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

Internet Davids vs. Corporate Goliaths?

While it’s easy to appreciate the avenging angel vibe of these events when they occur, and the idea of some David bringing another Goliath to their knees is appealing to most of us, seems to me that there’s an awful large risk for abuse, either deliberate or by well-intentioned folks that get things partially. mostly or completely wrong. The broken telephone, 140 character editing of Twitter ‘tweets’ can also change the original message dramatically. A Twitter Storm that began as “so-and-so’s design is very similar to so-and-so’s design” can quickly evolve into a hash-tagged “so-&-so is a thief, stole so-&-so’s work and shld B put in jail #thief #crook #asshat“. With the relative anonymity of social media platforms, the multi-jurisdictional legal aspects and questions about who’s responsible for what, it seems like a self-policing phenomenon that’s ripe for trashing the reputation of people that might not deserve it. And even if they do, without the generally accepted principle of “being innocent until proven guilty“. You know, lawyers, judges, courts and lawsuits.

Trashing reps at the speed of fiber optic cable

With the speed that internet freakouts can blow up, and the viral nature of how they blow up, it can literally take a few seconds before half the world thinks you’re a complete and utter tool. And they’re telling their friends that you’re a #tool and a #thief. Who are telling their friends that you’re a #tool, a #thief an #asshole and a #crook. And so on. So that’s the questions we’re going to ask this afternoon. Is social media a social justice tool, or an internet age version of villagers with torches and pitchforks, straight out of the 1931 horror classic, Frankenstein, as they stormed the scientist’s castle, looking for Boris Karloff‘s take on the famous monster? Can social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter be used as a digital age copyright enforcement too, or does it wander too close to mob justice for comfort? We’ll take a look at several recent ‘Twitter Storms‘ that seem to prove the former, and one not-so-recent event that implies the latter.

What is social media?

What exactly is social media? I’m not sure really, but it seems to involve any web-driven platform that allows you to socialize with fans, like-minded colleagues, friends, critics and hopefully (according to those who are still trying to monetize the new phenomenon) customers looking for your services. Wikipedia defines social media as

“media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.”

Think services like Twitter and Facebook. As The Logo Factory‘s go-to guy, I’m sorta involved in social media, if you count maintaining a logo design blog, carping on Twitter, and posting links to the occasional article via our Facebook page, but I certainly wouldn’t consider myself a social media expert of any merit. More of a socal media luddite actually, but that doesn’t stop me finding some social media ‘events’ interesting, or notable, especially how they pertain to design. One of the more fascinating aspects of social media is when it’s used as a sort of copyright enforcement tool, a way for the little guy to take on people, sometimes much bigger guys, who’ve ripped their design work.

Problogger logo gets knocked off

If you run a blog, or know anything at all about blogging, you’ve probably heard, or read, something about Problogger. Published and managed by Australian-based Darren Rowse, a “full time Blogger making a living from this new and dynamic medium” the blog boasts an enormous following and subscriber base. Rowse is followed on Twitter by over 90,000 fans, and in the blog world, he’s a really big deal. You’d think with such a high profile, Rowse would be immune to people knocking off his stuff, particularly his logo. No-one could possibly be that stupid, right? Ahm, no. Butchering Scott Adams‘ famous quote, it’s safe to say that “you can never underestimate the stupidity of some people with an internet connection and a website” because back in February, it began to look like someone had knocked off at least parts of Rowse’s logo. Like most instances of copyright claims and counterclaims, it usually comes down to who had designed the logo in question first. In this case, there was very little doubt. Makalu Media had aleady  blogged about the logo design process almost two years ago, outlining how they built the Problogger logo from sketches to digital (worth a read on its own merit if you’re interested in designing logos). That post was then announced on the Problogger site around the same time, as part of the Rowse’s new brand rollout. Anyhoo, there’s no doubt who this was designed for, who it was designed by, and more importantly, when it was designed. No doubt whatsoever. So why, Problogger fans wondered (very loudly and often) did some new outfit called Beam.my have a logo that looked remarkably like the logo that Problogger had been using for almost two years?

People on Twitter went nuts (some of the Twitter Storm caused by the perceived knock-off is outlined here). Rowse’s followers (and he has many) were quick to jump onto the Beam.my Facebook fan page wall, uploading images that illustrated the similarities between the two designs, while commenting that Beam.my needed to answer the allegations, change their logo, or both. After first ignoring the mounting complaints, denying any knowledge of the alleged plagiarism, then downloading the blame to some poor designer who was supposedly “over influenced” by the Problogger mark, Beam.my finally up and changed the logo. And while the Tweakout has died down, the heart of the matter addressed to the satisfaction of those “tweaking out”, there’s a lot of blog posts, Twitter twatter and fan page comments that outline the controversy floating around. They’ll be in search engines and news aggregators for a long time and might place Beam.my’s reputation in purgatory if you happen to be searching for, well, Beam.my. Certainly, one could argue they had it coming and that they’re the victims of their own hubris. I think that’s the position I’d take I suppose, but what if it’s the Twitter Storm that disappears from view instead, leaving only initial, and blanket denials from the alleged copycat, said denials casting aspersions on the person, or firm, that was originally knocked-off? Witness another event from last month.

The Hidden World of Eloise vs. Paperchase

UK readers will undoubtedly know who Paperchase is. For those who don’t, let’s just crib their website about us page that states “Paperchase is the undisputed retail brand leader in design led and innovative stationery in the UK” that has “over 80 outlets in the UK and an extensive opening (program) in the USA“. In any David vs. Goliath scenario, Paperchase are definitely Goliath. So let’s meet David. The wonderfully talented illustrator Hidden Eloise who displays her uniquely-styled work on her Hide & Seek. The Hidden World of Eloise website.

