microISV, My logo beauty parade
I love the process of getting a logo created!
In fact not just a logo but getting any professional graphics created by a designer is such fun. You give them a brief of what you want and then sit back and wait with anticipation for the email alert to ping.
This is how it must feel to be a judge at a beauty parade; you wallow in the power of choosing based on shallow aesthetic criteria. Is this how it feels to be a woman shopping? I don't care about the V8 engine or turbo lag; I want the shiny red one!
But how to go about it?
There has never been a better or cheaper time to get professional graphics created. In the bad old days you had to either pay a fortune to a graphics design company or know a friend of a friend that was a professional designer. Not any more. With the internet reaching all over the world you can access the zillions of talented arties. (If a programmer is techie then surely an artist is an artie?).
A couple of months ago I came across a great internet site called Guru.com. This is a kind of meeting place for matching up project requirements to skilled professionals. Along with experts in technical areas such as internet programming skills, it also covers graphic design of logos, web templates and much more. This seemed the perfect place to find a great logo.
So I went ahead and posted details about the task and sat back to see if anyone would ask to get involved. Well it didn't take 24 hours and I had 25 experts providing quotes for the job. These ranged from as low as $50, from individuals in far off countries, up to $1500 from design agencies in the developed world.
One of the great features of the site is that you can browse the portfolio of previous work from each applicant. Being a diligent type of fellow I did exactly that for all 25 quotes. To my surprise the quality of the applicants work was not directly proportional to the price they quoted. Some of those quoting only $50/$200 were of an excellent standard and it is surprising how average the work of some $1500 agencies were.
I decided to offer the work to not one but three applicants. Looking at the cheap end of the quotes that also had good portfolios I appointed the following...
Candidate A - $75 from India
Candidate B - $125 from Romania
Candidate C - $199 from Argentina
So the total cost will be $399 but with three different sources I expect to definitely achieve the look and feel I want. This is still much cheaper than the $800 I paid to get a logo done in the past. I like the idea of having plenty of different ideas at the start of the process. With a logo that will be with me for many years to come we need to ensure its a good one.
I will show the initial ideas that each candidate came up with in the next post.
In fact not just a logo but getting any professional graphics created by a designer is such fun. You give them a brief of what you want and then sit back and wait with anticipation for the email alert to ping.
This is how it must feel to be a judge at a beauty parade; you wallow in the power of choosing based on shallow aesthetic criteria. Is this how it feels to be a woman shopping? I don't care about the V8 engine or turbo lag; I want the shiny red one!
But how to go about it?
There has never been a better or cheaper time to get professional graphics created. In the bad old days you had to either pay a fortune to a graphics design company or know a friend of a friend that was a professional designer. Not any more. With the internet reaching all over the world you can access the zillions of talented arties. (If a programmer is techie then surely an artist is an artie?).
A couple of months ago I came across a great internet site called Guru.com. This is a kind of meeting place for matching up project requirements to skilled professionals. Along with experts in technical areas such as internet programming skills, it also covers graphic design of logos, web templates and much more. This seemed the perfect place to find a great logo.
So I went ahead and posted details about the task and sat back to see if anyone would ask to get involved. Well it didn't take 24 hours and I had 25 experts providing quotes for the job. These ranged from as low as $50, from individuals in far off countries, up to $1500 from design agencies in the developed world.
One of the great features of the site is that you can browse the portfolio of previous work from each applicant. Being a diligent type of fellow I did exactly that for all 25 quotes. To my surprise the quality of the applicants work was not directly proportional to the price they quoted. Some of those quoting only $50/$200 were of an excellent standard and it is surprising how average the work of some $1500 agencies were.
I decided to offer the work to not one but three applicants. Looking at the cheap end of the quotes that also had good portfolios I appointed the following...
Candidate A - $75 from India
Candidate B - $125 from Romania
Candidate C - $199 from Argentina
So the total cost will be $399 but with three different sources I expect to definitely achieve the look and feel I want. This is still much cheaper than the $800 I paid to get a logo done in the past. I like the idea of having plenty of different ideas at the start of the process. With a logo that will be with me for many years to come we need to ensure its a good one.
I will show the initial ideas that each candidate came up with in the next post.
posted by Phil Wright at
7:34 pm
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4 Comments:
This is the kind of address that is very good to know.
Alternately, I used DesignOutpost.com a couple of months ago to have my logo designed. Their system is based on competition between the designers. I eventually had a nice logo for $150 !
http://www.apptranslator.com/blog/2005/03/logo-time.html
[BTW, Phil, it would be nice if you open the comments to non-Blogger subscribers. I know of at least one guy who would be happy : http://www.userscape.com/blog ;-)]
By
Serge Wautier, at 5:24 am
No sooner said than done. I have enabled anonymous posting and if it's working this comment will make it.
I just had a look at your Design Outpost thread. The ability to go through many iterations quickly seems like a real asset and you also only have to pay the winner!
By
Anonymous, at 7:29 am
Looks like you a making great progress!
By
Anonymous, at 12:18 pm
Too late now, but I recommend www.logobee.com. I used them at Dozing Dogs and was very pleased. They gave me 8 designs, and I picked the best parts from each. In the end they gave it to me in 8 different formats, even vectors for infinite scaling.
By
Anonymous, at 6:38 pm
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