suggesting I acquaint myself with the anti design contest initiative No-Spec!. And that I acquaint our new spec work venture with my derrière. Which apparently is both fat, and a sellout. The risks of using irony on a blog, I suppose.

Design Contest & Crowdsourcing Reviews: For a myriad of reasons, I generally don’t put much credence into any type of logo design reviews or the sites that host them. The main one is that they’re often owned by the very same folks that are being reviewed, kinda defeating the purpose of “unbiased” reviews in the first place. Some though, are kinda interesting, just not for the reasons originally intended. Take this one, from advertising blog, AdMaven, that claims to be reviewing design contest and crowdsourcing sites. No sign of an axe to grind, but I did find their first review, a look at Australian site 99designs to be remarkably ironic, at least when it comes to the raison d’être of these sites in the first place. Seems the review points out, pretty well verbatim, what many of us Negative Nellies have been saying about design contests and crowdsourcing for a while now. How so? Let’s take a dander at the review itself. Overall, AdMaven is generally cool with 99designs, giving them 4/5 from a designer’s point-of-view, and a so-so 3/5 from the contest holder’s side of things. What didn’t they like? “We didn’t like being charged extra for listing your project privately (intellectual property is a huge obstacle for many buyers – why ding us for wanting to protect our ideas?)” Whose ideas? May be nitpicking here, but Sonny Jim, if you haven’t selected an idea, then I’d argue that the ideas still belong to the people who’ve uploaded them into your contest. You know, until you actually buy them (but now that you mention it, there’s a pretty cynical reason for the additional charges. We’ll talk about that mid-week). Any other issues?

“We didn’t like the hordes of amateur designers cluttering projects with concepts. We liked having a low barrier to entry, but this also means setting a low bar for design quality in many cases. Working for free is hard enough as it is – does every 15 year old with a pirated copy of Adobe Creative Suite have to be included too?”

Gee, doesn’t that sound just a tad elitist and snooty? Just a couple of things too. 15-year-olds with a pirated couple of Illustrator? You should be so lucky. Not paying people for design work attracts folks who might present ‘low quality’ work? Who da thunk it? And at the risk of sounding like a wag, how can you complain about amateur designers tossing their designs into the ring, when nobody’s getting paid for the tossing? Besides, lowering the bar for amateur designers is one of the central themes that all so-called crowdsourcing sites give as a reason for their services, not as a weakness of such services (guessing AdMaven didn’t get the ‘democratization of design‘ memo). Bottom line; the guy doing the reviewing wants professional designers, with licensed software, who just happen to be of legal contract-signing age. Wonder where they’d find such a thing?

Oh, oh, I know…

New Freelance Site: Wednesday marked the launch date of Andrew Hyde‘s new freelance design site Pick.im. Brutally simple concept too. Freelance designers can register and upload their portfolios. Design buyers can search for a service provider with criteria including budget, designer experience and skill set and the localization filters will cough up a list of qualified graphic designers in your area. How much of a market is there for such a service? Quite a bit, if Pick.im’s first day of operation stats (above) are any indication. If you’re a freelance designer, it’s probably worth a looksee. [Pick.im]

The Devil’s in the Details. Or at Least in the Fine Print: Supposed to encourage citizens of St Albert (and the region) to “discover, experience and celebrate the creative endeavours of local artists and performers” the St Alberts’ Cultivates The Arts festival is scheduled for September. The ‘steering committee’ want a logo for it. So they’re having a logo contest (isn’t everyone?). As is typical, they’re offering a prize of $2,000 for the winner. What’s not so typical is one of the contest disclaimers which goes something like this:

“The St. Albert Cultivates the Arts Committee reserves the right to select no winning entry if it deems that the submissions do not meet the needs of the organization”

See, I think these cats are well within their rights to not use any of the designs entered. Ain’t so sure about not picking a winner, or not doling out the prize, especially if you’re advertising the gig as a competition, or contest, and using a two grand ‘prize’ to entice participation. Like, aren’t there rules about such things? [St. Albert Cultivates the Arts]

As this is the Easter weekend, probably won’t be any more posts till Monday. Maybe even Tuesday. Busy hanging out with the family, and digging into our fave Easter treat, those ever-so-yummy Cadbury Creme Eggs. You know the ones. Little tinfoil-wrapped chocolate eggs with gooey insides that look just like egg yolk, are about 120% sugar and who knows how many calories. In the meantime, and in keeping with an Easter theme, you should hop over to the Christian Science Monitor, where they’ll tell you how some online companies, including Google, have set up egg hunts, themed gags and other goodies.

