Couple of events reverberating around the design world over the past couple of days that are sort of indicative of where the profession is heading. The first was evangelical pastor Rick Warren, his publisher Zondervan, and their collective decision to hold a $5,000 (upped from the original $3K) book cover design contest on 99designs. The second was iStockphoto’s announcement that they would be offering “pre-fab” stock logos, promising a $5 submission “bonus” for the first 10,000 logos “approved” under their new service. Another similar event, this time on Crowdspring was self-help Guru (sorry, “Peak Performance Strategist”) Tony Robbins‘ $1000 web design contest, but it went largely unnoticed and thus escaped being carped about on various blogs, forums and Twitter.

Oh, the unfairness of it all

Many of the protests and verbal denouncements took a similar, and plaintive, approach – “Oh, iStockphoto, how could you?” Numerous blog posts (and even an open letter) asked Rick Warren to reconsider how he was damaging the design industry, and how spec work and design contests are “unfair” to professional designers. Damn straight they’re unfair (Warren’s contest featured over 3,000 entries, only a couple of dozen with a rating of any sort). Damn straight they’re unethical (also featured a whole bunch of stock photos, something which was forbidden by the contest brief and against the licensing agreements for most of the images). Does iStockphoto threaten to nick away at an already shrinking design market? Maybe (though I’m still not sure on this one). And I’m sure if anyone noticed Tony Robbins‘ gig on Crowdspring, they’d be begging him to help save the industry as well. Folks, you’re talking to the wrong people.

Why should anyone but designers care about ‘design’?

Rick Warren doesn’t care about the design profession. Nor does his publisher. iStockphoto doesn’t care about the design profession. Nor does Crowdspring, 99designs, Hatchwise, Logo Design Tournament, Zen Layout and whatever bazaar-like design contest, crowdsourcing, free-pitching website that trundles down the pike this week. Warren cares about his flock (and topping the 30 million copy sales of his earlier tome). All that the other companies and permutations care about is their bottom line. The ‘free market’ at it’s best and it’s ugliest. Yeah, I know it isnt’t “fair”. But nowhere is it written that anything has to be “fair”. In fact, “It” very rarely is. And we shouldn’t have to expect Warren, Zondervan, 99designs or Crowdspring to “save” the graphic design industry by having a “fairness” epiphany in the middle of the night. They won’t. And as it turns out, they’re not even the problem. Other designers are.

In terms of the iStock announcement, a lot of the Twitter chatter involved variations of “how could you iStock?” and “what iStockphoto is doing to designers is really shitty”. Don’t get me wrong. I get the sentiment. I really do. But here’s “how could they” – send an unsolicited announcement to tens of thousands of designers (ironically. I received the notice because I’m signed up as a buyer) telling them about the new plan and offering a $5 “bonus” for early submissions. And then thousands of dopey designers will fall over themselves to submit their work, in hopes of being selected. See, the question shouldn’t be “How could you iStock?”. It should be “How could you, participating designers?” Same goes for Warren’s book cover. 99designs offered him a relatively inexpensive way to get 1,000s of book cover designs. Why shouldn’t he avail himself of the bounty of goodies offered to him (copyright issues notwithstanding)? The problem is that over 800 designers participated, knowing that they stood a snowball’s chance in Hades (pun intended) of winning. As the contest winds down (and the post-contest bitching begins) Warren ended up with a ton of publicity for his new book, 99designs pocketed $500 for their CMS system creating a few web pages (as well as bragging rights that Warren was holding the contest into the bargain). While over 800 “designers” (scare quotes intentional) completely and utterly wasted their time. Even if we take the usual design contest raison d’être (it’s an opportunity for feedback) at face value (which, by the way, I don’t). From 99designs and Warren’s perspectives, the contest makes perfect sense. As does it for any design contest held on every single design contest site and so-called “crowdsourcing” platform.

Cutting off our nose to spite our face

It is only from a designer’s point-of-view does the contest enter loony-tunes, self-destructo, cutting-off-our-nose-to-spite-our-face territory. Same theory holds true for iStock as well. If designers didn’t submit designs, they wouldn’t have much to sell. And whatever designs that were made available would be tinker-toy logos, cobbled together from clip art and copied illustrations and thrown up onto the server by people hoping to make a few bucks, despite their inability to design anything. They’d have nothing but crap to sell, the design version of garbage in, garbage out. Alas, that’s not how this will play out. Thousands of designers will submit their work, despite the knowledge that it’s highly unlikely they’ll make a dime from doing so. Knowing that while they do so, they’re shoveling a little more dirt over the grave of professional graphic design, the profession they’re supposedly learning some chops (”experience” and all that) to enter. As is the case with every design contest ever held.

