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Tip o’ the Pint design snippets. September edition

Steve Douglas — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 13:30:45 +0000

The bitter-free, September wrap-up, Tip o’ the Pint, weekend edition of our regular snippets feature. Throwing a little link love to blogs, websites, logos and logo design articles we kinda dug.

To David Airey. Actually, that should be two pints to UK designer David, author of Logo Design Love (book review here). The first is for NOT selling his Logo Design Love website as originally planned. That’s a fab resource for designers and clients alike so it would be really sad to have seen it go. Perhaps to somebody that didn’t feel ‘The Love’ for logos as Airey so obviously does. The second would be for the launch of his new site Identity Designed a new venture that explores brands from around the world. I’d also like to thank David for publishing my guest blog, The Designer and The Tech Guy on LDL. Holdonaminnit. That would be three pints.

To Logo Design Guru. Even though we’ve had some pretty weird issues with Logo Design Guru over the years, I’d like to take this opportunity to hoist a few jars in their general direction. The first round is for removing our artwork from their review sites as we had asked. That’s awfully sporting of them. The second is for removing themselves from the logo design pool and going full-metal spec work with their main site. Anyone now hitting the LDG site will be faced with a bunch of design contests, identical to their other contest site Mycroburst (and LogoGuru.co.uk, et al). More competition for the crowdspecking set I guess. Oddly, despite the fact that ‘design portal’ LogoDesignBlog.org has absolutely nothing (wink, wink) to do with LDG (while ‘reviewing’ them as the best logo design company on the web), that site published a “spec work is the future of the graphic industry” article the day that LDG turned on their design contest format. Even weirder, Mycroburst was then dropped out of the top ten (they had been number two since the site’s launch) and were replaced by David Airey, ‘officially’ making him the second best logo design company in the world. Guess a forth pint should be sent Airey’s way for this achievement too.

To Crowdspring. At times I’ve been a pretty caustic critic of crowdsourcing, design contests and the sites that host them, so it’s only fair that when they do something groovy, I mention that too. Accordingly, I’d like to send a pint the way of Ross Kimbarovsky and Crowdspring for launching their 1-on-1 design service. Unlike their design contest format, these 1-on-1 projects allow design buyers to work with designers in a more traditional designer and client relationship. Of course, I could be a wag and point out that this flies in the face of a good chunk of the ‘crowdsourcing’ meme, and that this is pretty well the way every other design company works (without the upsell), but as this is the bitter-free edition, I won’t. I’d also like to thank Ross for being a good sport about the Darth Vader book cover pictured here. So what’s with the 99designs Borg Cube? Nuttin really. Just figured if I’m gonna show Ross as a central Star Wars character, I needed to doll up the 99designs logo as a fave Star Trek icon.

Bitter-free fairness and all that…

To Printing For Less: For offering clients of The Logo Factory (and readers of this blog I suppose) a ten percent discount on ANY first printing services order. Printing For Less are the preferred printing partner of our shop (after working with loads of online print shops, over the years, with varying degress ot success). To learn why, you can read this.

Snippets: Battling logos, a couple of Pint Tips, just like 99designs & the IRS logo scam edition

Steve Douglas — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:30:25 +0000

To effectively describe a website concept in a few lines of type, summing it up in concisely and succinctly, is an art form all of itself. Ain’t easy either, so I positively loved this description of a new World of Warcraft inspired, medieval role-playing website:

“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.

Snippets: The wondrously wacky world of online logo design, legal threats and stock logo edition

Steve Douglas — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:30:58 +0000

When web designer Zach Hornsby decided to write a blog post entitled 99designs is Effectively Ruining Client, Designer Relations he used a picture of 99designs staff to illustrate the piece. That’s probably cool under ‘Fair Use’ and ‘Parody’ provisions, but he promptly received an e-mail from 99designs founder Mark Harbottle claiming copyright protection and ominously suggesting “alternative actions” would be taken, if the image wasn’t removed within 24 hours. Cheekily, Zak wrote another article, this time outlining the take down demand, claiming 99designs had threatened him with “legal action“. 99designs spokesperson Matt Mickiewicz issued a correction through his Twitter account, telling Zak that “a request to remove an offensive image of (their) staff does not equal “legal action“. While Matt’s technically correct, it does makes one wonder just what these “alternative actions” might have been, if they weren’t gonna be “legal actions”? Speaking about 99designs, and their conversion to stalwart guardians of copyright and intellectual property, maybe they’ll take care of this contest entry now. [Net Jelly]

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]

Snippets: Rolling Stone logo, Hindu Gods, Twitter copyright angst & crowdsourcing blog content edition