Happy Easter.

Dear Sam. An open letter about copying logos

Steve Douglas — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:57:39 +0000

Sam, I’d probably like you if we met over beers, or perhaps a plate of chicken wings at your pizza parlor. Could even make the trip too, as your town is only a few hours from our studio. Alas Sam, our friendship never had much of a chance, and it’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever break bread now. You see Sam, like you, we run a small business. It’s sometimes a struggle making ends meet, covering payroll, paying our bills, keeping our software and hardware up to date. We don’t make a lot of profit, but we keep at it, mostly because we love what we do. Designing logos. Just like you probably love what you do. Making pizza and chicken wings. Taking as much pride in your craft, as we do in ours.

In these tough economic times, it’s sometimes difficult getting people to fork out for their logo design, just as I’m sure it is getting people to fork out for their pizzas, beers, wings and that delicious home-made bread you talk about so enthusiastically on your website. If ever we’re down around your neck of the woods, we might have stopped by and sampled some of your fares. I’m a big fan of chicken wings (if my waistline is any indication, perhaps too much) and love washing them down which a pitcher of draught. We’d probably have given the server who looked after us a healthy tip, cause we’re like that. We get it. Some of our designers have worked as waiters. My wife worked at one of those pizza chains when she was a teenager, so we understand that tips are really important. It might have been cool, Sam. But that was before you pinched some artwork off the internet. Our work. And tried to turn it into your logo.

I understand how this happened Sam. That logo is in the number one or two spot when you search for the keywords pizza and logo on Google. Does pretty well for “pizzeria logo” too. Bottom line, it’s a decent design and it’s really easy to find. That didn’t happen by accident Sam. Far from it. We had to write some nice copy about pizza logos and feature some examples from our portfolio on one of our web pages. We even gave some tips on how to design a pizzeria logo. Hopefully, people who were looking for design firms, especially those that were good at designing pizza logos, might find our site when using their favorite search engine. Maybe even hire us to design a logo for their restaurant. And if they wanted to try designing one themselves, we gave a few tips that might help.

Here’s the thing Sam. Our portfolio and website is our advertising, very similar to the website you’re building for your pizza parlor. And like the mailers you send to people in your neighborhood, hoping that they’ll order pizza and wings by phone. Or visit your fine establishment when they want to dine out. Trouble is Sam, when you wanted to add a logo to your website and mailers, you decided to nick the design you liked so much right off our website. You, or some designer you hired, took the image, removed the name of the client we originally designed the logo for, and put in your restaurant’s name. Pretty badly too Sam, because this design wasn’t built for the name of your restaurant, it was built for the original client’s name. But that’s neither here nor there. This letter isn’t about good or bad logo design. It’s about intellectual property.

See Sam, I didn’t think I’d have to tell you this. I thought you’d understand, being a small business owner like myself, that our companies represent a way of making a living to the people who work for us. Our designers and admin staff. Just like your servers and chefs. Our logos and design work are just like your pizza and chicken wings Sam. You know, product. The things we sell to keep the lights on, the doors open and the paychecks signed. Or in your case, the doors to your pizza pub restaurant open, your wait staff smiling and your pizza ovens nice and hot.

Maybe we’re too expensive for your budget Sam, and that’s okay. Just like your pizza may be more expensive than the Domino’s and Pizza Pizza chains across the street from your shop. You’ll tell your customers that your pizzas and wings are more expensive because they’re better than those other guys. Better, fresher ingredients. Home made pie crust. Hand mixed sauces. That’s kind of our position on our pricing too, Sam. We only present custom work, no templates or clip art here, and we have to price our design services in order to maintain that level of quality. We try to have great customer service and warm, knowledgeable bodies answering phones when clients need help with their logos. There are cheaper solutions to be sure, and you’re welcome to use those guys too. Free market and all that. Just like the people in your area are welcome to buy their wings and pizzas from those large chains that don’t take as much pride in their menu items as you do. You have breaded shrimps too? That’s awesome.