Designers working for free? The answer is usually yes

Whenever a kefluffle about spec work or design contests breaks out, designers invariably start comparing design to other professions and drawing analogies to prove their point. “Would you ask a plumber (you can insert doctor, landscaper, tinker tailor in here) to provide work on spec? No you wouldn’t!” It is often used as the anti-spec-work “so there” trump card. Trouble is, the analogy is only partially correct. Truth is, many that hold design contests might well be inclined to ask their doctor, tailor or mechanic to work “on spec”. It’s the answer to the question in which lies the rub. The tinker, tailor, mechanic or doctor would tell them to “go piss up a rope”. Sane people don’t ask these other professionals to work for free because we already know what the answer is. In all but the most isolated cases, a resounding “no”. Trouble is, when you ask designers to work for free, many of them will answer “yes”. And so it will be with iStockphoto. And whatever webby, CMS driven design crowdsourcing sites that are in BETA testing now.

Supply and demand. The free market way

Lest anyone think I’m a fan of these design services, let me assure you that I’m not. I’ve been extremely vocal in my criticism and will continue to be. But they’re not the enemy. They’re just business people, doing what business people have through time immemorial – supplying a market using an available source to make a profit, while minimizing their outlay. It’s kind of naive for designers to expect businesses, cut loose from the #1 expense of most businesses (labor), to close up shop in the name of preserving the “integrity” of the design profession. As long as they’re turning a profit, they won’t. And as success begats copycats, there will be more. Here’s the thing though – the only way these business models can thrive is when there’s a source. A supply for the demand. If designers just stopped blessing these outfits with carte blanche design work, they’d all whither on the business vine. The only solution for the design profession is for designers to start acting like they’re business professionals and part of this vaunted ‘free market’ system themselves. Free market doesn’t mean giving stuff away for nothing. It means freedom to SELL shit. You know, commerce and all that.

Unfortunately, when it comes to daft designers willing to throw their hats into the ring for the ‘chance’ of some monetary prize, there doesn’t seem to be a lack thereof. They’re the problem and it’s why designers, not all but a lot, remain their own worst enemy.

Related posts:

1. Hmm. “Design – too important for designers”?
2. The Jon Engle vs. Stockart.com story – an anti-spec work parable?
3. Design is a ’snooty’ business: Forbes

In an announcement that took some in the design industry by surprise, iStockphoto today announced that they were planning to roll out some sort of stock logo service, presumably after the New Year. Shortly after the news hit Twitter (and after receiving an e-mail from David Airey about the plan) I received this e-mail from the popular stock photo and artwork service.

“We’re excited to announce a whole new product coming to the iStock collection in just a few months: logo designs. Our clients will be able to download a unique logo to brand their business or organization right here at iStock from designers like you. As a designer, you’ve probably created hundreds of different logos over the course of your career and we’re offering you an outlet to start selling new logos to the world’s largest community of creative buyers. If you create one of the first 10,000 approved logo designs for iStockphoto by January 1, 2010, we’ll pay you $5 per approved logo and another $5 if we reach 10,000 approved logos by that date. So fire up Illustrator to create some amazing logos or dust off all those much-loved logos that never made it past the third round with a client. We will begin taking applications from potential iStock logo designers soon. There will be a Logo Training Manual made available before we begin accepting files. In the meantime, please join the discussion about logos here.”

Not an easy guarantee for iStock to make, especially when they’re on the hook for 10 grand when things go awry. It is, however, the ONLY way that they could start selling off-the-rack logos to customers who’ll ostensibly be trying to trademark some of the designs as their own. At the time I thought that iStock were going to get a lot more aggressive in policing their material (especially on design contest and crowdsourcing sites where submissions of stock artwork to projects remains at an astonishing level). Guess we now know why.

What does it mean?

