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Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

weblog.muledesign.com

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Re: Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

#111

Post by kyoji »

iamdave wrote: post #78
marknutter wrote: post #53

So let me get this straight: Gap first hires someone to design a logo, and it's universally panned by the design community. They then ask the community "if our new logo is so crappy, why not see if you can do better?" Then, the design community bitches at Gap for not hiring someone to design their logo? Does this seem a bit odd to anybody else? Also, it's hard to bitch when your whole career depends on something as s…

I find it almost 100% more interesting that some of the people the design "community" exalts on a frequent basis, and even then some of the community itself didn't present any serious submissions when the call came. They all made fun of the idea that GAP was crowdsourcing a new logo. That's slacktivism on a level Facebook breast cancer awareness can't even touch. Participate or stfu is my opinion, but I'm no designer…

Did you even bother reading the article? As a designer I find most of the options presented to be humorous, or sub-standard at best. Nearly all of them miss the mark far worse than Gap's own new logo does. I wouldn't expect any serious submissions simply because why would anyone work for free for a multi-billion dollar corporation?

Re: Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

#112

Post by mfukar »

lwhi wrote: post #109
mfukar wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, are you pleading for the designers' "fear" of this crowdsourcing trend, a fear based on their time being wasted because designs from other people may be better (for any subjective definition of the term)? Are you honestly saying with a straight face that designers should be awarded for any and all their efforts regardless of the quality of their work? I'm sorry, but they should just suck it up and change. Like th…

No. I'm not suggesting that all participants should be paid. I'm suggesting that the model put forth by crowdsourcing is ill-thought out and unfair. "[..] they should just suck it up and change. Like the world around them is." I completely disagree. People who exploit others for their own personal gain should always be challenged.

Since you're not referring to economic fairness, did you mean moral? I don't understand how crowdsourcing is immoral in that sense, or how does that constitute exploitation.

Re: Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

#113

Post by eru »

StavrosK wrote: post #101
limedaring wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and which is likely to be much better than what a professional designer would do for the same price Why would you think a novice on the web with Photoshop will automatically do better than a professional with experience and who is looking beyond making a cool design? Logos aren't just pieces of art — they also brand a company. Crowdsourcing will never match a professional brand designer.

You're committing a fallacy in assuming that they have no choice. Even if there are a million novices with Photoshop and two professional designers, they'll still get a better deal than having chosen one professional designer. They'll pay the same money and get two professional designs they can choose from, instead of just one.

Depends. If the professional designers don't enter the competition, things may change.

Re: Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

#114

Post by tel »

jimboyoungblood wrote: post #10
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #4

Posts like this seem like the designer equivalent of the music labels spending years complaining about how sharing music is wrong and trying to put the "evil" back in Pandora's box, while millions of people merrily continue to download music off bittorrent anyway. The reality of the internet is that people can easily solicit work on spec from thousands of designers, and they will get good stuff in return. Will it be…

To be fair to the music labels, they at least have copyright law on their side. This is more like how professional journalists whine about bloggers.

To be fair to designers, it's often pretty clear the stark difference in quality between a carefully designed logo/brand and a crowdsourced one. (Gap's new one is a great example).

I think music and journalists (designers being grouped with journalists) are vastly different situations because of copyright law, yes. The law allowed a huge industry to grow around information asymmetry, hype, and price inflation. Journalism and graphic design seek (and work) very hard to produce things of value far greater than bloggers/crowdsource usually aspire to.

That said, blogging/crowdsource have and will continue to put a great deal of pressure on those performing at the highest levels in those fields. It's simply my hope that the top performers there will justify themselves while producing perhaps a new era of relevant work. Increased competition doesn't always involve complete steamrolling, just evolution.

(In fact, one evolution I could see happening is a design firm outsourcing some percentage of their own mock work to crowdsource sites. Prototypes are about instantiating the field of possibilities so you can learn about them and talk about them. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't hurt them too much to not personally generate each and every one. The real value thus becomes their professional finishing touches, the market research, etc.)

Re: Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

#115

Post by malbiniak »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #4

Posts like this seem like the designer equivalent of the music labels spending years complaining about how sharing music is wrong and trying to put the "evil" back in Pandora's box, while millions of people merrily continue to download music off bittorrent anyway. The reality of the internet is that people can easily solicit work on spec from thousands of designers, and they will get good stuff in return. Will it be…

hey ryan,

i've got a venture-backed business opportunity. we're looking for a strong application developer, and have heard good things about you, but not sure you can take on this task. we'll send along the technical and functional requirements, and it looks pretty easy. it shouldn't take more than a week of your time. after you sign our nda, we'll take a look at the application you built. if it's good, we'll pay you around a thousand dollars, maybe up to $10k.

unfortunately, we're not looking for any more founders, and don't need any support beyond the first production release. this will be a one time engagement, and we'll part ways after.

sound fair?

(read: how spec work would translate to the developer world. to me, it doesn't seem fair or reasonable -- especially if you're looking for a professional deliverable.)

Re: Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

#116

Post by eru »

cookiecaper wrote: post #83

Whole post is silly and pretentious. If the design really is so great that Gap thinks it's worth using, then legally they'll have to pay him to transfer the copyright before they can do anything with it. So cut out the stupid ego-drenched drama and just show the logo. He'll get a lot farther that way than demanding compensation up front anyway. Even if Gap rejects the logo, it will stand as a nice portfolio/concept p…

He doesn't have a logo.

Re: Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

#117

Post by notahacker »

malbiniak wrote: post #115
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #4

Posts like this seem like the designer equivalent of the music labels spending years complaining about how sharing music is wrong and trying to put the "evil" back in Pandora's box, while millions of people merrily continue to download music off bittorrent anyway. The reality of the internet is that people can easily solicit work on spec from thousands of designers, and they will get good stuff in return. Will it be…

hey ryan, i've got a venture-backed business opportunity. we're looking for a strong application developer, and have heard good things about you, but not sure you can take on this task. we'll send along the technical and functional requirements, and it looks pretty easy. it shouldn't take more than a week of your time. after you sign our nda, we'll take a look at the application you built. if it's good, we'll pay you…

You missed off "we've got a few different developers but we'll probably end up paying one of you"

Re: Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

#118

Post by lwhi »

mfukar wrote: post #112
lwhi wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I'm not suggesting that all participants should be paid. I'm suggesting that the model put forth by crowdsourcing is ill-thought out and unfair. "[..] they should just suck it up and change. Like the world around them is." I completely disagree. People who exploit others for their own personal gain should always be challenged.

Since you're not referring to economic fairness, did you mean moral? I don't understand how crowdsourcing is immoral in that sense, or how does that constitute exploitation.

If someone works for the chance to earn money, how can that be fair in _any_ sense?

Re: Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

#119

Post by mfukar »

lwhi wrote: post #118
mfukar wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're not referring to economic fairness, did you mean moral? I don't understand how crowdsourcing is immoral in that sense, or how does that constitute exploitation.

If someone works for the chance to earn money, how can that be fair in _any_ sense?

Wow. You just invalidated startups (among other things) in a single sentence. Nice.

Re: Dear Gap, I have your new logo.

#120

Post by AjJi »

lwhi wrote: post #118
mfukar wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're not referring to economic fairness, did you mean moral? I don't understand how crowdsourcing is immoral in that sense, or how does that constitute exploitation.

If someone works for the chance to earn money, how can that be fair in _any_ sense?

It can be fair, if he chooses to do it, no?
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