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Tarsnap logo contest

mail.tarsnap.com

41–50 of 129 posts

Re: Tarsnap logo contest

#42
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, part of the $500 would presumably be talking through the goals of the project, what message you want to convey with the logo, how you might want to extend the Tarsnap brand in the future, etc. To put it another way, if you needed to roll out a new feature for Tarsnap but couldn't do it yourself, would you hire someone on contract, or do a contest for it?

He just wants something cool looking and memorable for the FreeBSD sponsors page and for his website. This is part of the problem with paying for designers (something I've done a bunch of times, to varying effect) --- they want to have a conversation about your brand and the message of the logo. No doubt there are productive conversations like that to be had with good designers --- but not in $500 logo projects.

To pay someone $500 and then not want to spend an hour with them making them understand your product/idea/whatever seems like a bit of a waste of money to me, likely making the results hit and miss.

Or have I misunderstood and you're saying that for $500 finding a designer than can hold that conversation is unlikely?

Re: Tarsnap logo contest

#43
post #41

Nothing on tarsnap.com will load for me in Luakit (WebKit) on Arch Linux. Has anybody else had this problem?

This is the first I've heard of any problems... please let me know if you figure out what's breaking for you.

Re: Tarsnap logo contest

#44

Beastie leaning an elbow on a treasure chest, looking cool, as though it were a bar. Cool like he's taken down marauding hordes with his bare hands so keeping you away from that box isn't even a thing.

Can't do it -- beastie is trademarked, and Kirk only licenses it for BSD things.

Re: Tarsnap logo contest

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my thoughts exactly. In my very non-artistic, unimportant opinion, the last thing tarsnap needs is yet another logo with a padlock / key / chain / castle / fortress / shield / guard / dog. These security-related icons are so frequently (ab)used that I'm getting a strong urge not to use any product that relies on them to symboloze its security.

the last thing tarsnap needs is yet another logo with a padlock / key / chain / castle / fortress / shield / guard / dog. I'm inclined to agree... I'm not saying it's impossible to produce a good logo with one of these, but I'd need to see something really inspiring to put up with a cliche.

Seems like something derived from this would be relevant

> scrypt(P, S, N, r, p, dkLen) = MFcrypt__HMAC_SHA256,SMixr__ (P, S, N, p, dkLen)

Another gem would be "pleaseletmein"

ref: http://www.tarsnap.com/scrypt/scrypt.pdf

Re: Tarsnap logo contest

#46

I think you would end up with a better logo if you just did a call to your mailing list for designer recommendations, and paid a real designer $500 for a few hours of their work to come up with their best effort. By opening a contest, you're not only going to get a much lower quality of submissions, but in the end, the final decision is going to be made by you, someone "useless at anything artistic". Paying a designe…

I don't agree. He's looking for something that he can't put his finger on. The likelihood that the one designer he chooses comes up with the best idea is low.

By holding the contest, he can get dozens of submissions. They may not be well-designed, but he can use the best theme from the designs submitted to hire a top-notch designer and polish it up, if need be.

Re: Tarsnap logo contest

#47

Beastie leaning an elbow on a treasure chest, looking cool, as though it were a bar. Cool like he's taken down marauding hordes with his bare hands so keeping you away from that box isn't even a thing.

Can't do it -- beastie is trademarked, and Kirk only licenses it for BSD things.

Then a turtle or a sloth.

Re: Tarsnap logo contest

#48

I think you would end up with a better logo if you just did a call to your mailing list for designer recommendations, and paid a real designer $500 for a few hours of their work to come up with their best effort. By opening a contest, you're not only going to get a much lower quality of submissions, but in the end, the final decision is going to be made by you, someone "useless at anything artistic". Paying a designe…

contest -> publicity

Re: Tarsnap logo contest

#49

I've wrote about this a few times on HN before. You guys like to downvote me every time I do but here we go again ... Good designers, the ones you want if this is important to you, don't do contests. We have families to feed and bills to pay. "Winning" a popularity contest, not based on substance but instead on style, doesn't allow us to support ourself and our families doing our work. So, who are the designers doing…

I've watched a bunch of my friends do 99designs contests and can back you up with the concern about stolen logos. In the contests I've run in the last couple years, I've tried to submit somewhat idiosyncratic briefs to constrain the possible logos. On the other hand, I'm betting you'll have a hard time naming a company that had to pay "thousands of dollars in lawyer fees" for buying what turned out to be a boosted logo. You just take the logo down and get a new one.

The rest of your comment, though --- what is Colin supposed to do with this? He doesn't want to buy face-to-face collaboration. He doesn't want to subsidize your whole industry. Have you seen his website? Suffice it to say that your profession has very little to with his company strategy. I doubt he cares how many minutes go into the design; the point of contracting the work out is that other people can do in 10 minutes something he couldn't do in a month.

So what it boils down to is, he's made a decision that a logo has $500 in business value to him. The process you're advocating, with the specific bells and whistles you're mentioning, starts at $5000. No sale. Could you instead give him some advice that involves a more effective use of $500?

Re: Tarsnap logo contest

#50
post #42
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He just wants something cool looking and memorable for the FreeBSD sponsors page and for his website. This is part of the problem with paying for designers (something I've done a bunch of times, to varying effect) --- they want to have a conversation about your brand and the message of the logo. No doubt there are productive conversations like that to be had with good designers --- but not in $500 logo projects.

To pay someone $500 and then not want to spend an hour with them making them understand your product/idea/whatever seems like a bit of a waste of money to me, likely making the results hit and miss. Or have I misunderstood and you're saying that for $500 finding a designer than can hold that conversation is unlikely?

I think he will have a hard time getting a qualified designer to take a $500 project seriously. I have no doubt he can get something for $500, but it won't be something he likes.
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