Back on February 10th, Eloise opened this story by telling us that Paperchase were featuring artwork (above right) that looked very similar to parts of her He says he can hear the Forest whisper (above left) illustration on notebooks, albums and tote bags being sold throughout the UK through Paperchase retail outlets. Apparently, Eloise had contacted Paperchase and asked them to stop (something the company denies) but rather than complying, added more items with the disputed artwork on them (something the company also denies). Big fish ignores little fish with a beef. Not a terribly uncommon scenario when it comes to this kind of stuff. Enter Twitter. After reading about the issue on Eloise’s blog, Neil Gaiman, a fantasy writer, issued this Twitter missive – “Fascinating Paperchase plagiarism over at http://bit.ly/cdrzKZ . Bad Paperchase” With almost 1.5 million people following Gaiman, and many of them ‘retweeting’ his post, didn’t take long for the issue to go viral, becoming a trending topic in a matter of hours. By dinner time the story had spooled into the mainstream press. In an article entitled “Paperchase forced to deny it ‘plagiarised’ British artist’s work after Twitter campaign” company executive Timothy Melgund told the Telegraph UK that the company had received hundreds of complaints, with some of them being “very aggressive”. The Independent UK also wrote about the story, and in that article a Paperchase spokesperson complained about how “cock-eyed” allegations had spread “like wildfire” through Twitter. “We’ve had the most unbelievable amount of emails this afternoon of extraordinary vitriol – and we haven’t actually done anything wrong. It must have damaged people’s perception of us.” At one point, the company was being bombarded with negative messages at such a furious rate, they had to disable their website contact form, replacing it with a message that attempted to explain their side of things. Had to change the message several times too as the situation evolved, claiming at first there was no plagiarism, then outlining how they had purchased the art from some second party without knowledge of any plagiarism. Paperchase held on to that position for a few days until the designer of the supposedly copied work fessed up in a message to Hidden Eloise that they had, in fact, “traced” portions of the illustration. Paperchase announced that they were suspending the sale of products featuring the disputed illustrations, and Gathernomoss, the design firm that had developed the work, offered to turn over any money they had made through the sale to Eloise. A victory for the little guys? Perhaps. Over the long haul? Perhaps not.

Initial Twitter support tends to cool very quickly

Trouble is, now that the blow up has cooled down somewhat, and the Twitter timeline has moved onto other things, Eloise tells us in a ‘tiny’ update that “all the damaging comments they made about me are still online in newspapers and blogs around the world, and will be for the foreseeable future“. The Paperchase contact page has been returned to its original form, any mention of the Eloise situation purged from its HTML. There’s still a few Twitpic images to be found, but the chances of them being found are almost nil. That’s not to say Paperchase escapted the dustup unscatched. Under a ‘Controversy” heading the Wikipedia entry on the company has this to say: “In February 2010 the company was accused of stealing artwork created by an independent British artist – [5] Hidden Eloise. [6] An artist working for the agency Gather No Moss eventually admitted tracing the artwork.[7] The items based on the copied artwork are no longer available from Paperchase“. But even then, at least according to Eloise, the wiki entry links to a “sensationalistic article, complete with ugly propaganda against (her)” and she sums the episode with this poignant statement “Other than you, the people who come and directly learn the truth from my blog, who else knows the whole story? Not many people i bet, and Paperchase would be happy to keep it that way“. She also wonders “what to say to a company that is responsible for a dirty war against my credibility and integrity but are again very comfortable to lay low and hope that the storm will pass?” Bottom line, even though some of the parties ponied up to “tracing” her image, and that “traced” image was sold on Paperchase goods, apparently Eloise didn’t receive a dime in the way of compensation (other than a check for £350 from the original firm), even when she suggested the profits of the Paperchase goods be donated to charity. And even though half of Twitter, a couple of large UK newspapers and dozens of art blogs managed to stir up a hornet’s nest of bad vibery for Paperchase, it appears temporary, and other than the disputed tote bags and trinkets being removed from retail shelves, no real justice was doled out. For that, Eloise will probably have to go the old-fashioned route. Alas, David vs. Goliath legal battles can get very expensive for David. Which brings us to the next internet plagiarism hullabaloo, this time featuring the son of a rock legend.

Nick Simmons gets keelhauled for alleged over-inspiration

Nick Simmons, the son of Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, is quite an accomplished comic book illustrator and writer, having contributed a story for his father’s Gene Simmons House of Horrors back in 2007. He also inked a deal with comic book and graphic novel company, Radical Publishing. for new material via the Simmons Comic Group. So far, so good. Simmons developed a manga-influenced story about a group of immortal creatures, titling it Incarnate, which was previewed at the San Diego Comic-Con International last July, and was released a month later to generally positive reviews. Fast forward to last month, when the internet (at least the comic-centric portion of the internet) blew up over a simple forum post (now removed) that alleged Simmons had cribbed panels from other titles, most notably Kubo Tite’s Bleach, apparently (at least according to my daughter) a very big deal in the Manga world. A very big deal indeed.

The comment gained traction through other comics forums, MySpace pages and other blogs before hitting the Twitter time line feed. Magnetic Rose does a smack-up job of detailing the genesis of the internet kerfuffle, as well as some side-by-each comparisons here.  As a result of the freakout, Radical announced on their MySpace page that they had “halted further production and distribution” of the Incarnate comic book and trade paperback “until the matter is resolved to the satisfaction of all parties“. Simmons meanwhile, after ignoring the noise for several weeks, issued a statement that denied any wrong-doing telling fans “there are certain similarities between some of my work and the work of others. This was simply meant as an homage to artists I respect“, his “inspirations reflect the fact that certain fundamental imagery is common to all Manga” and that “this is the nature of the medium“. Manga and comic book fans seem unswayed, and there’s now a Facebook page, with over 9,000 fans, that’s calling for legal action against Nick Simmons for plagiarism of other works. Even the New York Times Art Beat blog got into the action with a March 1st post that detailed the accusations.

