Logo Fraud
I just read an interesting article . . . A well-known online logo design mill who prides itself on having the most experienced designers is allegedly being accused of selling unoriginal logo concepts to their clients. Being a designer myself, I do look for inspiration in design books and other designers but never let my work get overly influenced . . . I couldn't bring myself to just outright copy someone's ideas. I also get more satisfaction out of knowing that I have made the client happy using my own concepts and talent along with their needs. Well, apparently this company doesn't follow that standard b/c some of their logos were deliberately ripped off or had very similar design elements as some already out there.
This reminds me of a guy I went to art school with who everyone thought was so talented and was sure to make it big in this field. I remember this like it was yesterday . . . One day some of my classmates and I were in the library going through a design book (as designers tend to do) and came across a logo that we recognized and knew we had seen it somewhere, but where? It took us a sec, but we realized that our perfect classmate had blatantly ripped it off for a project and we were so shocked, we couldn't believe it. This got us thinking about all the other great work he had done and were we going to come across it somewhere else too? He was a fraud and I can't imagine how he actually followed through with passing the logo off as his own idea. I remember all of us feeling kind of deceived if you can believe that . . . Here we tried so hard to come up with original ideas to try and show our talents and he was in the library looking through design books trying to find the perfect logo to plagiarize for a good grade . . . I definitely don't get any warm fuzzies from this memory.
A logo design should be original . . . always. I know companies have the option to purchase logo templates which I personally don't get, because why would a company take the chance of picking a logo that 20 or however many other companies could have? I guess they just don't take that into consideration.
The following excerpt from an article on branding captures the philosophy of logo design, A logo just isn't something you slap on your business card and call it good. Used properly, your logo is the very heart of your company's identity. This one little graphic carries the weight of your brand and connects you and your products to your customers.
On another note . . . It is also mentioned in the article that some of the experienced designers at this popular design mill will use their rejected concepts from older projects for new clients in similar fields who are paying for original concepts.
Does anyone have any opinions on that? I am kind of on the fence with this because on one hand, I think, well, if you have some concepts from a previous project that weren't chosen by the client, but might work well with a new client and it is a strong logo, why not use it? It is still original and it is what the client is looking for to brand their company. The other side to this is the fact that they are paying you for new concepts. I never really took that into consideration before b/c I always thought that if it wasn't used, then why not?
