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Comment on Which way are you heading? To the top or the bottom?? by CreativeJuices

CreativeJuices — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:55:51 +0000

Thanks Michael. You’re spot on with your comment. The words I always live by “you get what you pay for.”

Comment on Which way are you heading? To the top or the bottom?? by Michael Tension

Michael Tension — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:32:37 +0000

Good point Felt. It’s very easy to drop your price, but it’s whole different story when you try to raise it.

Comment on Don’t pigeon-hole your branding. by tomhammarberg

tomhammarberg — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:15:59 +0000

nice write-up Brad. I’d add that size matters too. With a digital environment there’s the likelihood that your logo will be displayed at a lot smaller size than on a business card; more importantly you can’t control when that happens.
The multitude of combinations of platform, device size, user behavior, orientation, operating system defaults could all conspire to reduce the branding element in your content to a handful of pixels. Is it still recognizable?

Comment on Huffington Post crowdsourcing leaving bitter taste with the crowd. by redfelt13

redfelt13 — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:08:55 +0000

I like Stephan’s approach. Let me know how it goes.

Paul, glad to hear that you paid both designers. Yes, good designers will likely refuse this, but It seems that “Good” or “Great” has been replaced with “Good enough” for most people.

Bryan, you make good points. It’s hard trying to increase the value of good design, let alone mediocre design. Especially if with sites like DIY http://www.logogarden.com/ (One point of interest is that most of the logos are actually stolen.)

But there are high/low cost professions everywhere. One would expect a $300/hr lawyer to be better than a $100/hr one. But how many lawyers do you proposition with working for free? I guess it is the gall of expecting free work.

Comment on Huffington Post crowdsourcing leaving bitter taste with the crowd. by David Sly

David Sly — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:34:05 +0000

If marketing and business consulting companies are delivering measurable business value to their clients on an ongoing basis, they won’t ever have to compete in the Crowdsourcing space, as clients will gladly pay for their work.

Comment on Huffington Post crowdsourcing leaving bitter taste with the crowd. by David Sly

David Sly — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:29:35 +0000

I didn’t mention Copeland!

Comment on Huffington Post crowdsourcing leaving bitter taste with the crowd. by Doug Brown

Doug Brown — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:26:36 +0000

We pay our interns David. Every one of them. You might want to check your facts first.

Comment on Huffington Post crowdsourcing leaving bitter taste with the crowd. by David Sly

David Sly — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:09:03 +0000

So it’s bad news when clients don’t want to pay for work, but ok when agencies don’t want to pay for work (e.g. unpaid interns)?

Comment on Huffington Post crowdsourcing leaving bitter taste with the crowd. by Paul Holmes

Paul Holmes — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:31:12 +0000

One other thought … there is an industry where this “work” model exists: the popular music industry.

You put together a demo, you pour your heart into it, you work ridiculously heart, you spend money on your own equipment, and you go up against thousands of people to see who wins.

If the future of the design industry looks like the popular music industry, it’s an industry in big trouble.

Comment on Huffington Post crowdsourcing leaving bitter taste with the crowd. by Paul Holmes

Paul Holmes — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:28:45 +0000

I’m a fan of crowd-sourcing … some things. We had 2 design compositions for a website, couldn’t decide which to use, and crowd-sourced it … it was a great publicity stunt, and the designer got paid and we ended up using both designs in different capacities.

Crowd-sourcing logos or full designs is ridiculous, though. First of all, save for charity, possibly, most good designers will avoid such things.

So, right off the bat, you lose the best designers.

Then, for whoever is left, you are asking them to understand your company, to design something that is appropriate, and pour their heart into something that’s going to be spectacular … all so they can go up against 100 other people.

Not being a designer myself (but I work with many), I can’t say for sure, but my suspicion is that those desperate enough to submit to such a contest would be unlikely to have poured this sort of effort into it. They’d be more likely to slap something together and see if it sticks.

It strikes me that this is not exactly the sort of foundation you want to build your branding around.