A potential PR nightmare

Not being a big follower of comic books, I have no idea whether the gripes are legit or not, and other than being a huge Kiss fan when I was a teenager (one of the best band logos too), and watching an occasional episode of A & E’s Simmons’ Family Jewels, I don’t know any of the players involved. Hell, half the posts related to this are in Japanese. What should be obvious is the mammoth headache that this is causing for anyone who’s in the Nick Simmons’ PR department. While the question remains, and despite some pretty damning evidence, did Simmons knock off someone else’s work? Or not? Used to be it took lawyers and lawsuits to settle this stuff. Nowadays, people are convicted in the court of public opinion before they have a chance to hit up their lawyer on speed-dial. And while I bet the Simmons’ empire has some pretty well-heeled lawyers, and despite some of the more outrageous claims disappearing down the memory hole, any damage control team that may be working this beat, have been unable to quell the tempest.

Our own social media experiences

We’ve had our work lifted on numerous occasions and after getting tired of writing ‘cease and desist’ letters (usually to no avail) many moons ago, I took a “complain loud, complain often” stance whenever logos created by our shop are knocked-off (mostly, for submission to logo design contests). I don’t bitch on Twitter, but write blog posts about the events and these tend to get re-tweeted around Twitter by followers and friends, then their followers and friends and so on, and so on. Not to the extent of the two previous examples, but certainly enough that action is usually taken by the websites, individuals or companies involved in the ahm, design inspiration. Namely, our stuff (and that of our clients) gets taken down. Sometimes right after I hit ‘publish’ on our blog but more often once the link starts spooling out across Twitter. Accordingly, while I’m a little uneasy about some of the mob mentality, I’ve always found social media a fairly effective way to take care of copyright or trademark infringement. But what happens when people get things wrong? Luckily, we have an example of that too.

The curious case of Jon Engle

My first introduction to the power of Twitter as an unbridled social justice tool came in the spring of ’09. Some of you may remember the curious case of Jon Engle, but for those of you who don’t, let’s bullet point. One weekend last April, Jon Engle, a freelance designer, sent out a call for help via his Twitter account, telling us how some stock art company was suing him for $18,000 for allegedly copying artwork from their web-based library. The wrinkle to this story was that Engle claimed the work was his. His angle was that the stock art company had copied his work, and in a Biblical case of brass balls, were now hitting him up for damages for using it. The Twitter outrage from the online design community was swift and ferocious, with one designer after another blasting their version of the original from Twitter accounts around the world.

Hell, I was one of the people at ground zero, retweeting his message via The Logo Factory‘s Twitter page shortly after Engle’s plea first hit light. It spooled out into social media sites, design blogs, and before long, both Stock Art (the site) and Art Laws (their lawyers) were receiving all sorts of e-mail, phone and web vitriol. Death threats even. Legal defense funds were launched. Boycotts, and worse, were threatened. When Engle finally wrote a blog post that supposedly told his side of the story, and despite originally accepting his tale without reservation, I began to have some nagging doubts. Some things in his post didn’t sit right, others sounded downright ludicrous. I messaged a few friends who where tub-thumping the story on their Twitter feeds to hold off “hitching their wagon” to Engle. Something didn’t square so I also decided to do what none of us had done before jumping on the ever-growing Twitter Storm. Ask for the other side of the story.

Twitter rage not always as clear cut as it may seem

Naturally, that was quite different that Engle’s. Not nuanced different as is often the case in copyright dustups. Completely, utterly, 180 degree different. According to Stock Art lawyers, nobody was suing anyone. There was some evidence that Engle had been lifting Stock Art illustrator’s work, entering then into logo design contests (where several had won) and uploading them as examples of his work onto several popular logo design galleries. While half the internet were still calling for Stock Art heads, I wrote a blog post, Stock artwork, logos, copyright and the power of Twitter, outlining some of the investigation I had conducted, as well as some of the graphic evidence I had managed to find. As Engle was now a full-fledged designer cause célèbre, I was hesitant to publish my findings lest the internet anger be aimed my way, but I thought getting the story out was important, so publish it I did. Wasn’t long before that blog post had been tossed into the fracas too, blasted around Twitter, Reddit and Digg (where it managed, for a while, to sit at the number one spot on Digg’s home page, the resultant traffic blowing up our server for the better part of a day). That blog post, a precursor to this one in many ways, suggested that before going off half-cocked on Twitter, perhaps we’ll all be better served doing some cursory investigation before grabbing the pitch forks and torches. Trouble is, just as the internet mob had stormed Stock Art at the beginning, they now turned their animosity 180 degrees, aiming it at the hapless Engle. Don’t blame people for that reaction, many must have felt duped, but any appeals for cooler heads seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Retractions are late in coming. If they come at all

When it became apparent that Engle’s side of the story wasn’t even close to being accurate, some of the many blogs that had initially documented the incident, either removed the blog posts entirely, or added updates, many of them linking to my Power of Twitter post, correcting their stories. Trouble is, many didn’t and to this day, almost a year later, there are many blogs that tell of Engle’s plight and still hurl all sorts of invective towards Stock Art and their lawyers for beating up on an innocent freelance designer. Even though it’s now clear that neither Stock Art or their lawyers did anything of the sort, and were only protecting their artists’ rights, something we should all applaud. Just like traditional media, the internet loves a controversy and exposing characters for nefarious activities, real or imagined. But as unromantic as they are, when it comes to issuing corrections or retractions, all media is notoriously loathe to do so. Blogs forums and social media platforms are no different. And if they do get around to correcting the record, it’s at a tenth of the volume of the erroneous story they’re retracting.

Social media: Community vigilance or mob justice?