I don’t see this as being a terribly big deal on the front end – clients aren’t about to pony up a large amount of money for what is, in reality, glorified clip art (flash generated stock logo gizmos like Logomaker and Logo Yes have been plying their goods for some time now). There will be probably be a lot of hand-wringing over the next couple of days among designers, especially among those, like our shop, who have marketed themselves as logo design specialists. Granted, it might seem like yet another assault on the graphic design industry, still trying to come to terms with the increasing impact of spec work and design crowdsourcing. And iStock are a very large company, with a established footprint in the stock art segment of the industry. However, at the end of the day, companies and businesses who appreciate the value of a decent brand will still be looking for a custom treatment, rather than some stock logo that’s sat on a website for months (and will undoubtedly be purloined several times over).

And that, is where the issue really lies. I predict there will be massive copyright problems as would-be designers, eager for quickly produced logos, scour the internet for material to, ahm, be “inspired” by. And in a little bit of karmic schadenfreude, logo design contests and crowdsourcing sites will be ground zero for a lot of “inspiration” for stock logos to upload. It’s an unfortunate, but predictable, aspect of a design business model where the emphasis (and only profitability for the designer) is to create a large number of logos, in the shortest amount of time possible.

Copying issues notwithstanding, and without the benefit of an accurate crystal ball, I don’t really know what impact this iStock logo deal will have on the industry at large. But I do have a feeling it will make a few copyright and trademark lawyers a lot of dough.

So what you think – Harbinger of doom, or today’s “who gives a toss”?
Comments are open if you so wish.

Related posts:

1. Stock artwork, logos, copyright and the power of Twitter. A cautionary tale.
2. Flowers, casino logos & credit card fraud
3. Registering a Trademark

Designers often talk, a great lengths, why a logo design has to be simple, some going as far to say it’s a “carved in stone” kinda rule. While I agree in principle with that basic premise, it’s a rule that we’ve been guilty of breaking, on numerous occasions (in our defense, we always make sure if an illustrative logo treatment is appropriate, according to future plans for the design). Was out for an early motorcycle ride this morning and stumbled across a classic example of why this ’simple is better’ is the rule, rather than the exception (pardon the photograph quality, but it was overcast and the pics were taken with my handy-dandy iPhone).

Different applications. Different results.

Take a look at the sign above. It’s a big one (actually, identical billboards have been placed in about four locations, to grab eyeballs from every traffic direction). The logo in the middle is for the real estate development featured. Uses either a photograph or a photo-realistic representation of a magnolia as the central theme, accented with torn photo edges and drop shadow. Nothing terribly wrong with the logo itself. It’s nicely designed, probably looks smashing on glossy business cards, textured letterheads and highly-varnished presentation folders given out to prospective home buyers. Has a nice vibe, presents a decent upscale image (needed with the price of houses these days) and is an example that most designers wouldn’t mind having in their portfolio. So what’s the issue? Well, that logo was ONLY designed with print (or web) use in mind. When it comes to other applications, the logo presents some very real problems.

At every entrance, the real estate development features huge granite structures (speaking of “carved in stone”) that are emblazoned with the same magnolia logo. Or a not-so-reasonable facsimile thereof. This time, the design doesn’t look so good. In fact, it has reproduced horribly and looks like an bad clip art, pinched from the library of some shopping mall ‘custom’ embroidery hat store. To be honest, the photo doesn’t do justice to how bad it actually looks. The stone version of the logo has lost the upscale vibe of the original entirely, even though I’m sure these granite monoliths cost an absolute fortune to produce. I’m also sure the manufacturers did what they could with the original logo as presented.

Neither the designer, or the people carving the logo into the granite were incompetent, and both are probably very skilled at their individual craft. It’s all speculation, but I imagine the designer probably wasn’t aware that the logo was going to show up on multiple granite slabs, almost 20 feet high, on every road that entered the estate. And the monument manufacturer simply wasn’t able to covert the complex photo-detail of the original into his/her medium. Trouble is, the difference between the two applications is profound (enough that I’d blog about it anyway).

Plan for future use. Avoid using photographs.

If we can take something out of this, it would be to avoid using photographs (or other extremely realistic) depictions in any logo design project. Another would be that it’s critical to know beforehand how a logo is planned to be used. We try to extract that information before starting ANY project at the shop, lest we corner a design’s use somewhere down the road. Trouble is, many businesses in start-up have absolutely NO idea how their logo usage will pan out in future days.

