The 50 Dollar Logo Experiment
February 17, 2009 • 5:51 pm • POSTED BY Jim Walls
A couple of weeks back, Forbes ran a little article deeming graphic design “a snooty business,” before profiling a site called CrowdSpring where clients go to throw spec logo projects to a pool of 13,000 Photoshop jockeys. The winning design gets about $200 or so, the rest go back to their day jobs. For some, apparently, the day job unfortunately involves designing more free logos for other contest sites—a career that likely ranks second in salary behind “Hopelessly Addicted Scratch-Off Lottery Ticket Entuhsiast.”
Of course, the design community went apoplectic in response to the article. “Ethics!” some lamented in the comments. I’m sure a few of them even dashed off another design manifesto or two or fifty.
Here’s the truth, though, and why all the good designers need to relax: the vast majority of the self-described designers on sites like CrowdSpring aren’t really designers. Sure, they may have a (likely pirated) version of Adobe CS4 and spent an hour or so on a few online tutorials. But owning a copy of Pet Sounds doesn’t make you Brian Freaking Wilson. And from the looks of things, most submitters are doing nothing more than manipulating a few drop-down menus to add type over top of some clip art and calling it a logo.
I think I’m pretty good with the computers and the Facebook, and I can do that clip art stuff too, but I’m not a designer by any stretch. I’ve worked alongside enough mind-blowingly great people to know the difference. The truly talented should never, ever have to work for free. And there will always be good clients who recognize the value of what they’re getting when they pay experts. Likewise, there will always be the pizza shop owners and recent MBA grads launching their next Basecamp rip-off who get what they pay for when they go for the lowest common denominator.
Oh, I saw this trend coming though. So, in the spirit of participation, I launched an experiment that lasted throughout much of 2008. Among my many online ventures lies CheesesOfNazareth.info, a URL purchased on my behalf by one of our aforementioned talented designers as a Secret Santa gift in 2007. From what I understand, all hangers-on in the agency business are ceremoniously slaughtered by interns on the day before their 40th birthday, which is why I’m making plans to have my online cheese and cheese product empire up, running, and thriving well before that day comes. But the first step was to get a logo for the cover of my business plan.
I turned to the cleverly named 50DollarLogo.com, a site based in Sri Lanka or somewhere promising six logo designs, unlimited revisions, and a 1-3 day turnaround. Who needs messy things like research, insight, or even a modicum of information about my business, when I can have unlimited revisions? I quickly gave them my information, credit card number, social security number, and bank account routing number, and we were off to the races.
Excerpted below is the actual yearlong conversation that followed between a hapless client (me) and a helpful Internet robot named “Abina.” I’ll leave it to you to decide whether the outcome was worth my 50 bones. I’ll let you know when my first round of VC funding rolls in.
—-
Me:
Dear 50dollarlogo.com—Help! I’m looking to launch my online cheese and cheese-food product distribution and fulfillment company, but I need a logo that can explain to buyers right away that I mean business! (And hopefully lots of it ha ha!) The name is cheesesofnazareth.info, so it should probably involve cheese(s) in some significant way. Also needs to have energy, speed, and pizzazz, which judging by your porfolio, you have in spades! The other direction I should give you is that it shouldn’t be something like Nike or Target, but more like a Web 2.0 company—think Flickr or eHarmony.com. Look forward to seeing the six designs your creative minds and hands come up with!
—
50DollarLogo:
Dear Jim Walls,
Thank You For your order.
Please ensure you have or about to make payment. We require the payment for the order before we can start working on you designs.
Note, you are entitled to a 100 percent money back guarantee on your order. Further, you are entitled to un limited and free revisions to your logo designs until you are fully satisfied.
Thank You Kindly,
Abina,
Customer Services
50dollarlogo.com
—
Me: [four days later]
Any update on my order?
—
50DollarLogo:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for the email.
We are very sorry for the delay.
We will send you the sample as soon as possible.
Thank You,
Abina
—
50DollarLogo:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your order.
Having studied your requirements we now provide you the low resolution samples of your logo in jpeg format meant for evaluation purpose. You will receive a high resolution format after you are fully satisfied with your final logo. Font files used in the corresponding logo will also be sent along with the source file so that the logo will be 100% resizable and editable.
