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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: Spring Tip o’ the Pint edition

Steve Douglas — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 20:51:25 +0000

The bitter-free, Spring 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 Upstack. In this spec work, crowdsourcing and design contest era, would be remiss if I didn’t tip a pint towards people who are tilting against the tide. Accordingly, would like to congratulate the good people at Upstack, a web-based design platform that attempts to pair buyers and designers on various projects. In a sea of websites and spec driven companies that all claim to be “doin’ some innovating” (but are merely retreads of each other), it’s nice to see a new operation that’s actually appears, well, innovative. The website, currently in BETA, is lovely, the user interface extremely well done and, as boasted on the front page, the entire operation is spec work free. I’ve given the site a few gears over the past few months, but that was all in good fun (or at least, it was supposed to be) so I’d like to take this opportunity to wish them the best. And if you’re a designer who’s profoundly opposed to spec work, it’s probably worth the effort to hit Wes & Co. up for an invite. [Upstack]

To the Spartan Golf Club logo. Even though I’ve been in this business for way too long, once in a while I’ll stumble over a logo that really grabs my attention, a remarkable piece of design magnificence that works on so many levels. You know, the kind of logo that I wished I designed. And the kind of logo I’ll probably never design. Like this example, a stock logo from Brandstack (we just discussed their fraternal site Upstack) for a business that involves Spartans and Golf. Accordingly, a tip of the pint to Lex Logo (probably not his real name, if you know what that is, let me know.) for creating a mark that has a few of us a little green with envy. Well done sir. And, if you’re thinking about opening a golf club, calling it Spartan, and have $3,600 ready to spend, how could you NOT buy this logo? Comes with the web domain too. Update: Designer of this logo is Richard Fonteneau. [Brandstack]

To Mike Erickson. I’ve known logo designer Mike Erickson for years now and count him among my friends in the industry. We often chat about design, logos (particularly more illustrative logos, one of Mike’s specialties, and our favored style) as well as the personal ups and downs of well, living. Mike’s just launched his new Logomotive site, and have to give him kudos for a particularly nice job. I know it wasn’t easy, as in the re-brand he tossed a duck logo (that he’s been using for eons) in favor of his new train theme (more corporate, and a motif suggested by his business name). Very similar to the angst we went through when we tossed our Factory house last fall, so if they were real pints we’re tossing about, we’d probably be crying into them. I’d also like to bring your attention to this bit of typography porn on Mike’s site. Bottom line, if ever you wanted to find out about what makes up letters, or what all the bits and pieces are called, this page has everything you’ll need to know. [Logomotive]

To the Marquee design agency. We hoist a glass to the people at Marquee, the design agency that developed the new Glasgow Commonweath Games logo. After the design came under fire for looking like previous work, the agency issued a classic example of logo symbolism porn that described in exquisite detail how the mark came to be. The design, based on three concentric circles, two of which are broken, with the letter G in the center, apparently resembles a black and white design created in 2007 by Marquee for The Common Guild, a Glasgow arts group. Not so, claimed Games organizers and agency wonks, insisting that the logo is original, with the broken circles representing “time, data and measurement” something they claim is “the basis of all sport“. The logo is supposed to be based on four numbers associated with the Games – 20 as in the 20th time the event has been held, 17 sports being represented, 11 days of the competition and one host city. Accordingly, the “second ring is 17/20ths of the outer circle, the third ring is 11/20ths and the G stands for Glasgow“. Yowzah. These cats are good. Still not sure if it beats this logo symbolism manifesto though. [Telegraph UK]

To Smashing Apps. Don’t think there’s a logo designer around who doesn’t like a logo re-do, re-brand or makeover. We all love to compare the before and afters, attempting to judge whether the new version of the logo is a hit. Or miss. Trouble is, with so many corporate makeovers, particularly since the beginning of the recession, it’s often difficult to track who’s changing what. Smashing Apps have made it easy to view most of the major corporate retooling from the last year with their 35 Exceptional Logo Rebranding Of 2009 For Your Inspiration feature. If you’re into logos, this is a don’t miss. [Smashing Apps]

To Newsweek. Speaking of corporate re-brands, the Newsweek Magazine website offers up a showcase of their own. In their Brand Icon Makeovers slide-show feature, NW takes us through side-by-each examples of how some major corporations are trotting out new mascots, pitchmen and characters. The piece gives a little bit of history of each original brand, as well as outlining some of the reasons for the change. Looking back at some of these iconoclastic symbols with today’s eyes and sensibilities, seems odd that some of the originals, featuring unacceptable stereotypes by contemporary standards, were ever allowed to see light of day. Anyhoo, a little light in the logo department, but still worth a read if you’re into such things. [Newsweek]