If that’s the case, it’s best to keep it simple.

Related posts:

1. Obama poster photograph mystery
2. New Universal logo from Apple…
3. What’s the deal with real estate logos?

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. Baskin and Robbins logo redux…
3. Sound logos and music loops…

Any logo designer worth their salt knows that vector formats are the only way to go when it comes to logo design. The vector-capability boundaries between Illustrator and Photoshop have blurred a little over the years (yes, you can create vector based in images, but it’s still a little hinky). Years ago, when it came to quick and dirty (often very dirty) vector conversion, we used a handy little utility called Streamline at the shop. Put out by Adobe, most of Streamline’s vector conversion properties were bundled into Illustrator CS and renamed Live Trace.

Auto-tracing. A little hit & miss.

Never been much of a fan of ‘auto-trace’ solutions for anything – they tend to create ‘choppy’ graphics, are a little control point happy, and leave a lot to be desired when it comes to overlaying one vector object over another. Most auto-conversion programs tend to leave little ‘gaps’ between the objects (attempting to butt shapes together like a jig-saw puzzle, rather than overlaying one on top of another as a series of layers). At the end of the day, I’ve always felt that manual hand-tracing is always the way to go (see our logo repair section for more), especially when you want smooth curves and what have you. Auto-tracing an image, then hand-editing it to acceptable standards often takes MORE time that hand-tracing from scratch.

Converting photographs to vector formats.

But what if you want a quick-and-dirty solution and want to quickly crank out a vector version for a comp, or you’re after a posterization effect where choppiness and rough edges are the desired result? I’ve been tinkering around with an online vector tracing site, Vector Magic (screen grab above), that allows you to upload jpgs, pngs, bitmaps and just about any other image file and quickly convert it to various vector formats. At first I was a little skeptical, but the results are as good as ANY desktop application, and in some cases even better. My first test involved a photograph of some toothy-grinned kid (relax, it’s me) that I was playing around with for a personal Twitter avatar. Not a terribly big image size (it was carved out of a photo booth picture of me and my father, when was I was a buck-toothed kid in Ireland). I let Vector Magic do it’s thing and ended up with the result below:

Aieee, that’s big! Anyhoo, not bad. Not bad at all. Decent detail and shape integrity (the subject matter notwithstanding). Vector Magic also overlays shapes on top of each other, so there’s little concern about editing or printing problems. Matter of fact, if I were looking for a posterized version of my mug, and needed in in vector format, this puppy is pretty well ready to go. Now, I’m not saying that these kind of images are suitable for use in logos. Far from it. Despite Adobe’s claim that their ‘Live Trace’ is “perfect” to creating logo artwork, these kind of illustrations ALWAYS have a brutal construction-paper cut-out vibe to them and don’t have enough fidelity to cut it as a logo. As a logo add-on, they can certainly work (think Shepard Fairey’s ‘Hope‘ illustration for Barack Obama as an example).

Converting raster logo images to vector graphics?

It always amazes me when business owners ‘lose’ their logo assets and end up with only one file format remaining – some low-resolution RGB jpg that they expect to turn into a pristine print-ready image for use on their business card or letterhead. Ain’t going to happen. A lot of the time, we need to repair their logo, hand-tracing the image in illustrator, adding new font artwork and converting the logo into CMYK or spot-color artwork. Figured I’d give Vector Magic a shot at converting a jpg version of one of our portfolio logos – a highly illustrative design created for radio personality Steve Dahl.

Amazingly, Vector Magic did a really decent job on the illustration portion. The detail held up pretty decently and the program seemed to be able to ‘guess’ what went where without too much trouble (below), especially impressive since, at 300PX x 269PX at 72 dpi, the image was fairly small to begin with.

Don’t get me wrong – the artwork isn’t up to snuff for full color print or anything, but still a decent try if you’re looking to re-size an image (bitmap/raster images tend to turn fuzzy if enlarged, while vector images can be sized up with little issue).

Font conversion. Always an issue.