You now have the opportunity to request unlimited revisions (free of charge) to one of the samples given here. This will allow you to fine-tune the sample so that you are fully happy. Note, many logo firms would only allow one round of revision.
Its practically impossible for any logo company to meet a customer’s imagination without some revisions. Thus, we are now open to your requests for revisions. This can be done by replying to this email and stating:
1. The sample you most prefer (we can also blend the design between more than one order sample if you desire).
2. The revisions you wish to be applied to this logo sample. i.e any alteration on colors, fonts, size of text, images or anything generally you wish to have altered.
If you do not desire any revisions then please simply state the logo sample you require. We will then send the files appropriate for high resolution and editing which will be helpful for you in the long term.
As soon as we here from you, we aim to meet your design requests within 2 business days.
Ultimately, we are here to receive your feedback so that we can strive to provide the exact logo you have in mind.
Thank you kindly,
Abina
—
Me:
So many good things about these logos! But I’m afraid they’re not quite there yet. 
Can you finesse them?
—
50DollarLogo:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for the email.
We have informed our designers about your request. We aim to send you the improved logos within 2 working days.
We are happy to provide you as many numbers of revisions as you want. We strive to make our customer fully satisfied.
Thank you,
Abina
—
Me:
HELP! It’s been two weeks since I last heard from you.
—
50DollarLogo:
Dear Sir,
Please receive the improved logo samples of your company enclosed herewith.
We have made improvements as asked by you. Hope they are like the one you have asked for. Please do let us know your view so that we can proceed further.
We are happy to provide you as many numbers of revisions as you want. We strive to make our customer fully satisfied.
Thank you, Abina
—
Me:
Abina—SOOOOOO creative. Where do get your ideas? From an idea well? Must be bottomless!
One major problem that my wife pointed out, however. The company name is CHEESES, not CHEESE. Can you please revise? Also, can you combine the cheese man with the woodcut styling of #4 from your original round?
—
50DollarLogo:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for the email.
We have informed our designers about your request. We aim to send you the improved logos within 2 working days.
We are happy to provide you as many numbers of revisions as you want. We strive to make our customer fully satisfied.
Thank you,
Abina
—
—
Me:
This version is definitely adorable, but my sales team is concerned that the smiling, gesturing Swiss cheese suggests we only sell Swiss—which is certainly not the case!!? Can you include a variety of anthropomorphic cheeses in the logo alongside the Swiss? Some of our biggest sellers include:
Cheddar
Mozzarella
Brie (doesn’t ship well)
Gouda
Philadelphia Brand(r) Cream Cheese
Havarti
Taco
Feta
We also carry a limited but delicious selection of gourmet dates.
Also, my warehouse is yellow (with large “holes” painted on it), so these logos will blend in too much. Consider other colors, like Target.
—
[several months pass]
—
Me:
Abina-
Upon further consideration, I feel that you guys have really missed the religious connotation in my company’s name, and we really want to play this up. Is there a way to emphasize this connection? Specifically, when you redesign the various cheeses, is there a way to approximate DaVinci’s “Last Supper”? I do think the Swiss cheese could be positioned roughly where Jesus is located, since Swiss is a very prominent cheese.
Thanks for your continued hard work. We’re close!
—
50DollarLogo:
Dear Jim,
Thank you for the email.
We have informed our designers about your request. We aim to send you the improved logos within 2 working days.
We are happy to provide you as many numbers of revisions as you want. We strive to make our customer fully satisfied.
Thank you,
Abina
—
Me:
How are the redesigns coming along? It’s been nearly three months since my last request!
—
50DollarLogo:
Dear Jim,
Thank you for the email.
We are very sorry for the delay.
We will send you the improved logo within 24 hours.
We apologies for the delay.
Thank You,
Abina
—
Me:
[still waiting]
cheeses of nazareth :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwBqYaImRXc
brilliant stuff john
When I was a kid I used to make prank phone calls. This is pretty much the same thing.
Yawn.
Wow, that’s all that comes to mind after reading that.
