Logos On Sale Now!

I am a graphic designer. I am proud of my education, my career and my profession. I carved out a life for myself from this profession and built a proudly designer-owned and run business. I found myself disenchanted when recently seeing an online advertisement doing the rounds stating "Professionally designed logos starting from 5$". Ummm... Ok. So what level of service, skill, creative insight, advice, prioritization and experience do you expect to receive as a client when you're paying as little as 5$? This is not the first online portal I've seen promoting this type of deal. From what I can tell, some are crowd sourcing portals and others are almost like stock photo type directories that advertise hundreds of designers prepared to work for as little as possible.

Furthermore, how much effort will any self respecting graphic designer put into something that will generate 5$ of income? Perhaps some designers will argue, "even if I don’t make much out of it, this is a global opportunity to earn some recognition". The type of client that undermines the value of design is unlikely to be the next global brand that will shower you with glory. If anything, they're more likely to revamp the logo in two years to the next lowest bidder. It wouldn’t be surprising in the least if graphic designers partaking in this are just pitching rehashed rejections for consideration. There are places for designers’ lost and forgotten ideas to be reignited, but that is a story for another day.

What would really scare me is the prospect of designers drawing inspiration and even downloading vector constructions of logos on other crowd source or stock platforms. It’s not that difficult to get away with it, as long as your prospective client never comes across the 5000 other entities around the world that used the same concept. And even if they did, you probably wouldn’t care and any effective legal or copyright recourse would just be a waste of time and money for a client who crowd sources graphic design in the first place. What actually horrified me was my attempt to not “dis it before I try it”. So I searched and fiddled around. At a cost of 5$, me playing the role of the prospective client finds value-added terms and promises like “instant logo”, “24 hour delivery”, “free unlimited revisions” and “100% money back guarantee”. I kid you not. The most curious term was “reseller welcome”. I don’t want to explore what exactly this means and I’d prefer not to imagine. Whether such portals are technically crowd sourcing (the definition is broad) or just promoting very cheap professional services as listings can be questioned, but the principle of devaluing the graphic design profession remains.

Some clients may argue, “this is a cost-effective solution to a tight budget”. Great. So there’s a market for wholesale logo design. But if the value of your visual identity or brand at the outset is equivalent to your next drive-thru meal, don’t expect fireworks from your target audience. I’m not necessarily discouraging designers from lowering the logo design cost itself in an attempt to sweeten a deal with the prospect of continued work or the opportunity to develop the entire corporate identity and brand application; but this should be part of closing the deal prior to lifting a pencil. In any event, it’s doubtful that crowd sourcing or the like will offer that continued business relationship opportunity. The prospective client who resorts to crowd sourcing a logo will probably crowd source and cut budget corners on all future applications either looking for another thousand brochure and web design options or just pick the lowest bidder with the most value-add terminology fit for an assembly line.

A crowd sourcer (as such prospective clients are sometimes defined) may not necessarily use the pricing argument. They may see this as an opportunity to access expertise from a large community of experts all over the globe which will somehow be a product of collective genius from the world’s very best. Really? I don’t know any world-class graphic designers who have the time for or any interest in design lotteries, at very least not as a work stream for a fixed price. They’re too focused on securing commissioned work, challenging briefs and being paid their worth.

Crowd sourcing has a purpose and serves functions where it can add value, but auctioning off intellectual property is not one of them. Crowd sourcing must also not be confused with online directories or expert professional communities, many of which can be very effective for graphic designers to profile and promote themselves. Crowd sourcing, specifically with a set price tag, is not the same thing and this should apply to all professional services. Design excellence can be achieved for a client on the other side of the world. Face-to-face interaction in client communication is key to the creative process. These days communication can take place instantly, face-to-face, anywhere in the world. What I can't wrap my head around is reducing logo design to a commodity displayed on a point-of-sale device or "specials bin" in the local supermarket and how this devalues the profession as a whole – not to mention a host of other professions.

With the explosion of the internet and faster connection speeds came the explosion of online stock photography. I imagine many photographers ten or fifteen years ago felt the same frustration. Yet, there is a place for stock photography. A good stock photograph is exactly that – a good photograph taken by a good photographer. Make no mistake; there are bad stock photographs too. However, professional photographers around the world have adapted to the platform and used it to generate extra income. Good for them. The market sifts out the good from the bad and professional photographers have another manner with which to sustain their competitive edge. But a stock photograph is not a logo. A stock photograph should be used in specific circumstances and more as a last resort. It should never be the first resort and neither is it any substitute for a commissioned photo shoot. For your brand’s sake, nothing beats your own individual stock library generated by a professional photographer based on a respective brief.

Perhaps crowd sourcing graphic design is an opportunity for students or graphic designers seeking a challenge to sharpen their skills, even just for portfolio purposes. But to integrate it into a business model surely cannot be sustainable. What does it say of your approach and methodology? How do you prioritize a client at such low cost and still make promises like 24 hour turn-around? Or are you proud of designing in the dark and gaining recognition for it? And how exactly does the prospective client make an informed decision with possibly thousands of options that may well resort to a quantity and price factor as opposed to quality and insight? In the same vein, the graphic designer may well approach this the same way – essentially turning it into a lottery. The more tickets you buy, the better chance you have. I have been reassured by the following article by Ian Lynam, a graphic designer, design teacher and critic based in Tokyo: https://medium.com/@ianlynam/why-we-should-really-be-concerned-about-the-visual-identity-for-the-tokyo-olympics-969830d0e819#.1nh5evdzp. This is an intensive and well-researched example of the difference between "throwing it out there" in the hope of random brilliance compared to a targeted and insightful briefing process. Lynam intriguingly raises labor related matters and other misguided motivations for crowd sourcing. Another current matter for consideration, for which I need to do a lot more reading, is the approach New Zealand have taken to the design of their new national flag. Is it building a sense of national pride at the cost of exploiting labor without anyone noticing?

Graphic design in many respects is an ancient discipline. Its combination of lateral, visual and creative application is the benchmark of reproducible visual communication which essentially led to the development of written language. Today and in the decades to come, visual identity is set to become a more and more critical factor for organisations, communities, businesses, events, governments and even individuals in the hunt for distinction. Crowd sourcing, wholesaling, price fixing or auctioning graphic design is likely to proliferate the multi-sensory online onslaught of confusion to our future clients. I do not believe crowd sourcing and the like are doing this particular ancient discipline any favours. 

Gareth McKinnell is a graphic designer and co-owner of Blackmoon Design and Advertising (www.blackmoon.co.za). He writes in his personal capacity. Feedback may be sent to [email protected]. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Blackmoon Design and Advertising.