Steve Douglas — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:16:28 +0000

Rolling Stone LA, a 10,000-square feet blend of restaurant, bar, and private event space slated to open later this summer in Los Angeles, needed a new logo. And who better to tap for the gig than Jim Parkinson, the renowned designer of the original Rolling Stone magazine version. Parkinson has been designing logos and letterforms for over four decades, beginning his career as a lettering artist for Hallmark Cards before redesigning the Rolling Stone logo in 1977, and designing lettering for bands such as Creedence Clearwater, Taj Mahal, The Doobie Brothers and Kansas. We’re not talking about the Rolling Stones band logo here but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt if we did for a bit. It’s often claimed that the famous lips design was created by Andy Warhol (I was told this in an art school class, by a teacher no less), the “tongue and lips” motif was actually created by British graphic artist John Pasche back in 1970. While it’s true the logo was inspired by Mick Jagger‘s famous mouth, it also owes a little inspiration from the Hindu goddess Kali (photo: Piyal Kundu). What’s her story? She’s a ferocious form of the Divine Mother and Goddess of time and change. From Rolling Stone restaurants to Hindu Gods in one paragraph. The kind of stuff you don’t get on just any design blog, huh? [PR Newswire]

While we still grapple with what exactly crowdsourcing is, whether it’s the evolution of the creative industries or The Devil incarnate, more and more websites are jumping on the term to take advantage of the phrase that everyone’s using, but many don’t have the foggiest about what it means. Next to the increasingly crowded table is Grogger, a web platform that claims you can “crowdsource your content” by allowing blog readers to post their shiznet alongside yours. I recall liking this a few years back. When they were called forums. [Grogger]

Presumably in keeping with his “Hope & Change” vibe, President Obama wants to hear from artists regarding copyright protections for said artists’ work. If you Hope to have your work protected, and would like Barry to Change some of the legislation, here’s a chance for you to pipe up. Or forever hold you peace and all that. Tara Reed tells you how. [Art Licensing Blog]

Speaking about content (yes, we were), and copyright (that too) seems some folks are wondering about the ramifications about copyright as it applies to Twitter. While “tweets” (gawd, still I hate using that word, feel like a seven-year-old every time I do) consist of a scant 140 characters or less, are they still protected by typical intellectual property provisions like copyright and what have you? Do Twitter aggregators infringe on copyright by the very nature of their, ahm, aggregating? If you post someone’s twatter on a blog, are you treading on copyright toes? I have absolutely no idea, and this intellectual topic is way too, well, intellectual for us to sort out in a snippets edition. Luckily, the good folks at The Blog Herald do an excellent job at trying to answer the question. [The Blog Herald]

Speaking about Obama, and logos (hey, we’re always talking about logos) seems some folks on Twitter (and purveyors of some right wing blogs) need to bit struck with a clue stick very, very hard. Almost a month after the story broke, and later retracted by the people who broke it, some people are still claiming that “Obama’s Missile Defense Department” logo features an Islamic Crescent, is cribbed from Barry’s campaign logo, or a combination thereof. Just a couple of things. The logo isn’t a logo, was created during the Bush administration, before Obama’s campaign logo and doesn’t feature a crescent, Islamic or otherwise. For the rationally impaired, we’ve included an airline safety card version of what probably went down below. {Twitter]

A collective “hooray” was heard throughout the graphic design community last month when the animated short Logorama won an Oscar. Almost like it legitimized logos somehow, or design, or something to do with graphic designers (gotta admit, it was pretty cool and I did feel kinda, well, validated). The creators of the flick aren’t resting on their laurels though, hopping on another gig for video game maker Ubisoft. Producers Francois Alaux and Herve de Crecy have signed on to a 20-minute live-action film for Ubisoft’s uber successful series Ghost Recon, based on the work of uber successful author Tom Clancy. The movie, tentatively entitled Future Soldier, is due out, shortly before the Christmas holidays, no doubt to encourage the kiddies to add the shoot-em-up game to their lists for Santa. [Reuters]

Speaking about sports logos (oh wait, we weren’t), and now that the 2010 Winter Olympics are behind us (we are now), and the 2014 Russian Winter Olympics logo has been introduced, we need another sports logo to carp about. No sooner said than done, as the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games logo has just been unveiled in, well, Glasgow. Created by design agency Marquee, the project is rumored to have set back organizers 95,000 quid. Before you get all “could’ve had a two hundred dollar logo design contest for that” the price tag included brand guidelines, animated work, visual language, typography, photographic style, and art direction. You know, the stuff that you don’t get with a $200 logo design contest. [Logo Design Love]

Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition

Steve Douglas — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:40:17 +0000

In announcing their newly launched spec-work writing contests on Twitter, Chicago-based Crowdspring repeatedly twattered a quote from Mark Twain that goes something like this – “Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.*” Granted, that sorta IS the business model Crowdspring are launching, but wasn’t sure that the literary giant was cool with his words being used to justify unpaid writing contests. So we asked him. His response?

