1) A discovery of a logo in the LogoWorks company portfolio which is a direct rip from a logo by Mark Fox - LOGOWORKS.com or LOGOWORST.com?
2) HOW forum members look closely at LogoWorks and come up with more, which are included in LOGOWORKS.COM RIP-OFFS.
3) 'The Prepared Mind' becomes the top blog/podcaster during the saga, coining the phrase 'LogoWorks or LogoJERKS?'
4) CMO, LogoWorks steps in and starts posting on the HOW mag forum. The exchange quickly deteriorates. "Now you went and pissed our designers off."
6) Interview with a LogoWorks designer "I know for a fact that a regular practice is to find a logo that already exists and merely change it a bit and send it off.."
7) LogoWorks states they are putting better checks and balances into play, but "our sheer volume (over 30,000 customers) makes this issue particularly challenging for us" will indeed be an interesting challenge. I imagine many people around the internet will be watching to see what exactly gets put into place as it seems a near on impossible task to accomplish given their business model (see Robert Wurth's article LogoWorks: Who is to Blame? for a rounded look at the problem).
A few more clarifications and responses in no particular order to threads on HOW...
I'm not the President of LogoWorks, I run marketing.
I'm not arrogant, I'm just trying to present a different opinion and I certainly respect the opinions of the designers here.
I'm against theft of design and work hard to prevent it. I'm as upset as any of you when it happens. Frankly I'm downright embarrassed about the old Xerox icon on Instalogo. I'm not quite sure how the hell that happened. It is inexcusable and someone in our organization will be held accountable.
About 90% of our designers are in the US, 10% international. They are not all in China or India as some have assumed.
To the person that called me slimy ... that hurt. And please don't kick me in the balls when you come to visit. Honestly, any of you on this forum are welcome to come visit our office and learn more about what we do. We are not trying to hide anything. If anything, your comments will help us make our designer community better for designers.
I also want to apologize. I'm truly sorry our little operation has offended so many of you and that so many of you have such strong feelings against us.
Our desire is to get small businesses that can't afford high-end graphic design something they'll be happy with at a price they can afford. We are trying to unlock a market that historically hasn't had a design solution other than free clip art, not steal business from local freelancers or agencies or devalue great branding and identity work, which we know is different than small business logo design.
We're the first to admit that our service lacks sophisticated brand strategy provided by good local and national agencies. I just don't believe the dry cleaner, the local restaurant owner or a roofer needs a sophisticated brand strategy. When we do have a client that needs it, we have historically referred them appropriately.
Lastly, many of the designers that work in our community tell us they are really happy. In fact, when we open the community up for new referrals we usually get 10 times more applications then we can accept and turnover is very low. While some people have stated that they think the amounts we pay for logo concepts are unacceptably small, please keep in mind the following:
1) We actually pay $100-200 per project to the designer whose concepts are picked by the customer. The $25-40 payments consistently quoted in this thread are for concepts only. We don't expect them to take more than 60-90 minutes each. They are just concepts. (Incidentally, all of the logos cited as copies were concepts and never sold to a customer. You'll notice the Beaver Brewery logo on their website is different from the one on Bad Design Kills.)
Obviously, I'm not happy about the logos being anywhere in our marketing materials. Just don't assume it was sold and is being used by a customer and that we have a legal liability until you know we sold it to that customer. Also, we've had many instances of other designers copying us. Lastly, just because a design exists doesn’t mean it has been federally trademarked and that the trademark has not expired. I'm fine being accused of hacking a logo if that is in fact what happened and we'll do whatever it takes to fix it.
2) As a designer at Arteis.net you can take as much or as little design work as you want, when you want. There are no quotas. They can do a couple of projects a month and pick up some extra money. This works well for freelancers that experience ups and downs in their own business or people in agencies that want to moonlight. Or stay-at-home moms who used to be in the business but are now too busy to work full-time.
The designers that work in our community full-time make salaries consistent with industry averages according to AIGA/Aquent. The notion that our designers must be students, live in China or not be talented is just false. The reason why we have talented designers is that we pay them well for the time they spend. Over time we hope to pay even more as well as offer a much greater variety of design projects. We are still learning.
3) As a designer in our system, you don't ever have to meet with the client up front or for revisions. We fill out the CB and provide it to the designer. We handle unreasonable clients (don't tell me you've never had one) so you don't have to.
4) You don't ever have to collect. We pay you as soon as you complete the work via PayPal. Just think of all the clients that strung out paying you or who didn't pay at all.
Basically, we handle the customer acquisition, marketing and sales, the creative and revision briefs, the customer service and payment processing. For designers who just want to design and not worry about that other stuff our system works well. If our designer compensation strikes you as low just remember that we are paying for all the other expenses.
Finally, we realize this isn't for everyone and that some designers want to do the other functions (and get paid for them). Or, they want to develop full brand strategies and add value in a deeper way. While we value that service as marketers, just realize that not every customer wants that service and that is where our service makes sense for many small businesses.
Like I said, we recognize our system is not for every designer. If you don't want to work for $40, $80, or $200 you don't have to. My point is that for some designers our system works very well.
In terms of hacked logos I think I've made it clear that we do not tolerate it and do our best to police it. If and when there is ever a legal liability we'll accept it and make restitution, just like any other designer or agency should when one of their designers steals something. I also stand by my statement that this could and does happen to any agency with a high number of design employees. Clearly we are not negligent. We have several checks and balances designed to prevent it from happening. I would argue that some agencies are negligent because they are not proactively trying to prevent theft from happening.
Thank you for your education on comp usage. To clarify, we actually have paid for the artwork you claim is stolen. We paid the designer who did it (the design or the stealing) and purchased the rights to use it from them. And ironically, several of the designs you show at BDK were done by a designer who we terminated quite a long time ago for these very issues.
I disagree with you on your characterization of your "flawed system" that you say victimizes people, but you're welcome to your opinion. While I don't want to infer that I take any stealing lightly because I don't, you are taking a handful of comps (some of which are similar, and clearly not copied) and implying that our system must be flawed. What about the other 30,000+ projects that were unique, original logos completed by honest down to earth designers working in our community? If Interbrand or Landor had a designer that hacked a few concepts and got fired would their business be flawed? I'm OK if you don't like the model, but that doesn't make it flawed. I haven't heard a cogent, deductive premise to support your opinion, just a lot of attacks. Based on your email, "We'd like to discuss the LogoWorks methodology and design ethic." I thought you were interested in how we do what we do. It is clear to me now you have a chip on your shoulder and your intent is malicious.
I also think you are still operating with incomplete information. Once again, I am happy to pay for your plane ticket to fly out to our office and tour our operation to get all the facts. After all the time you've already spent posting threads and writing letters to editors another day getting to the bottom of things isn't unreasonable. I'm also happy to talk by phone.
My email address is jeff@logoworks.com. My direct line is 801-805-3702. I'm happy to discuss any of these issues with any of you.
Note: posted with permission from Jeff of LogoWorks