To Logoblog.org. Hats off to the people at Logo Blog for finally coming clean on their connection with online design site Logo Design Guru. Not sure if this was on purpose or not, but a peek at Logo Blog‘s account over at My Blog Log (a Yahoo blog monitoring service) appears to demonstrate more than a fleeting acquaintance between the two sites. Or at least the UK-centric version of LDG. We might be tempted to point out that this apparent ‘connection’ kinda puts the supposedly “unbiased” and “independent” nature of Logo Blog’s company reviews in question, but as this is a bitter-free Snippets, we’ll leave that discussion for another time. Probably Tuesday. [My Blog Log]

To Logo Design Love. Interviews with logo designers are all well and good I suppose, but after a while, many start to sound, or read, the same. Some tips. Sources of inspiration. The usual. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had an interview that was a little off the beaten path? Imagine if there was a designer who specializes in, oh, I dunno, Death Metal and Goth Rock logos. He’d be interesting to talk to, huh? Well, look no further, because it just so happens there is. His name is Christophe Szpajdel (pronounced “shpydel”) and he’s considered “Lord of the Logos” among the Black Metal set. Logo Design Love, the all-things-logo blog curated by UK designer David Airey features a fascinating interview with Szpajdel (by Blair Thomson) and takes a look at his work, his new book and how he finds inspiration for his famous nature-driven work. Alas, I’m a little late to the party with this one, so you’ve missed out on Airey’s free draw for the “Lord of Logos” book. Humble apols for that, but the interview is still worth a read, free book or not. Besides, if you’re really gung-ho, you can always buy it via a link at the piece. [Logo Design Love]

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.

Social media: Tweakouts & Twitter Storms a social justice tool or digital villagers with torches & pitchforks?

Steve Douglas — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:19:40 +0000

In internet parlance, they’ve been called ‘Twitter storms‘ and ‘Tweakouts‘ (freak outs) but always seem to follow the same pattern. A real or perceived slight, often involving plagiarism and alleged copyright infringement, is announced on a social platform and via a web-based echo chamber, Twitter retweeting and Facebook fan pages, it becomes an internet cacophony that is impossible to ignore. Especially if you happen to be the hapless subject of all the noise and whether you’re guilty of the alleged transgression or not.

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.

Google removes Olympic luge logo over concerns it exploited Vancouver tragedy?

Steve Douglas — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:19:13 +0000

Anyone familiar with Google‘s main search page will know that the company often replaces their ubiquitous font logo with a special design that commemorates a special event, person or holiday for the relevant day. Google maintains a website that catalogs the various themes, dating all the way back to 2000, when the tradition first started. With the opening of the Vancouver Olympics on Friday, Google began rotating Olympic themed versions of their logo last week, with each day featuring a different sporting event (the Olympic ring logo is not present, no doubt due to heavy restrictions on its use). Unfortunately, late Friday, the selected logo featured a luge themed design, less than 24 hours after Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed during his last practice luge run before the opening ceremonies.

Bad taste or a ‘fitting tribute’?

Some Google users felt the design to be tasteless at best, exploitative at worst, while others saw the illustration as a fitting tribute to the young athlete. According to The Cleveland Leader, clicking on the logo took users to a search engine results page of 121,000 matches for Kumaritashvili’s name. Perhaps mindful of the heavy criticism that NBC was taking over their repetitive airing of the tragic crash, often in horrific slow motion, it appeared that Google saw a potential issue, and replaced the luge logo with one that featured a snowboarder. Today’s Google search page features a pair of ice-skaters (below).

Google hasn’t commented on the incident one way ot the other, but it’s probably safe to assume that the luge artwork was scheduled as part of an automatic algorithm and not something Google swapped in as the news of the accident spooled out across the internet. Probably a matter of unfortunate timing rather than a case of corporate insensitivity or exploitation.

Meanwhile, some ignored any potential issues completely, repeatedly trying to upload videos of the crash onto YouTube, only to have the videos yanked under a blanket IOC copyright claim. TV networks that chose to show the video, CNN and Canada’s CTV amongst them, were hammered on Twitter and Facebook with claims that they were exploiting a terrible event, and airing “accident porn” for the sake of ratings.