So there you have it. All the above examples of Twitter Storms, Tweakouts and general internet rageathons illustrate the power of social media. Of that, there is no doubt. There are differing outcomes, but all seem to share a common starting point, copied artwork and a great social injustice. Perceived or real. All share the same basic plotline – internet gets pissed off. Internet hurls anger at someone. While the goal of the outrage is often reached, that of removing supposedly infringing artwork, in its wake is sometimes left tarnished reputations, death threats, boycotts, vitriolic insults. Earlier accusations don’t always disappear. With the fleeting nature of social media, some, or all of the support the issue originally enjoyed does. It could be argued that the smash-and-trash campaigns stomp through any libel, defamation or harassment protections we have in the real world. Is that a good thing? Probably not. Regardless of how satisfying it is to demo some perceived nemesis via Twitter, Facebook and whatever other social media site that comes down the pike, I think its something that needs to be approached with a lot more caution than is being exercised currently. At some point or another, somebody’s going to get taken to legal task for launching a flame fest. And here’s some words of advice. If you’re running any type of company or corporate entity, keeping an eye on social media for your “turn in the barrel” should be standard day-to-day activity. You should also be well-rehearsed in dealing with it rapidly, and effectively, if or when it happens.

Now, did you hear about Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Airlines? You might want to retweet that.

Related posts:

1. Social media & logo design. An argument for square logos? A look at logo footprints & aspect ratios
2. Twitter graphic $6 proof that design crowdsourcing works? Not quite.
3. Stock artwork, logos, copyright and the power of Twitter. A cautionary tale.

Couple of days ago, we told you about the internet flap about the Missile Defense Agency logo, in which conservative blogs found an Islamic crescent, (or stripes from the Barack Obama campaign logo) on an obscure National Defense website and staged a collective freakout. Some even claimed that the MDA design cribbed the Iranian Space Agency’s logo too. You thought this thing was over? Hardly. Bloody thing’s gone mainstream now. Fox News is now referring to this as ‘Logogate“. Yeah, like Watergate, only with logo design. Slipping on the tin-foil hat, CNN is now looking into the issue too. And some poor sap at the Missile Defense Agency has to keep telling people it ain’t a logo, was designed under the George W. Bush Administration (back in 2007, before the introduction of the Obama campaign logo) and doesn’t feature a crescent. In fact, the design was picked because, in a rare case of government watching the spendatude, it was cheaper to reproduce than other presented designs. Liberal-leaning TV host Rachel Maddow gives a great account of this nonsense in the MSNBC video upstairs. If you’re in a rush, we can always take a look at the comic book version of how Logogate – A Vast Logo Conspiracy, took shape…:

Related posts:

1. Missile Defense Agency logo. More tin-foil hattery
2. Booga, booga. Conservative bloggers find Islamic crescent in Obama’s Missile Defense ‘logo’. Everyone freaks out.
3. More Obama logo looney tunes

As part of our brand and site retooling, we’re planning to release a regular series of podcasts through iTunes and our site. Gearing up for a weekly release, though that might be a tad optimistic if earlier efforts are any indication.

Previous Podcast fail

We started recording podcasts last year, but our ‘weekly’ series fell quickly to the wayside after one pretty lame attempt (still available on iTunes and here). Complete and utter podcast fail. Several reasons really. One: I relied on too much technology. Had a flipping semi-pro level recording studio set up before I uttered my first podcast word. This meant I had to talk into a mike while wearing headphones and became too formal and stilted in my presentation. Two: I hate my voice. People tell me that they hate their voice too, which is fair enough, but I really, really hate mine and Three: I am a disorganized cluster feck. We’re working on One & Three, and I’m just going to have to deal with Two.

Podcast redux

With some of the original bugs now worked out (we’ve simplified our recording setup greatly for a more informal approach), think it’s time to have another go, this time trying to make our weekly podcast, well, weekly. We’re going to create two podcast themes – one for designers and one for clients – to tie everything into The Logo Factor overall concept. And this would be week number one.

Have some suggestions for a topic?

With all this talk (and blogging, and Twittering) about ‘crowdsourcing’, we’re going to do a little of our own and ask readers to select the subject for our first podcast series redux with a simple poll (see below). Feel free to pick a subject from the choices below or if you’d like some other subject covered, drop us a suggestion in the text box provided or in the comments thread. If you have a question you’d like to ask, feel free to do that as well. Otherwise I’ll probably go off on some anti-spec-work rant.

And none of us want that.

Related posts:

1. Apple wants to own the word Podcast?
2. Spec work hackery redux. More of our work copied & entered into 99designs logo design contest
3. Baskin and Robbins logo redux…

Update: Ruh-oh. According to AdFreak it looks like the ad was approved by WWF Brazil and DID run (just once) in a Brazilian newspaper.

“WWF Brasil and DDB Brasil would like to jointly express their regret for the unfortunate incident involving the ‘Tsunami’ ad for World Wildlife Fund Brasil. The ad does not convey either the philosophy of the client or that of its advertising agency. It was created and approved in late 2008, mistakenly, and was solely the result of lack of experience on the part of a few professionals from both parties involved. In no way was it done in bad faith or with disrespect to American suffering. WWF Brasil and DDB Brasil acknowledge that such an ad never should have been made, approved or published. We reiterate our apologies to all those who may have been offended by it. The two entities have worked together for three years to mobilize people, efforts and resources for the good of the environment. A single error should not obscure past successes, nor prevent future ones.”

Dammitall. Michelle Malkin was right (that’s a personal facepalm right there). And so much for the spec work angle.

Update: Jesus. There’s even a video version of the advertisement. WWF Brazil and DDB both deny any involvement. Guess this all makes the following blog post kinda moot.

———————-

This post isn’t one of my usual anti-spec work rants. Just a look at how a very provocative ad, pitched on spec, rejected by the client and then entered into a design competition (apparently without the ‘client’s’ knowledge) can touch off a political firestorm. Take a look at the image above. Shows a whole bunch of airliners headed towards Manhattan. A Manhattan, by the way, that still features the Twin Towers intact.