But here’s the thing Sam. When you decided that we were too rich for your tastes, or your budget, you didn’t go to the other, cheaper guys. You just took our artwork, property that belongs to someone else, and made it yours. You didn’t pay for it. You didn’t even ask. It would be like me breaking into your restaurant and taking your pizza (I’m partial to pepperoni, mushroom and pineapple) without asking you, because I thought you were charging too much. Or taking your pepperoni, mushrooms, pineapples and home made pie dough, right out of your fridge, so that I could try and make my own pizza. Pizza that, hopefully, would taste just like yours. You might think artwork on the internet is different Sam, but it’s not really. You’re taking something that doesn’t belong to you. And using it for your own benefit. Without asking the rightful owner, or the creator, if they’re okay with you using it.

Judging by the way your website is set up (5.7 MBs for your about page is a bit heavy Sam) you may be new to the internet and not know this. While it’s cool to find all sorts of stuff, logo design examples let’s say, the internet is also a weird place. A very weird place indeed. I’ve never heard of your pizza parlor, nor did I know about your new website. Trouble is, someone from your neighborhood, perhaps even a customer of yours, knows about us. They seem to be quite familiar with our site too, being able to find a very old contact form that’s not easy to find on our new site. I think they might be a graphic designer Sam, because they were really, really unhappy to see our client’s logo being used to promote your restaurant. So unhappy that they took some time out of their busy day to tell us. And just like you used the internet search machine to find examples of pizza logos, we used the internet search machine to find you. Now, whether you really want to or not, you’re going to have to have a new logo designed. You won’t hire us because after all this, you probably think I’m not a very nice person. That bad blood is sad really, because we didn’t do anything wrong. Other than advertise our services on the internet. Just like you advertise your pizzas and wings on the internet. But you’re going to have to hire somebody I suppose. Here’s a few tips on selecting a logo designer. And if you’ve printed our work on business cards, letterheads or heaven forbid, your menus, it’s going to cost a lot more than the couple of hundred bucks you saved by not hiring us. The sad footnote to this is that you’ve probably lost a customer too. Remember the designer that told us about this little incident? Apparently, they don’t want to support a business that appears to think so little about theirs. The big chains across the street are cheaper too.

I want to keep this quiet Sam, because I’m sure you’re a nice guy who may not have understood that this kind of thing is wrong. Many people seem to think that once something is on the internet, it’s available for use by anyone. It isn’t. There’s this little wrinkle to that called copyright. Trademark works too. Some may feel that pinching artwork off the internet is just like downloading MP3s or movies via a file-sharing network. It’s not. MP3s and bootleg movies are downloaded into a private stash on a hard drive that no-one else sees. While it’s still very illegal, it’s highly unlikely they’ll ever get caught. By their nature, logos are very, very public. That’s the point in the first place. And when you use a logo how it’s supposed to be used, plastered over your advertising, you run a very real risk of the owner finding out. In many different and wondrous ways. If they don’t find it themselves, it could come down to some graphic designer who reads a website, or a logo design blog like this one, dropping into your shop for an undoubtedly wonderful slice of pizza. And then half the internet will be raging about yet another example of someone knocking off someone else’s design work. Funny thing, I wrote about that kind of thing just a few days ago. They’re called Twitter Storms and they can get really, really nasty. That won’t happen this time Sam, because I’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure the search engine machines don’t connect this post with your restaurant. See, I just wanted you to stop using our work. And to leave our client’s logo alone. And who knows. Maybe if the Mrs. and I ever plan a road trip down your way, we’ll drop in for a slice or two. Or maybe some of those lovely looking shrimps.

The preceding was based on an actual event. Sam is not the actual name of the restaurant owner addressed. So it doesn’t get picked up by search engines, we’ve left the name of his restaurant out of the article too. Also should mention that after being contacted, the logo was removed from Sam’s website.