Like most auto-conversion programs, Vector Magic tends to have an issue with fonts. The human eye is much more forgiving when it comes to abstract shapes that it is when it comes to typography. The brain tends to fill in missing detail so that even a wonky image ‘looks’ like what it’s supposed to (think of the old “is it a vase or two people talking” optical illusion). Font recognition doesn’t work that way – your brain needs to read the words – so any broken or hinky lettering is going to look, well, bad. Let’s take a look how Vector Magic handles the letterforms in our test logo

Not terribly well. To be fair, this was a problem with Streamline and is a problem with Live Trace addition to Illustrator. Actually, Vector Magic seems to handle font recognition better than most. Doesn’t matter though – a quickly converted image that features lettering is still going to require a large amount of hand editing.

Practical applications for the designer.

So, is auto-conversion of logos worth while? Maybe. If it’s for a quick and dirty turnaround, yes. If you’re using the logo for a final file, hand tracing is still the way to go. The amount of time you’ll spend tweaking points and bézier curves would be better spent starting from scratch. However, if you’re after a quick posterization effect (like my toothy visage above) or some illustration backgrounds torn from your fave photo, auto-conversion seems like the way to go.

Automatic raster/bitmap conversion. Some basic tips.

Couple of things I found when playing around. The bigger the image, the better. The program has more pixels to ‘guess’ what the shape’s supposed to be. High contrast photographs work a lot better than lower ones. I also found that by ’sharpening’ the images in Fireworks (you can do the same thing in Photoshop) the results improved dramatically.

Converting your images.

If you’re a designer who happens to be running Illustrator, Live Trace is worth a shot. If not, Vector Magic is certainly worth checking out. They’ll let you download one or two images for free (that’s how I managed to work with my toothy image from above), there’s a subscription model and a downloadable desktop application if you’re so inclined.

Related posts:

1. 10 tips for designing an original logo
2. Bad designer. No donut.
3. How to draw a perfect cog in under 20 seconds

If you’ve been following the design and advertising industry news over the past month or so, you’ve probably bumped into someone sqwaking about the CP+B (Crispin, Porter & Bogusky) crowdsourced project for the Brammo company, creator of the Enteria electric ‘power bike’. If not, let’s recap quickly. CP+B, a big thing among trendy ad agencies, held a $1000 logo design contest for one of their clients, Brammo, on Crowdspring, a Chicago-based design contest (they like to call themselves “crowdsourcing”) website and company. Half the industry freaked out, caterwalling about the gig for days on Twitter and on blogs across the internet. Designers have been carping about design contests (guilty as charged) for years, preaching mostly to the choir – other designers – through organizations like the AIGA and advocacy groups like No-Spec and recent addition Spec Watch. This time was different. This was an ad agency for chrissake, went the thinking. Designers having their lawn mowed by contest sites and so-called crowdsourcing platforms was one thing. An ad agency, high profile one at that, farming out their work was a little bit much (at this point, we could probably insert some “we should all stick together” platitude, but as this is a post that slams platitudes, we’ll leave that for another day). At points the fracas took on a ‘theater of the absurd’ as “Up Yours CP+B” tweets were fed, by RSS, right into the company’s new website home page. When dissenters realized that, their Tweets and messages got a whole bunch of creative.

Yes, we got another spec-work fracas going on.

In the end, CP+B had touched off yet another spec work firestorm (personally, I avoided the mess, and opined on Twitter that if designers had an issue with a company like Brammo crowdsourcing their logo, simply refrain from buying one of their silly, and over-priced, electric motorcycles. But I digress). Whether it was, as some thought, a cynical ploy to get some ‘buzz’ going, or a genuine experiment in logo design contestry (if it’s not a word, it is now) is anyone’s guess. At the end of it all, Brammo took some heat, as did CP+B, while Crowdspring got another load of publicity as people on both sides of the equation hotly debated whether the company itself was a darling of design innovation, or robber barons of the highest magnitude. And whether designers were defending their profession, or carrying on like a gaggle of crybabies, reluctant to sign on to the inevitable result of the global ‘village’.

Defending & opposing spec work and design contests.

There’s lots of blogs that tackled the subject – Creativity Unbound (pro), Fast Company (not so much) to name two – but now CP+B’s Alex Bogusky has weighed in, launching a long blog post over on Posterous entitled “I’ll take ideas for a thousand, Alex“. In it, Bogusky talks about creativity in general, the Crowdspring project in specific as well as throwing out the usual platitudes that are used to defend spec work, design contests and its repackaged cousin “crowdsourcing”. An interesting read, but it misses the point about spec work and CP+B’s contest on Crowdspring entirely.

