Logos versus Logos

Posted by LogoBlogger

March 26, 2009

Good people of the Web, I present for your judgment,

the Silver Fish logo and the Connect logo.

Both these logos were designed by professional, full-time, qualified designers.

Both are fairly simple, clean designs. The Silver Fish logo is probably more memorable while the Connect logo is more practical if the logo is to be used on faxes, photocopies etc. You will probably like one of them more than the other one, but that’s personal taste. Let’s not get into that.

Let’s just say that there is nothing very wrong with either of these.

Agreed?

Well, no, actually there is something very wrong with one of these logos, according to many professional designers.

You see, logos like the Connect logo typically cost thousands of dollars. Professional ad agencies spend countless hours coming up with just the right design - and they charge by the hour, which seems only fair.

By stark contrast, the Silver Fish logo cost $125. It was also designed by a professional, full-time, qualified designer. The difference is that it was not designed specifically for the Silver Fish company, but was designed as a pre-designed logo for Biz-Logo.com. Someone from a company called Silver Fish came along, saw this fish logo on Biz-Logo.com and purchased it for $125. The Biz-Logo.com designer then worked with them to add their name, change colors, fine-tune the layout etc. It’s all included in the bargain price of $125.

This, says the traditional designer, is logo design blasphemy. How dare Biz-Logo.com take a perfectly good profession and make it this cheap. They did not even form a relationship with the client prior to making the logo. No research into the client’s business needs.

Huh?… says the client.

Huh indeed. I don’t get it either. Maybe I’m missing something, but at Biz-Logo.com we think our client, the small business owner, is typically a smart individual. She is starting her own business after all. There must be some savvy in that head of hers then. She knows her business, industry and target audience.

So I figured, let’s not charge her thousands of dollars to tell her what she already knows. Let’s give her a choice of hundreds of logos and leave the business decision to the business owner. If we do that, we cut out 90% of the design work. Now here’s an idea: Let’s pass that on to the client. Let’s take 90% off the price as well, making professional logo design truly accessible to the small business owner.

Logo design blasphemy?

No, this is not logo design blasphemy, it’s business. The cries of ”blasphemy!” really should be understood as “How in the name of all that is good am I supposed to compete with THAT!”.

The truth is that affordable online logo design services are here to stay - and they are gradually taking more and more business away from ad agencies. This is scaring ad agencies, who are finding it increasingly difficult to justify their fees.

There will always be room for the ad agency approach to logo design, but it is no longer the only option available to business owners. Thank goodness.

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