
99designs Launches $99 Logo Store - apowell
http://99designs.com/logo-design/store
======
lotides
As a former visual/graphic designer, now a stay-at-home father, I have to
chime in on this. I've done branding and identity work for some very large
companies (e.g. The Coca-Cola Company) so I can tell you that the logo is a
very important part of any business strategy.

First, I'm surprised how little respect design gets in the tech industry and
from programmers. Good design can sell a poor product or inform consumers
about a superior product. It can drastically reduce support costs (UI design)
or encourage consumers to pay a little more for a product (i.e. The Apple
"Tax"). Design is important to the overall success of most business ventures
and should be budgeted for and planned for accordingly.

These logo (I'll be nice here) marketplaces are better than design-it-yourself
or no design at all in most cases. But you get what you pay for. Many of the
designs will come from students that have little to no experience and an
incomplete grasp of the principles of design. Most of the rest will come from
international locales far away with different cultural identities and little
understanding of yours. After all, a logo is not just something attractive, it
communicates a message visually.

What you will get in abundance is poorly thought-out concepts, logos stolen or
similar to others and rushed work with a total disregard to overall quality.
Does your logo need to be legible from far away or at small sizes? They
probably didn't account for that. Some of these logos will land you in court
(trademark/copyright violations) and I guarantee the guy that "designed" it
for you on these website will disappear.

Bottom line: These logos are great for a placeholder until you can afford a
designer, until your product grows or launches or for presentations to
investors, etc.

~~~
webwright
I'm a designer (sorta) and have done a mess of small biz design consulting in
my day, and I will tell you that you decidedly do NOT get what you pay for.

I've seen $50k logos that were pretty ineffective. We've all seen HUGE
branding campaigns fall face first. We've also seen cheap/free logos turn into
icons (Google, Yahoo, Nike).

The difference in VALUE between a $99 logo here (or designed by a student
designer abroad) and a $30,000 logo designed by a seasoned pro is NOT $29,000
for 99.9% of companies.

Interestingly enough-- this is true for a lot of coding tasks, too. Most web
apps are simple CRUD apps that will never need to scale and don't really merit
"rockstar" talent.

I don't think you need to sell anyone here on the value of good UX design and
"good enough" graphic design. But GREAT graphic design clearly isn't a major
factor in winning on the web. Don't believe me? Judged entirely on composition
alone (i.e. ignoring their fame and success) how many of these sites would you
be proud to have in your graphic design portfolio?
<http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US>

~~~
tptacek
Feature we need: ability to transfer karma from our own unjustly high-ranked
comments to new, better comments.

------
tbgvi
A tip to anyone who hasn't treaded these waters before:

Do not, under any circumstances, bring up 99 designs when speaking with a
professional designer.

I warned you! But seriously, most entries for logo contests on 99 designs were
already templates. If you look through a contest you'll see tons of leaves,
swooshes, stylized people, etc... This just drives the cost down in most cases
(the average contest is at least $99).

~~~
huhtenberg
> _most entries for logo contests on 99 designs were already templates_

What's more relevant, there are a lot of quick-buck rip-offs created by simply
copying a piece from <http://logopond.com> and tweaking it slightly. You buy
one of these and you are on the hook for your name being dragged through the
mud and for a copyright violation lawsuit.

Perhaps they have implemented a proper due diligence process for their $99
store, i.e. they do verify the authenticity and uniqueness of the design
before accepting it for sale. If so, then great. If not, then just use
<http://brandstack.com> which was the first place to let the designers sell
their unused concepts.

~~~
mshafrir
Thanks for the link to brandstack, looks great. Is there any way to gauge a
fair price for a custom logo?

------
nym
Have a design company but no good at designing? <http://99designs.com/logo-
design/store/search?q=design> has design company logos for you :-)

------
apowell
I'm curious to see what the HN community thinks of this. I've used 99designs
in the past with moderate success, and this looks like a natural next step for
their logo market. For a while, the participating designers have submitted the
same logo, modified for a company, for any contest where it would fit. This
marketplace appears to be aimed at ending that silly charade.

Would you consider buying a logo here? I can see using it to get a quick-and-
dirty logo for an early stage project, but I didn't see many I'd be excited to
build a major brand on.

~~~
patio11
I think it is a poor choice for me but a _great_ choice for my neighborhood
pizza shop, who would love to have a professionally-done logo and do not care
a whit if it is shared with a pizza shop in Normal Bloomington, Moscow, and
London.

This is the democratization of design, where the Fortune 5 Million can have
routine access to mass-customized graphic art somewhere above the quality of
MS Word ClipArt and (I'll be charitable) below the quality of the designers
who want to charge four figures for a logo which embodies the unique values
and messaging of The Neighborhood Pizza Shop.