“Gawdammit it all. When I said that, I meant to write because you love it, and to write about what you want. I wasn’t referring to writing copy for a Tampon brochure, on spec, for some company on the internet.**”

He also told us his thoughts on folks using his quotes on Twitter to promote their services. “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.*” Dude’s got a point. His thoughts on writers working without pay? “Prosperity is the best protector of principle.*” Words to live by.
*real Twain quotes. **not so much [Twitter]

Speaking of crowdsourcing, writing and the interwebs, seems there’s this company that plans to fill the search engines with all sorts of how-to goodness, so that when you search for, say, anything, you’ll find one of their pages filled with helpful pay-per-click ads and clicky-on-the-linky banners. Demand Media is another of these “let’s democratize the creative industries by paying everyone peanuts” crowdsourcing outfits eager to cash in on tough economic times and out-of-work creatives. According to The New York Times, this outfit is supposedly worth between one and two billion smackeroos. Yeah, that’s with a ‘B’. And like most crowdsourcing outfits they like to boast about the size of their “community” (about 7,000 eager beavers). Pay for articles? Princely sum of $20. If you’re a skilled word mechanic, fret not. Enthusiastic copy-editors can pick up $3.50 a pop for editing articles to pass an “automated plagiarism checker“. What can possibly go wrong there? Of course, the snooty, elitist New York Times writer has an issue with this, preferring to make more than the estimated $1.00 per hour it would have netted him for writing the article for Demand Media [New York Times]

Speaking about crowdsourcing, seems Wired columnist and Nieman Fellow at Harvard University Jeff Howe might have an itty-bitty issue about design contest sites bogarting the word, and the concept, of crowdsourcing to market their services to the business world. In a Twitter missive on the weekend, Howe twattered that sites like Crowdspring (and one supposes, 99designs, Logo My Way et al) “short-circuited the promise of crowdsourcing” itself. Another whiny, snooty designer carping about the evolution of the design industry? Hardly. Howe’s the dude that coined Crowdsourcing the word. And wrote Crowdsourcing the book. And runs Crowdsourcing the website. And Twitters by the handle Crowdsourcing. Ahhh, what does he know? [Twitter]

Speaking about spec work and design contests (we sorta were), the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce is looking to help local businesses improve their commerce. You know, selling stuff and services, as most local Chambers of Commerce are supposed to do. In order to help local businesses sell their stuff and services, the helpful folks at Ann Arbor decided that they needed a new logo. Which is cool. So they’re hosting an unpaid logo design contest. Which, if you consider that designers are supposed to be taking part in this commerce stuff too, isn’t. [Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce]

Speaking of spec work, told you last week about a whole bunch of Belgian ad agencies who took part in a virtual strike against spec work. That’s the ongoing, and flourishing practice of “gimme some free shit” that many in the design profession despise with a passion usually reserved for hating really bad stuff. Some in the design community, including yours truly, were impressed that a whole bunch of design and advertising companies had managed to put their competitive differences aside and do something together. You know, in a cool “all in for the better good” kind of vibe. Looks like we were a little premature, as no sooner had the anti-spec folks shuttered their websites, than some upstart decided to hoover on the campaign, telling people that unlike the large agencies, they would certainly be interested in pitching on spec. And that the big agencies could suck it cause they were big and mean. Munich-based ad agency Three View, claiming that the “rules are different now“, hoisted a home page that was identical to the original virtual strike artwork, with their version (above) proudly proclaiming that they had ‘punked’ the major agencies even “if it does ruffle a few feathers“. Kinda reminded me of the People’s Front of Judea skit from Monty Python‘s classic flick The Life of Brian. If you’re a fan of Monty Python you’ll get the “splitters!” reference and find it as amusing as I did. If you’re not, this video (NSFW) might help. [Three View GMBH]

Molson Canadian logo, new MTV design, Doodle for Google logo contest and more.

Steve Douglas — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:07:14 +0000

While even Mac fanboys (and girls) struggled to justify the purchase of Apple‘s new iPad, some advertising folks believe that the recently introduced gizmo will help save publishers from the slow death that many have been predicting for years. How so? Glad you asked. Some think that the new tablet will open up an entire new market for online books and e-content. Now, if they can only get that porn thing worked out with Adobe, we should be all set. [Advertising Age]

