When you think about it, ethics can be a touchy subject on the Internet. We deal with so many different cultures and pre-existing codes of ethics. It’s a daunting task. Even more so in logo design, where something like exclusivity (which seems obvious to most of us) might not be obvious to every logo designer. In some cultures, all is fair in love and war - and in business.

So I have launched a new project that I hope to stay involved in for a long time. LogoDesignCode.com. The idea is simply to try and define a code of ethics for online logo designers. Have a look here. If you can improve on version one, please do via the suggestions form.

A new site that I’ve just completed and uploaded. Check it out here:

http://www.churchlogodesigner.com/

What worries me just a little is that it seems logo designers are in a race to out-site each other. The number of logo design sites on the Net increases daily it seems, but if you take the time to investigate, many of them are owned by a handful of the bigger design firms. My company had to create a system for keeping track of what we own and how all the pieces fit together.

It should be interesting to see a chart of who owns whom in the online logo design world. 

The alternative to having many sites is having all your eggs in one basket. With Google’s mood swings I would not want to build my ability to feed my kids on just one site. Add to that the odd denial of service attack and having 200 sites instead of 1 seems perfectly logical.

Our poor customers though!

www.vectorworldmap.com

Biz-Logo

A follow-up on our post on the Biz-Logo DDoS attack:

Hats off to our new hosting company Blacklotus.net. We are happy to report that Biz-Logo.com has been back online and accessible since May 12, despite the ongoing attack.

The guys at Blacklotus are successfully mitigating the attack for us using a combination of high-spec hardware and manual traffic filtering. Most impressive of all is the speed: they (1) got the site working quickly, (2) the site itself opens much faster than I though possible and (3) their support team answers questions in no time at all.

All this comes at a price, of course. It costs many times more than the $7-or-so that we used to pay over at BlueHost. That’s a bitter pill to swallow for a stingy bastard like me.

But we need to look at the value, not the price.

If you pay 30 times more and you receive 100 times more, then that is money well spent. The speed alone justifies the price. Biz-Logo.com opens up in a snap. That will inevitably translate into more sales for us. Only two extra sales per month and our new hosting plan pays for itself. By the looks of it, we will be making a lot more than that. DDoS attacker 0, Biz-Logo 1.

If you are fighting a DDoS attack - or even if you’re not - consider Blacklotus. They are in a league of their own.

Vector Templates logo

We have started a new web site called VectorTemplates.com under our parent company Graphics Factory CC. The aim of this one is to offer free and premium professional vector templates for download.

Batman logos in vector format

One section of the site will be specifically for all kinds of fun vector stuff, like superhero logos. So to add to our ongoing series on the Batman logo and it’s many variations, the site offers some Batman logos and Batman fan art in vector format available for download.

We’ll add more Batman logos and fun stuff here as our schedule allows.

At the time of writing the site is still very new and fairly empty. We do have a massive collection of vector stuff though which we horded over the years and will be adding them all.

Keep an eye on this site as we upload many more templates over the coming months.

Biz-Logo

Since yesterday’s post on the Biz-Logo DDoS attack we’ve made some progress. We have upgraded to enterprise level hosting at a hosting provider that offers DDoS mitigation. Our hosting bill is several times larger now, but that’s a small price to pay.

The site is back online: www.biz-logo.com

The attack is continuing though so if you have any trouble accessing the site please consider visiting our sister-site www.LogoAnts.com

Biz-Logo

The Biz-Logo.com web site has been unreachable since Tuesday, May 5. We established fairly quickly that Biz-Logo was the target of a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack.

Who would’ve thought that our relatively small, specialized design business would be siginificant enough for someone to launch a DDoS attack against!

Our web hosting company, BlueHost.com, disabled the web site on their servers and the following day informed us that we needed to find a new host. We were of course delighted with their willingness to assist us in our hour of need. A live support agent told us, and I quote, ”remove all your stuff and find a new host”.

What really got under my skin was when they accused Biz-Logo of breaking the Terms of Service Agreement. Upon reading the Terms of Service Agreement I found that they must have a different Terms of Service Agreement… hidden somewhere.

We moved the web site to a different host. Same problem.

We moved again, this time to StartLogic’s virtual private server solution. Thank you StartLogic for the fast, professional service. While StartLogic does not provide protection against the attack, it at least provides us with a working hosting account from where we can monitor the attack to determine it size and nature.

We are currently working with StartLogic and other service providers to get Biz-Logo.com back online as soon as possible. We have reported the attack in the hope that the attacker is apprehended. Apparently it is difficult and time-consuming to trace a DDoS attack, but not impossible. Let’s hope.

Our customers may contact us via the temporary Biz-Logo site, or visit our sister-site LogoAnts.com.