Is it only about ‘ideas’?

Bogusky talks about everyone having ideas (goes as far to say they’re a “dime a dozen”) and that companies like Crowdspring allow the masses to unleash those ideas. That’s a wonderful sentiment. Truly. And if it were true, hell, I’d be one of the blogs supporting spec work and design contests. Trouble is, this isn’t just about ideas. That’s the concept part. In context, that idea would be me coming up with an “idea” for a logo in the Brammo contest to whit “Hey, I got an idea. Lets use a Bull. A red bull. Just the head. Make the horns into motorcycle handlebars. Have lightning bolts coming out of the snout” (I know it’s lame, but its 7 am and the first cup of coffee hasn’t kicked in just yet). In the context of the Brammo Crowdspring contest, that ‘idea’ isn’t enough. I now have to render the design using software that takes a couple of years to really learn. Unless I’m using a hacked warez version, cost me about a G note to buy. Then I have to upload this rendering to the Crowdspring server, agreeing (through their ‘user’s agreement’) to give Crowdspring an “worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display and perform the content in connection with the Site, in any media known now or in the future.” Usually, I’ll then have to perform a series of revisions to my ‘idea’, completely at the ‘buyer’s’ whim, in order to stay in the running for the vaunted prize (this doesn’t apply to the CP+B contest, something which we’ll get to in a minute). At the end of most design contests, chances are my beloved “idea” has been bastardized into oblivion by the buyer’s “move this, move that, take this other thing out” directions. My “idea”, 21 versions ago, is no longer my “idea”.

Democratization of design or cynical tool for free stuff?

Granted, none of this sounds as romantic as “everybody can be creative and shit”, but hey, what’s a few platitudes between friends. See, Crowdspring (and to be fair 99designs, Logo Tournament, Design Bay, Hatch Wise, Mycroburst, Design Tourney et al) aren’t about “ideas”. They’re about free design work. Concept. Production. Revisions. The works. People who are pro spec-work keep trying to pivot the argument to one of airy-fairy defendobabble (my word, use at will). Because “getting free shit from a whole bunch of designers” doesn’t sound half as nice as “leveling the playing field” and “democratizing design”. Alas, I’ve always been of the “if the shoe fits” variety.

The value of a ‘creative’s time.

So let’s take a look at the Brammo contest itself. $1000 bucks. Over 700 entries. A number that Bogusky tells us “blew everybody’s mind involved”. Fair enough. 700 plus entries would blow anyone’s mind I suppose. But it didn’t blow Brammo or CP+B’s collective minds enough for them to comment, or even leave a “out of five” star ranking, on over 600 of those entries. Why’s that a big deal? Well, over 500 designers submitted their work, without any chance of being selected, obstensibly for the “honor” of being critiqued and receiving feedback on their work from a major ad agency. I didn’t make that up from whole cloth, by the way. It is part and parcel of Crowdspring’s come-hither pitch to designers. They even tell buyers the following:

“If you don’t provide timely feedback [score entries], you’re sending a message to the creatives that you don’t value your project or their time.”

According to Crowdspring’s OWN raison d’être, neither Brammo or CP+B “value [creatives] time” or their own logo design project. We can argue all day about spec work, but that’s one of those “from the horse’s mouth” kinda quotes.

Designers’ Guild?

Bogusky then uses how some screenwriters conduct themselves (writing scripts on spec) as a rationale for designers to quit their fearful bellyaching and embrace spec work as the future. This is a classic example of a bandwagon fallacy – using one set of behaviors to defend another set of behaviors. On the otherhand, I did like his idea of a designer’s guild though (using the WGA as an example). As a member of the WGA, before pitching a script, screenwriters register it with the guild, and the guild protects its members’ intellectual property ferociously, going after residuals, royalties and plagiarism with gusto. Not sure how the mechanics would work out, or how a similar organization for designers could be funded, but it’s certainly an idea that’s worth further exploration.

The Nike logo chestnut.

In closing his article, Bogusky also throws in the old Nike logo chestnut. Pro-spec people like to do this. Alex isn’t as literal as most, but the thinking goes something like this (from his article)

What if the woman who designed the Nike logo had been in a union that insured that instead of a fee of fifty bucks, she received a royalty of a penny a shoe? I’m not great at math but I think that works out to about 20 million dollars in the last ten years alone.