Snippets: The Oscar weekend, Logorama, Blog Fail & new Ubuntu logo edition

Steve Douglas — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:05:29 +0000

Oscar weekend is upon us and the awards show will undoubtedly suck up the oxygen on the Tee Vee and the Internet for most of next week. As this is supposedly a logo design blog, not much to write about really, except wondering how Logorama, a cool little animated film that should interest graphic designers, will fare. If you don’t know what Logorama is, take a gander at this piece on the Logorama Oscar nomination we posted a few weeks ago. As of this morning, the video link included is still active, so you can watch the animated logo movie there too. For what it’s worth, we also took a look at the Oscar Best Picture nomination logos because, well, we’re just like that. And as that’s about as much logo design related stuff we can crowbar into Oscar news, we’ll move on…

Blog Fail: Just over a year ago I wrote a blog article called Why you should crowdsource your logo. If you don’t have enough time to read the piece (it’s long, wouldn’t blame you) let’s just say the link will lead you to a 5,585 word diatribe that’s a rabidly anti-crowdsourcing article into which I crowbarred as much snark as humanly possible (and then some) into 16 reasons why crowdsourcing a logo may be a very. Bad. Idea. Alas, at several times since then, the article has been twattered around Twitter, which is cool, by people who think it’s a pro-spec article, which it most certainly isn’t. All of this proves one of two things. Either many people on Twitter don’t read the links they’re twattering, or I need to step up the snark factor when I write my next anti-spec-work screed. The former is possible, the latter not so much. I’m not sure if it’s possible to squeeze more snark into any article before it becomes a black hole of sarcasm and irony, sucking the common sense from every article on this website.

Blog Fail 2. Speaking about mucking up this bloggy thing, I wrote a bit yesterday that looked at the most knocked-off, copied and overdone approaches to logo design. Nothing terribly big deal, bit of a puff-piece really, that featured the Ubuntu and Joomla logos as prime examples of how popular logos can get knocked off left, right and center. You know, logo copying dooshbaggery and all that. Next thing you know, folks are getting all hopped up, claiming I’m hating on the Joomla and Ubuntu logos and that I’m holding them up as examples of crap design, even inducting them into some Bad Logo Hall of Fame. Trouble is, I like the bloody things. The Joomla logo is a clever combination of network imagery, little ‘networked’ people, all made up using the letter ‘J’ and the nifty little Ubuntu ‘Circle of Friends‘ logo is ground zero for all the copying I was carping about in the first place (for what it’s worth, I don’t have a Bad Logo Hall of Fame, real or imagined, either). Oh yeah, they also think I’m “arrogant“. And our work sucks. [Twitter]

Speaking about the Ubuntu logo (whoa, that’s a good segue), there’s a new one. As part of their new branding program, Canonical Ltd (the folks behind Ubuntu) announced the new mark yesterday. “After six years it was time to refresh the face of Ubuntu starting with the word mark. We wanted Ubuntu to reflect the precision and engineering that sits at the heart of the product. The new logo reflects this but not at the expense of the immediately recognizable circle of friends“. You didn’t ask my opinion, but if you did, this is what I’d say: “Best logo in the history of ever“. Seriously. Ever.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s some villagers banging at the door.

NEA Art Works logo contest update. When it comes to government, even spec work gets mired in red tape

Steve Douglas — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:00:05 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) logo design contest for their Art Works project. Not going to regurgitate everything again, other than bullet pointing the bare bones. A government arts initiative that wanted to remind business people that “arts workers are real workers” who are “part of this country’s real economy“ and “earn salaries, support families, pay taxes, revitalizing towns, cities and neighborhoods.“ So they launched a logo design contest with a $25,000 prize. Not surprisingly, pushback was swift, with blog posts by designers and a strongly worded letter from the AIGA protesting the contest, all claiming that spec work devalued the graphic design industry and was, in fact, sending the exact opposite message that the logo was supposed to illustrate. The NEA responded thusly: “This RFP is open to anyone who enrolls in the Central Contractor Registration, and it has a streamlined submission process that essentially involves submitting one image, a three-page narrative that explains the thinking behind the proposed image and provides some basic information about the proposer. They also told us:

“The response to date has been overwhelmingly positive, and it has also engendered a lively dialogue about the structure of the RFP itself, in particular around the issue of “work for spec” in the graphic design community.”