~~~
webwright
WHY is it a poor choice for you? I've always been impressed by your metrics-
driven choices.

Do you think that if you A/B tested your favorite choice from this service
that it'd meaningfully change your success? I don't hate your current logo,
but as an (sorta ex) designer, I wouldn't nominate it for any awards. What is
the business value of "embodying the unique values and messaging" of your
business?

Related: trying to ignore what you've come to believe about Google, do you
think their original logo embodied their unique values and messaging? I sure
as heck don't.

My view is that the logo is a pretty damn tiny part of the BRAND-- and the
brand is where the value is. Your business is awesome because of your brand. A
great logo or crappy logo can nudge the quality of the brand but not as much
as designers think.

~~~
tptacek
Patrick, I will absolutely buy you the 99d logo of your choosing if you'll A/B
test it. I would _love_ to know the results of this test.

If only we could convince Colin to try this experiment.

~~~
webwright
Ooooh, I'll chip in.

------
ardit33
I have used 99designs for something else than a logo, and so far it i has been
a good success for me.

You are going to get some good submissions, mediocre ones, and some crappy
ones.

Be willing to pay a more than a $200 - $300, and you will get good
submissions.

If you are a big corp, and have a huge brand to work on, you might not want to
use them. If you just want to get something really decent looking out of the
door, then they are really good choice.

Once your site/company/whatever, starts making millions, you can spend the
money on high end designs.

At the end of the day you get what you pay for. Put your logo for $500, and it
is guaranteed you will get a lot of good submissions (and a river of bad
ones).

I honestly think this is much better than just working with a individual
designer. The main reason is that you might get submissions that are really
creative and you would have never thought of.

Again, if you pay pay $300 - $500 and you will get better results.

------
bonsaitree
Let me get this straight, I pay them $300 for the exclusive license for pre-
made logo.

Considering I can contract out multiple iterations of a bespoke, cross-media,
hand-dithered (e.g. newsprint, 4-color, b&w, web, etc.) logo for $1-$2k from
full-service design/marketing firms HOW is this a competitive solution?

What project or firm who even tangentially cares about their brand identity
would go down this path? Logos typically last the lifetime of the brand
(years) and those sunk costs can be easily justified by that lengthy
amortization.

Honestly, this seems like a service without a market; at least in the United
States.

~~~
tptacek
Nobody who cares deeply about their "brand identity" is going to go this
route. Most companies don't care deeply about their brand identity.

To demonstrate that, let's play a game. Go to Hoovers. Pick a major metro
area. Drill down into "Banking & Finance", "Investment Management", and then
drill into the 2nd or 3rd largest city in that metro area (in Chicago, that's
something like Schaumburg or Naperville).

Now Google the top employers in the resulting set, and pick the company with
the median-quality logo, and the company with the worst-quality logo.

I'm betting that in some major metros (Chicago is an example of this), the
median _and_ the worst-quality logo is _worse_ than the typical 99designs
logo.

In webtwopointopia, we're in a very status-conscious, egocentric estuary of
the US economy. It's easy to forget that a lot of things we care deeply about
(Helvetica! Not Arial!!!) are _absolutely irrelevant_ to most customers.

~~~
bonsaitree
Touché. Your point is well-taken and was effortlessly re-enforced this
afternoon as, for the first time, I noticed the non-logos of my favorite local
dry-cleaners and diner.

Having lived in the Schaumburg area for several months also doubly-reinforces
your argument.

Well-Played. Estuary indeed.

------
tptacek
This is _fantastic_. Most businesses --- the overwhelming majority of them, in
fact --- need a distinct and competant bespoke logo, but absolutely don't need
a custom couture treatment.

I'm betting that had this been available a year ago, one of these would be
Patrick McKenzie's logo.

