LogoWorks or LogoJERKS?
The existence of cheap, logo mills is nothing new. They’ve been around for quite some time and generally produce pretty hideous results. But lately a company by the name of LogoWorks has been getting quite a bit of media attention.
LogoWorks has recently had extensive positive write-ups in the Wall Street Journal and the pages of Entrepreneur Magazine.
The WSJ piece starts off innocently enough, telling the story of small business owner Stephen Foster:
Stephen Foster dropped about $4,000 hiring designers to create a logo for his small Benicia, Calif., real-estate development company, Mobius Development Inc. Unsatisfied after several attempts — “they never grasped my idea” — he finally hit the Internet, where he turned up a firm called LogoWorks.com.
For $385, the company promised to put three designers on the job and offer him as many as eight different concepts. Mr. Foster was initially skeptical. “I thought there was a catch.” But within a week, he had a full package of designs that, he says, “were on the mark.”
A custom logo for $385? How can that be? Is it possible? What designer would change so little money to craft and refine a custom logo for a client? The article continues:
Here’s how it works: customers fill out a creative brief online and pick their price: from $265 (two designers and four to six concepts) to $549 (five designers and 10 to 12 concepts). The job is posted to a private area of the LogoWorks Web site where graphic designers sign up on a first-come, first-served basis.
The pay scale fluctuates. Designers are designated at expert, midlevel, or entry-level rank based on a point scale of 0 to 100. They all start at entry level, and their points and pay go up and down based on how their designs fare both with clients and with their peers. For instance, entry-level designers get paid $25 per project; midlevel, $30; and experts, $40.
“Expert” designers get paid only $40 for developing a logo??? Now it doesn’t take an economist to figure out that a designer would have to sell a lot of logos every month in order to be able to keep the wolf away from their door! To be sure, the designers for LogoWorks must exist in an endless stream of creative productivity in order to be able to design enough logos to make even a modest living.
Maybe not….
What’s really going on here?
Von Glitschka, creator of BadDesignKills.com, featured in the August issue of HOW magazine, has uncovered a nasty little secrety about LogoWorks: some of their designers have been stealing designs!
Over on the HOW discussion forum, Von started a thread where he displays logos alleged designed by LogoWorks and the logo originally designed by other designers. Take a look at some of the results below.
Alleged LogoWorks logo #1:
Logo originally designed by designer Mark Fox:
Alleged LogoWorks logo #2:
Logo belonging to the Oregon State Beavers:
A shady business model
The WSJ piece reports that LogoWorks “has been profitable since July 2002 and last year took in revenue of $3.5 million, which it expects to climb to between $10 million and $20 million this year.”
Well it looks like at leas some of those profits have come on the backs of other designers’ work! Who knows how much more? I strongly suggest that any logo designers check out the LogoWorks gallery and make sure that your work has not been stolen and sold to another company to the benefit of LogoWorks.
.chris{}
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