Hat tip: Mashable

Google tells Chinese imitator Goojje to knock off using their logo

Steve Douglas — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:36:43 +0000

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

Google’s ongoing woes with the Chinese government

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

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

Goojje is Chinese play on words

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

And now, onto the website design

Steve Douglas — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:11:12 +0000

If you’ve been following our blog over the past few months, you’ll know that we’re planning a logo makeover and new brand roll out for The Logo Factory. In fact, we chronicled the development of our new logo starting here, continuing here, and then finishing up with the ‘final chapter’ here. Long and short of it – we’ve decided to lose the famous TLF house (even though it’s been with us for a while) and use a simple font-driven design and a cog element. Now that this process is complete, it’s time to start work on using that new logo, as part of a new website design that we hope to launch sometime early fall. And just like with our new logo, we’re going to bring you several blog posts that detail this development.

Luckily, we’re not building our new website from scratch and already have an idea of what we want the site to demonstrate, the sections that we require and how the whole thing works together. Granted, over the years our site has become a little unwieldy, as new features have been bolted and duct-taped onto old. There are a lot of redundant pages, many are way too heavy in the text department, and some pages are simply out of place. Fixing those, in terms of the site hierarchy will come later, and for now, we’re going to focus on the overall site ‘look and feel’ as well as the main navigation system. Because in those departments, our site has become positively old and tired.

Here again, we don’t have to start from scratch – we were able to look at our Google Analytics information and figure out which sections were the most traveled and seemed the most important to users. Using this information, we build several website design wire frames in illustrator. First – the header design wire frame.

This will serve as the main interface for the entire site. There’ll be varying sub-menus and what have you, but for all intents and purposes, this will work. (see full size image here). We also needed a footer design. This time around, we’re going to pay a little more attention to social media, using live-link ‘chiclets’ for services like Facebook, Twitter, RSS feed and our YouTube channel. The Logo Factory is relatively active on Twitter, and we have a fan page on Facebook, but other than our blog home page, there’s no way to access them from our site (in our defense, the latest version of our site was built a couple of years ago, before social media became the rage that it is). When building the footer wire frame in illustrator, we decided that we needed a series of gallery chiclets, small thumbnails through which users could access ten examples of our latest work. Adding to our logo design galleries is a bit of a chore, and this would allow us to add new work as it came online, rather than wait months (or even years) before we got around to updating our portfolio section (view a large size image here).

There are areas in which these gallery chiclets would be redundant (our galleries for example) and we’d need a ‘stripped down’ footer design for those.

Now, let’s put them together with a roughed-in wire frame of how the page body will look like. Obviously, this will change in various locations around the new site, but it will give us a starting point from which to work. The amalgamation of the header, footer and body wire frames looks something like this (see large image here).

Now that we know how the site pages are to be structured, we can start actually designing how it will look. First thing to go on the new design is the stock photography that we are currently using in the various sections. When putting together our current site a few years ago, we tried to be too clever by half, using industrial themes and images to portray all the various sections and design services offered at the shop. As anyone that’s ever worked with stock photography will tell you, it’s a time (and budget) saving technique, but after several conceptual hits, you’re going to end up with a lot of ‘misses’. You’ll enter “that will have to do” territory and the original strong ideas will become more and more watered down. Such is the case with our themed stock images (except the spark plug idea, and we’ll talk about that later), so they’re all, save the spark plug, gone.

We are going to use cogs and gears for various backgrounds, but we set up some decent artwork using layered images, rather than one photo “out of the box” (interesting aside: when searching for photos, I couldn’t find an appropriate photo using traditional cogs and gears. We ended up using an interesting, super close-up of a watch mechanism for the header background). We added the 3D cog graphic that we used in our logo re-development phase (see large image here).

Just like our current site, the various sections will be color-coded, but rather than (often goofy) photographs, we’ll add 3D icons and logos wherever needed and if appropriate. Like in our Flash logo animation section (see large image here). In the Flash animation section, the thumbnail images will preview recent Flash animations, as opposed to various artwork examples.

That sort of theme will continue throughout the website makeover. Here’s a peek at our logo repair section.

We’ll also be redoing our blog, but the change there is pretty dramatic, so we’ll save that for another post. In the meantime, here’s approximately what the new TLF Studio Blog will look like (large picture here).

And there you have it. Keep in mind that most of this stuff is first/second stage and a long way from completion. Some things will change, but I suspect the final website design will turn out pretty similar to the images presented here.

We’ll keep you posted as the new design comes along.

The trouble with Facebook vanity URLs

Steve Douglas — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:05:22 +0000

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.