Actually, the Nike logo cost less than $50. The designer, Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University, billed the precursor to the company $2 per hour for a total of $35.00. In 1971, that was the going wage (my first job, five years later, paid $2.35 per hour, the result of a minimum wage increase, mandated the summer before I started placing stock on shelves). Not only that, but in 1983, Carolyn received a diamond and gold ring from the company, as well as an envelope full of Nike stock (the amount of which was never disclosed, but one can assume it made her involvement with Nike a profitable venture indeed). Accordingly, I’m not sure what the point is, or what it has to do with the issue at hand. It might be applicable to this discussion if one designer was selected to design the Brammo logo, was paid what they billed, and Brammo, via corporate largess, is going to reward them with a diamond Brammo ring and an envelope of stock sometime in the future. Has anyone suggested this is what’s going on with the CP+B contest?

Nah, didn’t think so.

Related posts:

1. AIGA softening positon on spec and design contests?
2. Again with the design contests
3. SXSW “Is Spec Work Evil?” panel transcript

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. Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. The platitudes of spec work.
2. AIGA softening positon on spec and design contests?
3. SXSW ‘09 – Is spec work evil?

Little bit of a dustup going up Kelowna way in British Columbia, thanks to the city’s newly unveiled logo. The design, part of an $80,000 rebranding project, was warmly received by city council members until it was suggested that the supposedly pine-cone inspired logo looked awfully similar to a logo designed a few years back for a US real estate company called Sunhaven, by another US company called Lend Design. According to CTV news, the new city logo was created by a Phred Martin, a local designer (for ten grand), working through Splash Design, a local design firm (paid eighty grand). Lend Design are currently “investigating” whether or not copyright infringement has actually taken place. The designer, supposedly “out of town” was unavailable for official comment when the news broke, told city officials by phone that he’d never seen the earlier rendition.

City plans to release all preliminary designs

According to the Kelowna city website, the city council plans to release all the working files on the project (once they’ve figured out whether or not they have the right to do so). “I don’t think that releasing them is sort of an issue for us, but what we don’t want to do is overstep our ability until we’re sure that we can.” city manager Ron Mattiussi is quoted as saying. ““There are other logos, they were there as part of the process. We just want to make sure that we can release them. There are instances where people do work that it’s still their property, so we just want to make sure we don’t run afoul” he added. Kelowna media relations manager Carla Stephens was quick to defend Martin, telling media that “He wouldn’t risk his credibility nor damage the city’s reputation… for whatever it is he received.”

Is it a rip?

Oddly enough, I don’t think so. Just another one of those strangely bizarre instances where two designers come up with similar concepts with the second oblivious to the other. Logo Design Love has written an excellent article on when logos look similar which illustrates numerous times that this has happened in the past. As far as the similarities go, the designs are quite different – it’s the color that makes them look really, really alike. And there’s probably a good reason for that. The palette is obviously based on a complementary color wheel and both are actually examples of color theory 101. The Kelowna logo DOES look like the bottom of a pine cone (as the designer as claimed) while the Sunhaven version DOES look like a sun, influenced no doubt by the name of the company. Trouble is, the logos are similar enough, and the kerfluffle is just high profile enough that I’d assume the accepted Kelowna logo will be “un-accepted” fairly shortly, with another mark in its place. If that does happen, how it will effect the business end of the deal is anyone’s guess. What happens to the rep of the designer, or the company that hired him, will only become apparent once the issue plays out, people have got their stories straight and talked to the press. Probably all end up to be another great example of design by committee.

If I were to make one observation, it would be in the labeling of the images on the various websites linked above. They refer to the Kelowna logo as simply that, while adding the word “original” to the caption for the Sunhaven example. Seems someone in the Kelowna website department has already made up their minds.