The only concern I have with 99designs is the policing. I'd like to know more
about what they're doing to make sure the work up there is original --- a
friend had a bad experience with this issue. If they can put a lid on that, I
think this offering solves a huge problem.

~~~
patio11
_I'm betting that had this been available a year ago, one of these would be
Patrick McKenzie's logos._

I sympathize with the general point, but you're false in the specifics. I am
_totally_ willing to buy custom design at 3rd world prices rather than trying
to shave that even farther and getting something which is generic.

<http://www.bingocardcreator.com/images/blog_logo.gif>

I got three concepts done for the above from the same designer, and it cost me
(checks records) $117 total. The two losing logos got shelved. Doing it the
custom way let me get specify two things: that the BCC logo actually have a
stylized bingo card on it (surprisingly hard to find in clip art -- trust me,
I've looked) and that it use the blue/green color scheme I was going for.

But yeah, in general, design is too cheap these days for me to _ever_ do a
project without it. I kid you not, I have three applications to give
conference presentations in the works at the moment and they _all_ are getting
custom logos. There is an 80/20 return to visual design and I want to get the
80 rather than wasting it.

------
nonrecursive
also worth checking out is <http://logoworks.com/> . They're more expensive
(logo packages start at $300) but still cheap. They did my logo for
<http://www.flyingmachinestudios.com> . I think Guy Kawasaki also has used and
recommended them.

------
ThomPete
I used to tell myself that creativity would be the last thing that technology
would be able to replace. As someone who designs for a living that was somehow
comforting.

I realize now how wrong I was.

It's not that technology will ultimately be able to replace creativity it's
that it will commoditize some parts of it such as logo's, websites layouts
etc.

Making a logo is not design it's illustration. You don't solve problems with
logos you create a style.

Templates and logo's go hand in hand with the types of companies that needs
them.

If your company can really be made with logos and templates then good for you.

I am happy there are companies out there such as 99designs, they make
something that should be simple cheap.

But it's not design, it's not problem solving. The day that computers will be
able to do that then we are all out of jobs anyway.

------
phsr
<http://99designs.com/logo-design/store/1152>

This is the Windows logo rotated 1/4 counter clockwise and skewed
slightly...Hopefully they have some sort of way of reporting/dealing with
issues like this (aka image stolen from somewhere else)

~~~
adoyle
At least they are equal-opportunity. <http://99designs.com/logo-
design/store/2372> is pretty close to Ubuntu. Even if you're working on a
design with designers working from scratch, you have to watch out for things
like this. One of the designs someone did for one of my projects wound up
being pretty nearly a copy of the Space Imaging logo.

~~~
tjr
I wonder where the line is between being a copy of another design and not.
Just in this 99designs logo store alone we have examples of thousands of logo
designs. If someone where to sit down and make a new logo design, what are the
odds it would be noticeable similar to one of these?

In programming, we have "design patterns" and such, that no-one would argue
"hey, you copied me!" over. What about design patterns in logo design? I'm not
a logo designer, but I find it hard to believe that each and every logo design
is, or plausibly could be, designed entirely from scratch.

------
andrewhyde
I've hated their core business model in the past. For it to work someone had
to be exploited.

I think it is a pyramid scheme when someone has to complete a professional
task for the slight chance of non noteworthy payment as a norm. It isn't
sustainable.

That being said, this is a much better step. I see it being much more
sustainable to everyone involved (and far less exploitative) for non custom
logos being sold at a flat rate.

~~~
tptacek
Reasonable people can disagree about whether this is "exploitation". I don't
think they can disagree about the fact that it isn't a pyramid scheme. Words
mean things.

I'm on the other side of the spec-work debate as you; I respect where you're
coming from but disagree that designers should exist in a market that
functions differently from all other professional services.

I also think that this new, designer-"friendly", less-exploitative approach is
going to do more violence to the bill rates of graphic designers than spec
work contests ever could.

~~~
patio11
Absolutely right on that last point. A design contest has, let's call it, two
dozen developers competing for the attention of Bob's Crab Shack. 23 of them
will lose. That is potentially 23 _perfectly good crab shack logos_ that get
shelved, never to be seen again.

With this innovation in the business model, those 23 perfectly good crab shack
logos aren't wasted: indeed, they can be applied to _hundreds_ of crab shacks
over the coming years.

Econ 101 suggests that if the supply of a good which was previously perishable
a) vastly increases and b) is made nonperishable and c) sees transaction costs
dwindle (because picking clothes off the rack is easier than detailing your
needs to a tailor), well, price comes way the heck down.

------
eagleal
_I don't want to spam here, so if you think it is I'll remove the link,_ but I
have a post[1] that seems to fit the arguments discussed here (especially
those of tptacek, patio11, and lotides). This is what I call branding.
Basically:

 _In summary the logo creation didn't require a lot of time, I didn't even
tried different proposals (no need to do so). It just come naturally. It was
modeled together with the culture and the product itself (research,
prototypes, mockups, etc). It was a (design) product of a visual evolution
(more on this later)._

[1] I wrote it this evenening (CET), it's related to this topic but not a
response, <http://www.pmura.com/blog/2010/03/kuse-vision-logo>

------
soyelmango
I have a love/hate thing with these companies - 99designs is not the only one
out there.

In favour of them:

* they offer affordable logos

* you know exactly what you're getting for a fixed price

On the flipside, there is plenty wrong with these logos:

* Me too: if the logo's any good, there's a good chance someone else will buy it too. It would be like turning up to a party, and finding that you've got the same dress on (... a nightmare situation for some!)

* They look like $99 logos, or any other logo churned out by these companies

* It devalues the work of designers - a good designer understands what your company is about, and produces a fitting logo for you.

I'm sure there are many other fors/againsts than these, and it would be
interesting to hear what others think of these services.

