Logo Designs

[Palmetto Coast]

I hope I'm not breaking any rules by posting this. I was reading a magazine article about logo designs online. The article link is below. I had a logo design already, but decided to give one of the sites a try. I was really impressed by some of the work that was submitted. For those of you just starting out, on a tight budget, looking for a re-design, or whatever. The article lists about 4 different sites. If anyone is interested, PM me and I can tell you which site I tried and let you take a look at some of the submissions I got.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100401/company-logos-for-less.html

Todd

[MikeW]

We used logotournment.com and were very pleased with the results. We bid $750 which was less than half what 3 different local ad agencies bid for the work. We had over 1000 submissions over 30 days from as far away as the Phillipines. We were able to continually rank them and submit comments on each. The winner we chose was 750 miles from home and has continued to work for us for reasonable fees.

[MikeW]

Logo from logotrounament.com

[KBFreeRange]

I would encourage everyone to really read the comment "we had over 1000 submissions over 30 days from as far away as the Philippines" before taking this route. Someone, probably you, has to wade through all of these submissions, and while you may SAVE $1000, how much more might you have MADE by being focused on the regular things you do to run your business, or doing the things that only you can do? Anyone that has ever posted a job on Monster.com knows what I mean - maybe 5% of all submissions are of interest and it's apparent that the others didn't even read the ad (or in your case, the design brief). I would venture to guess that any designer in Tennessee understands much more about capturing the sense of that place in a way that is unique to YOU than any designer in the Philippines - or Seattle for that matter. And hiring local designers does what we all say our customers should do - buy local and support the local economy. These grist-mill design companies can sometimes yield good designs, but since all of these companies have folks that use clip-art, pre-designed templates and logos that have been outright copied from other companies it's a guarantee that you will see a logo that looks identical to yours out there some where. Just hope that you are the one that used it first or you'll find yourself in a trademark or trade dress lawsuit lawsuit that will waste more time and money than you can imagine.

Try this - be honest with your designer or design agency. Tell them how much you want to spend and why, and ask yourself why you only want to spend $1000 on what might be the single most recognizable marker for your brand. Let them decide what they can do for your budget. And take it from there. Use the same purchase decision making arguments you use now. Not all bottles are the same, and the one you want might be more expensive. Is it worth it? Do you use a different yeast because it's cheaper or on sale? Is all grain the same? Good luck!

[MikeW]

I would encourage everyone to really read the comment "we had over 1000 submissions over 30 days from as far away as the Philippines" before taking this route. Someone, probably you, has to wade through all of these submissions, and while you may SAVE $1000, how much more might you have MADE by being focused on the regular things you do to run your business, or doing the things that only you can do? Anyone that has ever posted a job on Monster.com knows what I mean - maybe 5% of all submissions are of interest and it's apparent that the others didn't even read the ad (or in your case, the design brief). I would venture to guess that any designer in Tennessee understands much more about capturing the sense of that place in a way that is unique to YOU than any designer in the Philippines - or Seattle for that matter. And hiring local designers does what we all say our customers should do - buy local and support the local economy. These grist-mill design companies can sometimes yield good designs, but since all of these companies have folks that use clip-art, pre-designed templates and logos that have been outright copied from other companies it's a guarantee that you will see a logo that looks identical to yours out there some where. Just hope that you are the one that used it first or you'll find yourself in a trademark or trade dress lawsuit lawsuit that will waste more time and money than you can imagine.

Try this - be honest with your designer or design agency. Tell them how much you want to spend and why, and ask yourself why you only want to spend $1000 on what might be the single most recognizable marker for your brand. Let them decide what they can do for your budget. And take it from there. Use the same purchase decision making arguments you use now. Not all bottles are the same, and the one you want might be more expensive. Is it worth it? Do you use a different yeast because it's cheaper or on sale? Is all grain the same? Good luck!

Couldn't agree more, you do have to wade through the results, and you do have to rank them and choose the winner, and there are some pretty common and bad submissions, but we were very happy with our results, and we got submissions from a lot more folks than just one guy that we had to pay whether we liked his work or not. I encourage you to take a look and if it works for you, then give it a shot.

[Absinthe Pete]

I understand where you're coming from, but just because it's a professional local agency doesn't mean they're going to come up with the perfect logo for you. It might good, but there may be one out there that's fantastic. I do agree if you don't have the time this apporach is not right for you. I have been doing grapic design most of my life and professionaly about 15 years and I would find this route pretty ineresting, but then again I know what I like and could breeze through submissions until the right one struck me or gave me ideas of the route I wanted to go.

[KBFreeRange]

I guess my position is unique and I've looked at this subject from all angles.

I've owned a marketing company for the past 25 years that specializes in marketing the most successful and recognizable spirit brands nationally. We work on the world's No. 1 vodka, the world's No. 1 whisk(e)y, the world's No. 1 gin. We handle advertising, brand strategy, promotions and packaging. If you have ever bought a bottle of alcohol in any store in the US you have seen some of our work. I understand the ramifications of this issue first hand. Spirits marketers and brand owners know that developing the brand equity that will represent your products for the long haul is one if the most important things a they will ever do.

I also hire designers and creative teams on a freelance and contract basis, and I work with people that live everywhere - from Bermuda to the Bay area. I know that any designer that you can forge a relationship with is likely to do a better job than one that is pitching free logos all day long just to try to sell one or two of them. That's what these logo mills do. And it bugs me to ask people to do work for free knowing that I am going to profit from their free labor. If there's 30 designers pitching you through the logo mill 29 of them are going to go away empty handed. How many great designers would do this? Would you spend time developing a new spirit idea and then just pitch it to an account for free, shoot-out style? Also, local designers usually take special pride in "home town" projects, especially for something as cool as a distillery. What local designer wouldn't give a break to a local distillery just for the notoriety? It is a RARITY that a designer refuses to find a way to work within the constraints of a tight or small budget, especially if the project is juicy.

Finally, my son and I opened a craft distillery last year, targeting a small 6500 cases a year. So I understand the pressures, finances, processes, permitting and the million other things that a small distillery needs to pay attention to to survive. I haven't run across a situation yet where taking a shortcut to save money didn't have noticeable downsides. Sure, we look for things to be competitive, but cheap bottles still look shoddy, taking more heads and tails to extend your output still makes the booze taste crappy and bargain priced logo mills still turn our work that is USUALLY run of the mill at best, and downright plagiarized at their worst. Sure you can get lucky.

And even though I am a designer myself, I hired a very talented designer to develop our identity.

I'd stick by my original advice. Talk to your designer about what you want and how you think about your brand and company. Don't be afraid to tell them about looks that you like or things you've seen that impress you positively. Don't be afraid to tell them your budget up front, even if it's small. And don't take it personally that designers can be moody, and seem to be wired a little differently that some others. This is one of the things that makes them capable of doing great work that they can be passionate about.

Designers should bring YOUR brand to life. And consumers will respond to this.