Yup, it’s true, you get what you bloody well pay for…. I loved this! Thanks for sharing….
it’s just incredible how can people cheat with a creative professional work… unfortunately Mexico is full of this kind of business that offer the client “express design” already printed for 20 bucks!
It’s in our hands rescue what we do for a living.
Excellent experiment!
Greetings
Arlette
Thanks for taking the time to run this experiment. I’ve been wanting to test this type of service, and suppose I expected these results. It’s time for creative professionals to have self-respect no matter what some snarky editorialist writes. I hope that talented, confident designers everywhere say “Hell No” to spec work!
wow. amazing read. bookmarked. thanks.
– would love to see how it goes..
Oh I bet they ran of ideas.
by the way have you got your $50 back?
So what have you proven? That some poor schmuck in a developing country should remove the word “unlimited” from their marketing materials. Oh yes, and that $50 will get you a few fairly unsophisticated logo designs.
The good news is that even though you have appeared to have played a rather mean-spirited stunt on someone, they at least get the benefit of an inbound link and perhaps some unexpected traffic.
The bad news, for you, is that some people, potential clients of yours perhaps, will not find this stunt as amusing as you have.
You need to send another email to them.
This is amazing! These logos are really good
your are realy great thinking sir
some good tips for clients who are hiring a logo company.
I’m thinking I should do a same kind of experiment. I’ll start a competing business and my company’s name will be “Apollo Cheese”
Wow, this is a great story. I love it.
You get what you pay for.
wow, very entertaining. I am always leery of cheap[!] services like this. Thanks for putting the information out there. Hopefully more people will see this.
Ask if they will put the cheese wedge within a Big Ring of Fire. That always sells! (Plus, you’ll be covering the fondue market.)
What I think is the most amazing is that 1 logo ONE does not have a photoshop filter or a gradient. (does have gaudy text) Quite an experiment, love how they state its a 1-3day turnaround and your in months later. Keep it up. Can’t wait to see what unfolds next. Reason #1,600 to hire a real designer.
The sad thing is that there are a lot of people out there who would be completely satisfied with a logo along these lines.
The fact that they provide fonts with the final logo made me cringe, although I have a feeling they’re not paying for most of their fonts anyway.
For $50, I’d say you got your money’s worth! They’re definitely not going to win any awards, but if you needed something to slap on top of a business card or letter head, there are a few of these that would work just fine. Their email skills might not be top notch, but like you said, you get what you pay for.
Definitely worth 50 bucks for the pure entertainment value of watching ‘opening price-point talent’ Do their stuff!
They really missed out with the name. The logo design should have featured a cracker with cheese on it, accompanied by a glass of wine. Cheeses of Nazareth — it’s sacri-licious!
If it weren’t for the poor customer service I’d feel bad for these guys. You put them through the ringer. I guess it may be cruel of me, but I really needed a good laugh. Some of the logos made me cry they were so funny. Really needed that after a long day of wrangling CSS.
“Where do get your ideas? From an idea well? Must be bottomless!”
LOL I almost did a spit take reading that. Too funny.
Cheeses is the mousiah BTW!
Although this might pass as a mean joke, for me at least it was enlightening. See I live in a developing country and customers here don’t know that professional design is not cheap, as well as any other service out there. For client purpose I think the logos of this story will be very helpful to educate customers about the value of graphic design in the hopes that our work is not taken for granted.
Thanks.
Maybe the folks from Sri Lanka are not as interested in earning $50 as they are in acquiring your information, credit card number, social security number, and bank account routing number.
LOL, they misspelled Nazareth on the second one.
Christ on a cracker – this is very funny. Thanks for sharing.
Haha this is class! Thanks for sharing this, I look forward to seeing if they do get back to you with more designs.
They got their $50 bucks, I see nothing cruel in that. $50 American dollars in India comes out to what? And he acted just like most clients act with logo designers. After a year he got only three versions. A YEAR! For those of you who think this experiment cruel or malicious, then anyone who uses such a site is doing the same, legitimate or not. And the logos in all versions were very, very, exceptionally BAD.