~~~
adambard
They do sell full rights for an extra $199:

"All logos cost just $99, or if the logo has not been purchased before, you
can buy it exclusively and own the full rights to the logo for an extra $199.
"

I can see how this would be really attractive to many businesses; after all,
most people who don't interact with designers on a regular basis view a logo
as a very secondary matter, and if they can get a unique one for $300, that's
probably good enough for them.

These people are probably crummy clients for any designer anyhow, so I don't
feel like designers are really losing out. Heck, it might even be a worthwhile
place to sell extra materials (e.g. logos that were not accepted).

~~~
soyelmango
Thanks for the clarification, and you make a good point there about how a
client who wants to pay $99 for a logo is likely to be a difficult client! It
looks like $99designs does designers a favour by allowing cheap/difficult
clients to eliminate themselves from the client pool.

------
kullar
There are ways within 99designs to filter the initial mass down to better
quality competitors and to stop wasting other designers time, e.g. by
eliminating bad designs early. Either way, its not good for a $40/hour
designer to be competing against a guy that might only need to win 1 project a
month to pay the bills. James Goldsmith was right back in 1994- look at social
indices, not economic! Dude saw the future.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI>

------
moron4hire
This is great for the little mom-and-pop coffee shop type place

~~~
tptacek
Here are 3 companies in metro Chicago with more than 100 employees:

<http://www.daigger.com/about-us/index.jsp> <http://www.aleri.com/>
<http://www.emkay.com/flash/introPage/index.htm>

(Selected at random from Hoovers).

Not one of them has a logo that is better than the median logo on this site.

My point is: this is great for a lot more than just mom-and-pop coffee shops.

~~~
eps
But how many 100 employee companies would opt for using a _shared_ logo?
Because this is the only thing that makes 99design different from other ready-
made logo stores.

------
rapind
Since there's probably a lot of ticked off designers in this thread...

I could use some designer help with an open source project I'm working on.
<http://grokphoto.org>

And for the record, no, I never have and never will use one of these logo
crowdsourcing shops. Great design is far too important imo.

------
davidedicillo
If you want a nice gradient on an unrelated shape and some shadow/reflection
effects, go for it.

------
stevejalim
How about a two-tier system where 99 bucks gets you a version with your
wording, while $999 (or whatever) gets you a version of the logo with the
wording _and gets it removed from the site_. Or is that already how it works
and I skimmed too lightly?

~~~
nathanh
"if the logo has not been purchased before, you can buy it exclusively and own
the full rights to the logo for an extra $199."
<http://99designs.com/readymade/help/howitworks>

~~~
chrisduesing
It doesn't appear that you can search for only logos that have not been
purchased before, which seems like a highly desirable filter.

------
JohnIdol
99$ and 24 hours reminds me of Wokhei.com --> <http://www.wokhei.com/> \- with
the difference that those are not templates

------
thinkbohemian
I'm running on a shoestring budget so I built my own logo. Does anyone know
where one can go to get my logo critiqued?

------
empire29
interesting.. its like a frugal man's crowdspring, i like it.

~~~
jaiken
Did you know that crowdspring got their logo designed using the our site:
<http://99designs.com/contests/321>

The contest model at 99designs.com does between 550-600 new projects every
week - That's dwarfs all other similar sites including CS combined.

Just FYI.

Cheers, Jason

~~~
jaiken
Please forgive the typo :)

------
va_coder
wow smart idea and good implementation

------
whatwhatwhat
Who cares? Why is HN an advertisement portal? This is stupid.

------
voidpointer
99 bucks to get your company name and a piece of clip-art? I think people who
go for this just don't deserve any better.

One should probably just automate this. Pay $20 to istockphoto for a piece of
vector art and put the company name beside it. That's an easy made $79. So if
easterbunny inc. needs logo, just license [http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-
illustration-11054108-rabbi...](http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-
illustration-11054108-rabbit.php) and you're done. The quality would be
comparable to those logo templates.

Many people obviously have started to believe that a logo is a bit of
illustration plus your name.

~~~
lsc
Great idea. automate it. And while you are at it, throw in a
styesheet/template for my website that matches the automatically generated
logo, maybe charge me an extra $20 for that. Especially if I could easily tab
through possibilities to see what they look like, that'd be pretty useful for
us fashion challenged.