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

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

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

Kinda lost in the holiday festivities, but it seems that heavyweight Canadian brewery Molson rolled out their new Molson Canadian logo the day before Christmas. As with most traditional Canadian logos (the country), the new Canadian design (the beer) retains the maple leaf (a Canuck leafy version of the Stars and Stripes) of the original. Actually, the new logo’s not terribly different from the old one (a wise call, brand loyalty is a vital component of any beer company marketing) albeit with a dry, and more detailed, version of the leaf that’s been cropped (losing the dangling stem) with the italic font straightened up. Apparently, the main point of this re-brand was to maintain the brew’s Canadian identity, something the New York design agency that got the gig was happy to provide.
[Graphicology]

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

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

Snippets: Images Without Borders, MSU Spartan logo to stay, AIGA speaks out & the $15 logo design contest

Steve Douglas — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:26:35 +0000

We lift a pint to the good people at Images Without Borders, a fund raising campaign for one of my favorite relief organizations, Doctors Without Borders, a non-political and non-denominational medical group that usually hits the ground long their more high-profile compatriots. You can now lend financial assistance to Doctors Without Borders through a web-based initiative and get yourself a beautiful custom photographic print into the bargain. Images Without Borders provides stunning pictures from world class photographers working around the globe and are offered to the public at a special price. Profits go directly to DWB (less only the cost of printing). The project was originally launched as a response to the earthquake crisis in Haiti, but will remain in operation for the foreseeable future “as crises emerge” and to provide day-to-day support for DWB ongoing work in troubled regions throughout the world. [Images Without Borders]

According to a recent survey at Leeds University, published in the Psychopathology journal, too much web surfing can make you depressed. The study also found that twice as many people are addicted to the internet as there are to gambling. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to drown my sorrows in chocolate milk and gummi bears. [Mirror UK]

Couple of days ago, we told you about the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) holding a spec-work-driven design contest for their new Art Works logo. Many in the design community flipped out, pointing out the irony of an unpaid logo contest for a project that was supposed to remind foks that artists were “real workers“, ran real businesses and injected real money into the economy. Graphic arts organization AIGA, in a strongly-worded letter, tried to take the NEA out to the woodshed, as much as strongly-worded letters take anyone out to the woodshed, telling them that design contests like this ran “against the global professional standards and practices for graphic design” and violated “a tacit ethical standard that has long standing in the communication design professions worldwide.” The NEA response was a politely worded “get bent” that told us they “looked forward to announcing the selected image in the near future.” Hooray for strongly-worded letters. [AIGA]

When word leaked out that Michigan State University were working on a new direction for their Spartans logo, coaches figured that everyone would be cool with the news. Alas, folks weren’t very cool with it at all. In fact, when people found our that the university had applied for a new trademark (the slightly more pissed-off looking helmet at right), people lost their ever-loving minds, setting up no less than 8 Facebook pages (with almost 20k members) and writing all sorts of, ahm, creative stuff on related Wiki pages. Blogs and local radio talk shows were similarly afire with protest. According to an internal memo, the helmet redesign was “the result of a two-year collaboration between MSU Athletics and a team of top designers from Nike.” Well, that wasn’t too cool either, and led to claims of ‘sellout’ to corporate interests. After a brave defense of their position, MSU officials relented, telling fans that the old logo would stay. [Detroit News]

Snooty graphic designers are always going on about how logo design contests devalue design, designers, the creative process, the client-designer relationship and threaten the graphic design industry itself. People who insist on holding design contests claim that designers are elitist fucktards who need to get with the program. So far, the pro design contest people seem to be winning, which leads to all sorts of wonderful business opportunities like this one – a $15 logo design contest for some wonderful outfit called RHC Visa Services. Yep, a princely fifteen smackeroos. The job posting, written in Full Metal caps lock mode, kindly advises interested designers “DO NOT BID IF YOU DONT SHOW US A MOCKUP… WHO MAKES THE BEST DESIGN GETS THE MONEY” and “YOU WILL NOT BE PICKED AS WINNER IF YOU DONT MAKE A SAMPLE DESIGN FOR US AND SHOW US BEFORE HAND.” Let’s hear it for the democratization of design. [Dynamik Design]

Snippets: Crowdsourcing advice for designers, IE6 must die & more unbiased logo reviews

Steve Douglas — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:04:13 +0000

Speaking about Microsoft, the Internet Explorer 6 Must Die meme just got a lot louder, with Google announcing that they’d stop supporting IE6 come March. If you’re not on IE6, good for you. If you are on IE6, you’re probably not reading this, because our site is all hinky and broken. Thanks to IE6. [Mashable]

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]

Snippets: Crowdspring to offer spec writing, NEA holds a spec work contest & other news

Steve Douglas — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:05:39 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

Crowdsourcing is broken. And how to fix it.

Steve Douglas — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:23:42 +0000

Business article figures out that one of the main problems with this design crowdsourcing trend is that people aren’t getting paid to do it. Offers a suggestion or two on how to fix this, all of which involve paying people. Yay. [BusinessWeek]

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

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

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

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

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