So what do you think – knock-off or not? I know, let’s take a poll…

Related posts:

1. Yet another Apple logo dust-up
2. New design for Apple Quicktime logo
3. Logo design dustup – Apple vs. NYC

Things on our blog are going to be a little hinky over the next few days. Regular readers will probably have noticed that we’ve begun to integrate our new logo, and our new web design layout (see here for that plan) into these pages. Figured that would be a good way to begin our new brand roll out and a way to test the various bells and whistles that we’ll be adding over the next couple of weeks. There will be a few things that won’t work, images will look a little ‘off’ (there’s a 50 pixel width difference between in the new layout) and you might run into a few dead links or place holders (with that lorem ipsum gibberish). Overall all though, the blog will remain functional as we morph it into something (hopefully) nicer and more user friendly. Our main site will remain ‘old school’ with our old logo as we tackle each section and accordingly, we’ll appear to have a case of multiple logo personalities for a while.

Ah well, that’s why we always tell clients to think long and hard before changing their logo.

Related posts:

1. Add your site to our directory
2. Posts will be a bit spotty…

One of the cooler features on being on Twitter (follow us here) is that you’ll bump into like-minded people that you otherwise might not have had the opportunity. Such was the case with my running into Jeremy Tuber (follow him here), an Arizona-based graphic designer who runs the very-appropriately named website, Being a Starving Artist Sucks (indeed it does). I’ve met lots of designers on Twitter, but it’s Jeremy’s pragmatic, almost utilitarian approach to the business side of graphic design that I found notable. Over the months that we’ve chatted back and forth via Twitter and e-mail, I’ve come to see Tuber as a fellow-traveler, someone who believes that graphic design isn’t a glorified hobby or creative outlet but a business. And a business that freelancers need to approach like any other professional does – like their livelihood depends on it.

Jeremy’s also published several books, including Being a Starving Artist Sucks and Verbal Kung Fu, both of which would be excellent additions to any designers’ arsenal. I’m always loath to recommend resources to designers without knowing something about the author, or the book itself, so Tuber sent me over a review copy of his Being a Starving Artist Sucks to take a look at. Not a bad read at all.

The book starts off with a self-diagnostic test where readers are asked to answer a few straightforward questions about pricing, a designer’s interaction with clients, and your general outlook on your flourishing, or floundering (depended on your circumstances), The test is broken into two halves – a pre-read and post-read – so that you can gauge how much you’ve learned once you’ve finished reading the book. And you will learn a lot. Some of the material is fairly basic and aimed at those just starting out on their design careers, but there’s enough information to keep even fairly experienced designers interested and reading on. The book is written in a designer’s language, and deals with concepts, business concerns, client and day-to-day issues that are exclusive to the creative profession. I liked that Tuber’s book isn’t just a reverse engineered re-hash of a standard business fundamentals text like so many other ‘earn money’ websites and manuals. Weighing in at over 500 pages, the book is hefty with pragmatic info, and covers everything from how to pick clients, to how to make sure a logo design job is profitable, to what to do when a client won’t pay your bill. I particularly liked the section that dealt with saving a gig that’s gone completely and utterly off the rails (had a few of those in my day) and even as an ‘Old Dog’ I found several of the chapters fairly enlightening. The thing that stood out the most for me is that Tuber’s main focus is how a designer remain competitive and profitable – something that’s becoming more-and-more difficult in the design industry with each passing day.

The companion book to Being a Starving Artist Sucks is the somewhat oddly-named Verbal Kung-Fu (which, once you understand the concept does actually make sense). Subtitled “Master the Art of Self Defense against Difficult Clients” (see, I told you it made sense), the book takes a very pragmatic approach to defusing problematic situations with clients (we’ve all had them – had one this morning). I didn’t read this one cover-to-cover (apols) but skimming through the various scenarios, I recognized many that I’ve had to deal with (with varying levels of success) over my career. Overall, Verbal Kung Fu appears to be a decent attempt to address some fairly common situations, and ones that you’re likely to run into, if you’ve chosen graphic design as a career.

Both these books are available on iTunes, Amazon (as paperback and on Kindle) and are available from the BASAS website. Jeremy’s also been kind enough to set-up an exclusive page where readers of this blog can get a 10% discount off their purchase. While you’re there, I’d also suggest you check out his “Work Smarter NOT Harder” Contracts and More Package, a fairly comprehensive selection of email templates, questionnaires and contracts that most designers will need at one time or another. Tuber also runs an informative (and often surprisingly frank) blog at his website and is always willing to offer design and business advice via Twitter.

Related posts:

1. Get ‘em while they’re hot. The secrets to your Freelance Dreams…
2. Design is a ’snooty’ business: Forbes
3. Ten things you’ll need to be a great logo designer