Taking a gander at some of the comments on the blog, not sure I’m on side with the “overwhelmingly positive” vibe but no mind. Bottom line, anti spec work crusaders could get bent, and the contest would go on as scheduled. Well, maybe not exactly as scheduled, with the deadline being postponed from February 26 to March 5, this Friday, due to snow storms that crippled the Nation’s capital. People who had tried to enter the contest ($25K is a lot of bones) were glad of the extension, not because they needed time to polish their logos, or the three-page logo symbolism treatise, or the basic biography that’s supposed to accompany the design proposals. Nope. It was because, like most things in the government, it was incredibly difficult to figure out the damn submission process. From the helpful:

“Might it be possible to offer an EZ-application form, Application-lite or Application for Dummies option for those who are interested in entering but don’t speak government language.”

To the exasperated:

“I am a graphic designer with (IMHO) a great completed design idea. However, I have found the submission process to be a such a frustrating labyrinth of links, forms, etc. that I have given up. I am NOT a business- no DUNS#, TIP# etc. The e-mail requirements for submissions are straightforward enough until you get to the forms and ORCA stuff. Why isn’t there a simple way for individuals to submit ideas?”

To the incredulous:

“I am so dumbfounded by the application process (do we scan in our completed paperwork to submit electronically in addition to our logo files?) Someone needs to explain this!!”

In response to the criticism, and just 4 days before contest close, the NEA posted a “thorough FAQ that supposedly “covers every aspect of the Art Works logo design RFP and submission process“. Trouble is the PDF download is still filled with so much legal gobbledygook that if you can decipher it, you probably deserve the 25 grand prize. Hooray for government spec work.

Obama hearts Milton. Glaser becomes first graphic designer to be awarded National Medal of Arts

Steve Douglas — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:14:18 +0000

Don’t think there’s a graphic designer alive who hasn’t heard of Milton Glaser. Or know about his work. If you’re one of the few, his Wiki biography page will bring you up to speed. Bottom line, Milton Glaser, born in 1929, is only one of the most famous graphic designers in the history of ever, best known for the I Love New York logo, his Bob Dylan poster and the old DC Comics “bullet” logo. He also founded New York Magazine in 1968, the revolutionary Push Pin Studios and is, in the art world, a very big deal. Anyhoo, last Thursday, Glaser was awarded a National Medal of Arts, presented by Barack Obama in the East Room of The White House. The National Medal of Arts is a yearly White House initiative that’s managed by the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) and is considered the USA’s highest honor for “artistic excellence“. Glaser’s selection is notable as it represents the first time a graphic designer has been selected. As well as being a prolific graphic designer and illustrator, Glaser has also penned several design books including Graphic Design, Art is Work, and Drawing is Thinking. Here’s some more of his work:

Said NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman

“These individuals and organizations show us how many ways art works every day. They represent the breadth and depth of American architecture, design, film, music, performance, theatre, and visual art. This lifetime honor recognizes their exceptional contributions, and I join the President and the country in saluting them.”

While this is Glaser’s first medal in this award program, he’s no stranger to being feted for his work. Among many others, he also received a lifetime achievement award by the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum back in 2004 for being an “influential master of communication and a humanistic force for social change“.
Also up for an award was rock legend Bob Dylan, the subject of Glaser’s famous poster art of the singer (alas, Bob couldn’t attend). Which is a really nice segue into our next bit. Speaking of Obama, Dylan and Glaser, seems Milton wasn’t terribly cool with having his Dylan poster (left) compared to Shepard Fairey‘s now famous Hope poster (right), especially when it came to the use of an Associated Press photo of Barack Obama as the reference. In an interview with Print magazine Glaser had this to say “I find the relationship between Fairey’s work and his sources discomforting. Nothing substantial has been added. In my own case, when I did the Dylan poster, I acknowledged using Duchamp’s profile as an influence. I think unless you’re modifying it and making it your own, you’re on very tenuous ground. It’s a dangerous example for students, if they see that appropriating people’s work is the path to success. Simply reproducing the work of others robs you of your imagination and form-making abilities. You’re not developing the muscularity you need to invent your own ideas.”

Word.