The tagline reads “The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.”

Powerful stuff, no doubt, but almost certain to garner some emotional response IF the ad was ever published. Which, not so surprisingly, it wasn’t. The ad was pitched to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) on spec (speculative work) by ad agency DDB Brazil. The ad was rejected and never ran. Here’s the thing – the piece was entered into the One Show advertising competition, where it won first place merit award in the Public Service/Political Print – Newspaper or Magazine category. Trouble is, the WWF is listed as the ‘client’. So have a provocative image (911). A touchy subject (global warming). A environmental organization. Cue up the right wing rage machine.

Never one to let a chance to bash liberals and lefties, In a post entitled Environmentalists green-washing 9/11, conservative pundit Michelle Malkin writes on her blog,

Take a look at a new print ad produced by DDB Brazil for the World Wildlife Fund: The appalling tagline states: “The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.” Translation: Forget about those puny jihadists. The planet is the real terrorist threat. According to AdFreak, WWF denies responsibility for the ad. Which is curious. Because DDB, the ad agency, seems to have a lengthy track record of being tied vile ads that their clients keep disavowing… So, how is it that the WWF didn’t know about the ad? It won a public service “merit award” earlier this year. Was the WWF unaware of DDB’s checkered history? The denials from the companies that keep hiring this ad agency are starting to ring hollow, don’t you think?

All the hot buttons are there. Islamic Terrorism. A slam of the WWF. A dig at environmentalists. She even manages to pivot the discussion and connect the ad to John Kerry‘s position on climate change. Goes as far to call it a 911 ‘eco ploy’. And all from one free pitched spec ad. That the WWF apparently rejected for all the reasons mentioned. According to their website

“WWF strongly condemns this offensive and tasteless ad and did not authorize its production or publication. It is our understanding that it was a concept offered by an outside advertising agency seeking our business in Brazil. The concept was summarily rejected by WWF and should never have seen the light of day. It is an unauthorized use of our logo and we are aggressively pursuing action to have it removed from websites where it is being currently featured. We strongly condemn the messages and the images portrayed in this ad. On behalf of WWF, here in the US and around the world, we can promise you this ad does not in any way reflect the thoughts and feelings of the people of our organization.”

Is there a lesson in here somewhere? I think so. And it’s probably got something to do with our old bugaboo, spec work and how it’s never such a good idea. But we’ll leave that for another day.

Hat tip to David Airey who brought this to my attention on Twitter and to Micheal Surtee’s Design Notes for the background.

Related posts:

1. Belgian design agencies shutter websites in virtual ‘strike’ against spec work
2. Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. The platitudes of spec work.
3. Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition

In case you missed it, Facebook opened up ‘vanity’ URLs this weekend. What’s a vanity URL? Simple really. It’s a web address that features your name or internet handle – in terms of Facebook, it ends up being www.Facebook.com/YourName. Vanity URLs are considered prestigious, may have some SEO benefits, and are the internet version of Kilroy Wuz Here. In terms of ‘branding’ it equates to staking out turf on the social media landscape. When it comes to Facebook vanity URLs, there are some restrictions on company, group and fan pages but personal names are pretty well open season.

When the URLs became available early Saturday morning, there was the predictable gold-rush as people logged on to Facebook, trying to snatch up addresses that matched their user name (if you haven’t done so, you should go there now). Anyhoo, I missed my personal page by a couple of minutes and have to make do with placing the number one after my name. Not a big deal, my personal page is, well, personal and any business dealings are conducted under The Logo Factory fan and group pages. But what it your name is important? That’s a different kettle of digital fish.

Take graphic designer David Airey for example. David’s a dear friend of mine from Northern Ireland (my home country) who has carved out quite a name for himself in the design industry via his personal website and his Logo Design Love blog. David’s a great guy, has earned a great deal of respect from designers of all levels and is as accessible as anyone I know in this business (David even helped out my daughter with a college project recently). Anyhoo, it would be really decent if, when you were looking for David on Facebook, you could simple type in www.facebook.com/davidairey and it would take you to his Facebook page. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. It doesn’t even take you to another David Airey, which wouldn’t be so bad (I lost out to another Steve Douglas who beat me to the punch. In many ways I was lucky to get www.facebook.com/stevedouglas1). Nope. The davidairey URL takes you to a page belonging to someone called Bennu Constance, someone claiming to be a woman, and someone claiming to be located in Alberta Canada. Highly unlikely there’s a legitimate reason that Ms. Constance snatched up the David Airey vanity URL and it’s probably someone hoovering David’s online reputation, setting up the page for some spam scheme or worse – to hold Airey’s name ransom knowing a) it’s important to David and b) because of David’s online activities, it’s valuable to him.

Not so far fetched – there are already bottom-feeding ‘companies’ that are squatting on prime Twitter, Facebook and Gmail account names and well sell them to anyone, for a hefty price. Assetize, one such outfit, features account names from Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, WordPress, Blogger and Yahoo Groups. One of the ‘auctions’ on their home page features a Facebook vanity URL for $20,000. Not much the social media platforms can do about it I suppose (though I suspect trademark registration is a decent trump card), but it’s yet another example of what happens when people conduct themselves according to what they ‘can’ do, as opposed to what they ‘should’ do.

Related posts:

1. The trouble with design crowdsourcing
2. The Trouble with Templates
3. Battle for hearts and minds continues

In the ongoing back-and-forth debate (well, not exactly a debate – more of a series of talking points and opposing vents) about so-called design “crowdsourcing”, design contests and spec work, there are arguments floated, often by people who should know better, that beg to be looked at a little more closely. Here’s one such example – The supposed “crowdsourcing” of the Twitter ‘birdie’ graphic that sits on the homepage of the increasingly popular social media site.