Whilst this was indeed hilarious, I would’ve liked to have seen one where someone actually attempts to get a decent logo, no matter the number of revisions without it going down the Last Supper route.
[...] I happened across this story, about a guy’s search for a logo using a service that offers it to freelancers around the [...]
[...] here to visit the results of the experiment: The 50 Dollar Logo Experiment Posted on: February 20, [...]
Great idea and excellent reportage. I wish more business people, potential designers clients could see that and learn. Thank you for doing this Jim.
[...] all these people) and the following articles as well as the ones linked to in the post above: $50 logo experiment, why you should crowdsource your logo and the creativity of [...]
Are you serious satyachandra?
Ok I admit this is beyond funny!
But what did you expect for 50 dollars? You KNOW you won’t get what you ask for… You KNOW they’re not professional designers… You’re just pushing it to the limits…
And wouldn’t know why I should be surprised…
[...] The 50 Dollar Logo Experiment I turned to the cleverly named 50DollarLogo.com, a site based in Sri Lanka or somewhere promising six logo designs, unlimited revisions, and a 1-3 day turnaround. Who needs messy things like research, insight, or even a modicum of information about my business, when I can have unlimited revisions? [...]
[...] 160over90’s experiment Underconsideration’s experiment [...]
[...] really not much to say about this. You just really need to read it all for [...]
Cheese man cracks me up, thanks for sharing!
For everyone who feels bad for that someone who supposedly designed the logos, get over it. It’s probably a program that they type a company name into, then dozens of “designs” pop up. Ta-da!
For example, try this… http://www.vistaprint.com/logo-design/add-text.aspx?rd=2 Oh look, logo designs are free now! I need a new job.
For the people who are concerned with the effort put into these designs, they look exactly like what is auto-generated by cheap logo design software, so no effort was expended to make them. The problem is really with the fact that there are plenty of people out there who will a) look at these logos and think that they look great, and b) hire a Web design firm expecting them to make something with this logo with the same unrealistic expectations. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to educate clients on the difference between what can be done and what should be done, and design will continue to be seen as fluff and overhead.
Kind Sir
Please to me send a various selection of your fine cheeses from Holy Land. I am liking especially your company livery as such.
If you take as much care in your dairy produce as in your company identity I will most enjoy please!
I’d like to see you do an experiment with them and actually give them good art direction. These people are taking a swing and then you give them no quality art direction. Give them good art direction and see what they do… These are the same types of designers that work on projects at places like crowdspring and you can get good design done at crowdspring if you give them direction (in my experience)
[...] 50 Dollar Logo Experiment [...]
I was hired by one of these logo mills when I couldn’t find a job after college. I worked in a room with 5 other people given a clipart book and was told to “crank out” as many as I could. The policy was to charge for the service as soon as possible and then offer more and more revisions when they get mad. If they persisted then they would get a new artist(with the same clipart)to take over the project. I made $6 an hour and I spent more time getting yelled at over the phone than design work. These people treat their workers like dogs but it was my fault for working there.
[...] Olongapo City National High School Alumni – OCNHS77 created an interesting post today on [from n0wak] The 50 Dollar Logo Experiment | The Boomerang Table :…Here’s a short outlineYou get what you pay for. Bookmark this on Delicious – Saved by n0wak to Logo Design harhar BHumor/B – More about this bookmark [...]
Jim.. you are my hero.
And I love the constant screwing up of the name – Cheeses to Cheese, and Nazareth even spelled incorrectly in Round 1 – Option 2.
I wish you had an automated email system that would just systematically email them with revisions and comments – for like the next 2 years… eventually, and finally, settling on Round 1 – Option 1. LOL
[...] The $50 Logo Experiment [...]
All the creative people I hear bemoaning the outsourcing of graphic design, copywriting, etc…should send this to the next client who asks them to cut their price.
Loved it. Reposted the entire piece on my blog.
Give “Abina” a break. She means well. Thanks for proving that you really do get what you pay for.
This is the funniest thing ever…I love this. And this prooves the point on both sides of the aisle that we as designers are all too important and to business and the rest of the world we have failed to make ourselves important enought.
This made my week!
Mark