“Oh look” people who are all for spec work and “crowdsourcing” sites exclaimed breathlessly, “Even Twitter crowdsourced their logo design, and paid six bucks for it. Take that you snooty designers!”.

WIred Magazine got into the action, heralding on their blog that Twitter Paid $6 or Less for Crowdsourced ‘Birdie’ Icon (they later changed “Icon” to “Graphic”), and in the middle of their feature plastered this complete non-sequitur :

Some designers claim crowdsourcing is evil because it devalues their work by driving down prices, allowing amateurs into the game and forcing people to work “on spec,” meaning that they don’t get paid unless their design is chosen. Others see it as a natural evolution driven by supply, demand and technology.

The Business Insider took up the baton with a Twitter Paid Designer $6 For Its Icon post, as did a whole bunch of others, and it was off to the races. The news began to spool out across the internet and landed on Twitter itself, where it was heralded by people not-opposed-to-spec-work, including spec-driven Crowdspring, who were obviously thrilled of the insinuation, tweeting this little pearl -

Well, IF the Twitter birdie WAS an example of design “crowdsourcing”, then it might make a powerful argument FOR spec work and “crowdsourcing”. Imagine, paying only six bucks for an iconic image that has become part of the online experience itself. Users on Twitter (never hesitant to re-tweet any news that seems remotely relevant) began to send the news through their feeds too.

Guess that settles it. After all, Twitter is the latest and greatest thing. They used a “crowdsourced” graphic as their logo. Ergo, if design “crowdsourcing” is good enough for Twitter, then it’s good enough for everyone. Conclusion – spec work is all dandy, thank you very much, and six dollars is a reasonable rate for any graphic design services.

Ahm – let’s not be too hasty.

Firstly, the Twitter bird graphic wasn’t “crowdsourced” at all – either by the accurate use of the word, or the amusingly inaccurate repackaging of the word by outfits like Crowdspring and 99designs. The Twitter graphic was stock art, limited rights to which were purchased from istock photo. No crowd. No sourcing. No gaggle of designers vying for some prize. Just an illustration that a solitary Japan-based designer called Simon Oxley had uploaded to iStock Photo. The use didn’t include ANY exclusivity at all, and the graphic was (and I believe still is) available to anyone with a credit card and an online connection. The designer hadn’t actually made six bucks on this particular artwork, but several THOUSAND, as the rights to use the artwork (an important distinction) had been purchased hundreds of times over. And while it could certainly be argued that Twitter were cheap bastards, it can’t be argued that they paid six bucks for their logo or “icon” (but why would we let something like accuracy stand in the way of a compelling story on why “crowdsourcing” is cool).

But wait – it gets even better. See, there’s this website, called Twiter.com (no doubt set up to snare people who misspell the real Twitter – notice the missing letter ‘T’), that’s nothing more than a spam hub with lots and lots of Twitter related affiliate links which may, or may not, be valid. Or even legitimate. And lookee here – they’re using the same ‘birdie’ graphic as the real Twitter, probably paying six buck to istock as well. I’m sure that didn’t happen by accident. And now, lots of people landing on this page, by misspelling Twitter in their browser address window, will see the iconic bird and believe that they’ve arrived on the real McCoy. They won’t question all the spammy links presented, trust factor of a brand and all that, and there ain’t a thing that the real Twitter can do about it, because they don’t own the graphic, the trademark or the copyright to the stock artwork.

So, as it turns out – the $6 “crowdsourced” birdie logo that somehow proves “crowdsourcing” works, ain’t “crowdsourcing”, isn’t a logo and if anything, proves that stock art is a particularly bad way to create a corporate brand, at least if you want to avoid people riding your coattails. And attempting to fool your users into believing they’ve arrived on your website. When they haven’t.

Related posts:

1. Crowdsourcing hyperbole. Rumors about demise of graphic design industry greatly exaggerated?
2. Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. The platitudes of spec work.
3. Creative crowdsourcing & design contests. Hype or reality? Contest holder & buyer’s edition

Further, if you lived under a rock, or were out for the entire weekend, you may have missed the various incarnations of the tragic tale when it was everything that designery people on Twitter were Tweeting about. But Twittering and Tweeting they were. A hash-tag campaign called #savejon was started, and as I write this, howls of protest-laden Tweets are still ripping through at the rate of one every three minutes. And why not? The design community is outraged. One of our own was under attack by some Corporate giant and their sleazeball lawyers, and he needed our help. And man, did he get the design community’s help. Hitting the front page of DIGG took out Jon’s blog and company website, such was the traffic, but still the internet noise continued unabated. Boycotts, and worse, were called for. This legal outrage needed to be fought back, and fought back hard, so a legal defense fund was set up, and at this moment it boasts $1800 in contributions from concerned internet citizens (though it will probably be higher as you read this). Designers saw a great injustice being done, and admirably sought to help by blogging, Twittering, DIGGing, Slashdotting and forum posting their avenging angel vibe all over the web. Thousands of e-mails were ripped off to the corporate bullies – some terse but professional, others less so. Others were disturbingly threatening, no doubt spurred on by the anonymity of internet communication. All bore a similar variation of the message – “How dare you steal someone’s artwork and then try to charge/sue/harass them for it”.

It was, it seemed, the internet at its very best, a juggernaut that could be tasked to help the downtrodden and harassed within hours, the echo chamber bouncing the message from one avenue to another, recruiting one concerned designer after another. It’s always a compelling story when the internet helps the little guy fight back ‘The Man’ and to take down ‘The Villain’. Trouble is, none of the story may be true, ‘The Man’ may be right and the ‘Villains’ of this story may not be villains at all.

Let’s back it up a bit, to August of last year when Jon was hit up for a bill from StockArt.com, a stock artwork licensing agency, supposedly for the use of his own work. Let’s read a bit of the original post as it appeared on Logopond, a gallery site for logo designers.

“Someone has apparently ripped several of my icons and sold/posted them across a couple stock illustration sites. The stock site watchdogs ran across my portfolio and is now threatening to sue ME. They sent me an $18,000 bill and said if I don’t pay up they’ll sue.”

Well, that’s certainly going to get any designer’s attention. The idea that someone could copy your work and put it on a stock art site is one thing, but threatening a lawsuit if you didn’t pony up $18 grand for using your own designs? I get freaked out when my credit card company calls to tell me my payment is late. Quite oddly, the issue went on the forum back burner until this past weekend, when another post hit the thread, but this time, Jon seemed a little more frantic.

“Its becoming a bigger problem. I was banned from Design Outpost this morning which led me to start talking to clients. Apparently, they’re calling EVERYONE they can find to tell them I’m under investigation for copyright infringement.”

Woah. Now that’s a whole different ball game. The legal beagles contacting Jon’s clients and telling them that he was under investigation for copyright infringement? That’s certainly not fair. But wouldn’t it also be on shaky legal grounds as well? When I first read it, the words Slander and Libel entered my head. But it also posed a question – what kind of lawyers would expose themselves to such legal pain in order to get even with someone even if they did copy work from their clients? Surely such actions would invoke all sorts of sympathy for the young designer, who from what I’ve managed to find out, was only trying to get by. Seemed to me that it was a case-destroying move, and one that was certain to garner the wrath of half the internet.

I was certainly right about the backlash. The first Tweets started on Saturday. I happened to be desk bound, so I added my comment into the feed. Those comments were re-tweeted. And again. And again. So on and so on. Before long, comments and protestations about the events had taken on a life of their own, and the news about the hapless designer’s predicament began to spool out past Twitter and onto other social sites like DIGG and Slashdot. Something was happening. There was a movement afoot, and every iteration of the news added a new detail. A new wrinkle. Trouble is, no-one really knew anything, and other than the first fairly well-informed tweets and posts, everyone was making it up on the fly. Not surprisingly, the design community wanted more as it’s hard to keep up the moral indignation without some salacious details to write about. Jon told us that he was hurredly working on a blog post to be published later that afternoon. That news went out via Twitter where it was added to the cacophony of drama. And to DIGG. And Slashdot. And Hacker News. The items started to number in the thousands but all the posts, blogs and Tweets had one thing in common. This outrage would not go unanswered. And sumbitch has to pay. When the blog post finally came, it was a highly anticipated event. The post itself turned out to be mildly anti-climactic.

“Once the sticker shock wore off the obvious question came to mind. Where the hell did they get these from? It seems as if most or all of them were lifted from my LogoPond showcase. They especially seemed to favor the ones that made it to the gallery.”

The details of what had actually transpired were strangely vague. There wasn’t any real explanation of how the artwork was absconded with in the first place (other than some impractical theory that Stock Art had somehow reverse engineered John’s artwork from Logopond, removed the typography from the featured logos, and added them to their site). To make matters worse, there wasn’t even any examples of ripped design with the original for comparison. Rather than take everything at face value, I decided to poke around a little deeper. I didn’t know much about Stock Art, but their site looked legit. They had an impressive roster of established illustrators – all of whom with impressive portfolio sites of their own – and it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that made sense for a company with a client list of well-heeled companies, some of them belonging to the Fortune 500. Thinking that their lawyers might be the hardcases in all of this. I took a look at the ArtLaws.com website and the various pages and reference materials inside. It didn’t look shady at all, and if anything, they seemed to be champions of designer and illustrator IP rights, as opposed to the sleazy ambulance chasers they were very quickly, and loudly, being portrayed as across most of the internet.

They were certainly legit, and have even been involved in the Zapruder Kennedy assassination movie copyright battle from a few years ago. Something didn’t appear right. Not right at all. Jon had admitted to us that he was a buyer on Stock Art after all, having opened an account a few years ago. Trouble is, there are no artist accounts per se, nothing is uploaded to Stock Art‘s server, and Stock Art are extremely picky who they represent, claiming a roster of only 150 illustrators. One of my original theories on the ‘misunderstanding’ was that Jon had uploaded artwork to Stock Art for licensing and then sold the artwork to someone else. As neat and tidy as that theory would have been, it’s not how Stock Art operates, their licenses don’t work that way, and even Jon never claimed that he was represented by Stock Art. No, what we had here was a pretty cut-and-dry case of someone using someone else’s work without payment and/or permission. But who did what to whom? The tens of thousands of people now involved in this growing controversy knew who they thought was the ripper and the rippee. But I was starting to have doubts over my original assumptions. Besides, I always like to get both sides of a story, so I decided to reach out and touch ArtLaws.com lawyers and ask them if they’d like to comment on the deluge of bad internet mojo that they were receiving.

To their credit, they did, calling The Logo Factory studio shortly after reading my email (apparently, out of thousands of e-mails, I was the first one that asked for their side of the story). I talked at length with Jamie Silverberg and John D. Mason, two of the lead lawyers at the The Intellectual Property Group, and found them to be civil, pleasant and quite willing to discuss matters, to the extent that they were legally allowed. Not the “ambulance chasing scumbags” they were beifng called in the latest round of Twitter postings. Firstly, IPG have extensive experience fighting on the behalf of designers and illustrators (as they believe they’re doing in the Stock Art matter). The partners have experience in the graphic design industry itself, helping to organize several chapters of the AIGA. They told me that “nobody” is being sued nor has a suit been filed over the Stock Art artwork, and that rather than ignoring Jon’s pleas of innocence, have been trying to communicate with him ever since the licensing issues became apparent.

Seems Stock Art are ferocious in protecting their illustrators property and copyright (certainly something that I’d demand if Stock Art were representing me). Silverberg denied harassing Jon’s clients, but told me that they had contacted two in order to see if the client’s had legitimate licensing rights to their client’s work. I wondered how likely it would be that Stock Art’s established illustrators would risk their reputation, and Stock Art‘s business, by copying some designer they found on the internet. To make matters worse, the issue revolved around the licensing for no less than 65 images to which it appears typography was added and the images uploaded to various portfolio and stock logos sites like Elance and Logopond (while they didn’t expressly tell me so, the $18,000 bill is likely the result of licensing fees for the 65 images in dispute. Works out to about $275 a pop). I was also told that before contacting anyone, IPG perform extensive research into the background of any disputed images, including creation date, history and when it was added to the Stock Art site, pointing out that some of the images “in question” have been on the Stock Art website for almost a decade. Logopond, the supposed source for the designs (at least according to Jon’s blog), had only been online since June of 2006 at the very earliest. The worst point, from a designer’s point of view anyway, was the dispute involved the work of over twenty illustrators. With illustrations and icons that just happened to mirror their exact personal style. And if that wasn’t enough, Jon had previously been billed for other Stock Art licensed work, after it was discovered that it may have been used without permission. He paid that bill.

Jeezus. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the cut-and-dried case that half the internet believed it to be. To make matters worse, I managed to track down some of the images via Google and Stock Art‘s search engine using simple keywords. I wasn’t terribly thrilled with what I found, especially considering I had been around ground zero for some of the anti-StockArt.com and anti-Artlaws.com sentiments now swirling angrily around the internet. I’m not particularly proud of that.

And that by the way, is the reason I’m writing this. At the risk of enraging a good chunk of the design community, I think there’s more here than meets the eye. A lot more. I also believe there’s enough evidence to indicate that neither StockArt.com, Artlaws.com or the various people that work for them, hire them, or use their services are the bastards that they’re being made out to be. And while the entire world has heard Jon’s side, only a few have taken the time to research the other side (or even taken a look at some of the work in dispute). Do I know who copied who in this case? Not for absolute certainty, but I have some pretty strong opinions as to what’s what. I’ll have to keep them them to myself, as they are just opinions until someone comes clean, or this case hits the courts. Only then will you, or I, know for certain (and even then, we may never know, should things get settled beforehand). In the meantime, I know I’ve stepped down off my high-horse, and I think others need to as well. I love internet mob justice as much as the next cat, but I think a lot of people took an undeserved battering over this, and I for one, won’t be joining another internet mob anytime soon. My pitchfork and torch will have to wait for the next time that I’m absolutely sure of the cause. And who the bad guys really are.

I hope some of you will do the same.

UPDATE 3:. Posted to Twitter on May 20.

UPDATE 2: Turns out a lot of the images in question can also be tracked back to logo design contests on Design Outpost, a website that hosts spec design competitions and bills itself as “A Different Kind of Design Firm”. Many of the images that can be found on StockArt.com were also entered into design competitions, and in several instances were selected by contest holders as the winning entries. I guess if there’s an additional lesson to be learned here, it is this – logo design contests (aka crowdsourcing) are an extraordinarily bad idea when it comes to developing a logo for your company. Read more about this development here.

UPDATE 1: This post is receiving a lot of traffic from DIgg, Reddit, Twitter and a host of others. There are a few mirrors hosting this site (to reduce server load) and the comment field may not work on all of them. If you’re reading this on a Coral Cache version (it will have some variation of http://www.thelogofactory.com.nyud.net as an URL in your browser address bar) and If you feel inclined to comment on this article you can do so by clicking here – that will take you to the correct form. Apologies for the temporary duct-tape solution, but the response to this post has been overwhelming.

Related posts:

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2. Free vector artwork
3. Snippets: The Stock logos on Crowdspring, logo tattoos & Doodle 4 Google flag flap edition

Everyone on the interwebs needs a good spam blocker. Personally, I’ve found gmail to be an awesome spam filter (more here) and big ‘G’ helps keep most of the spamming hordes at bay. Once in a while one gets through, and as much as I hate to admit it I might read the occasional unsolicited e-mail (while remembering my anti-spam Boulder Pledge). Like this one, from a helpful chap at Wiserep.com, who managed to evade the big G spam blocker for the umpteenth time in order to promise me untold riches -

Last month I sent you an email about selling your sauces through our stores. I think they’d be a great fit.

We work hand in hand with thousands of grocers, specialty food stores, large chains, convenience stores, gift shops, mail-order catalog companies and internet shopping sites. We look for products we think will sell to them, hence my email to you.

If you’re interetsed in selling your sauces to more stores visit us at WiseRep.com. We guarantee sales.

Sincerely,
David Thibos
Director of Merchandising
WiseRep.com

Ahm. We’re The Logo Factory. As in logos. Lots and lots of logos. Even a few designs for BBQ and Hot Sauces and what-have-you. But not an actual bottle of sauce to be seen. Mr. Thibos personally guarantees us sales of our sauces. Which would be fantastic. If we sold sauces. Which we don’t. The End.

Looks like I’m not on my own. Have Coffee Will Write is a little less kind, referring to Mr. Thibos as the ‘clueless internet marketer of the week‘. Methinks Mr. Thibos should give our 11 basic pointers of internet marketing a whirl.

Or we can come up with some Logo Factory sauces, I guess…

Related posts:

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3. G-Mail makes an awesome Spam filter – part deux

Found on YouTube this morning – kick ass music video for French electro-pop duo Justice and their single DVNO. Contains the type styling of just about every cheesy 70′s and 80′s logo you can imagine, with killer motion graphics timed perfectly to the sound track. Must admit, this is the kind of logo animation that I’d love to produce when I grow up. If you got a few minutes to spare, take a gander and see how many logos and/or typography styles you can recognize – there’s a boat load. According to Computer Love’s blog post on the vid, the motion design is by Machine Molle with artwork design by So Me. A little humble pie’s good once in a while I suppose – kinda makes our own logo design video look a little pedestrian…

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