Back where it all started

As brand designers, our goal is generally to produce a 'timeless' logo. One that will still be impressive in 6 months, 6 years and hopefully 60 years. The 'art' of logo design is not so much in the design itself, but the idea behind the design. Some of the best logos are technically quite easy to produce.

Its natural that all good brand designers will have evolved their techniques over time, and will no doubt continue to evolve them... but where did it all begin?

I've asked a number of prominent online brand designers to send me their first paid logo and a short description of the project. I made it the first paid logo because I thought it would be a good defining point in our careers.

Note: I was actually expecting the quality of these to be much lower than they were. As you can see, my first logo at the end isnt even in the same ballpark as the rest of these marks.

A special thanks to those that responded to my request for inclusions.

Boat Leash by Sean Farrell / Penflare

This was for a boat leash (gps tracking) company.

Cashin Printing Services by Sean O'Grady / Fogra

It was for a local printing company that I worked with to gain some experience after I had left college waaay back in 1994. I can't remember how much I got paid but I was so happy to have created a real logo for a real company. It was still in use until last year when they updated it. You always remember your first no matter what ;)

Crunch Catering by Lawrence Anderson

This was for a friend's friend's company. got $50. It was also the first one to get into the LP gallery.

I would definitely change the typography if I could go back to it.

See Evil by Gareth Hardy / Down With Design

I did this intially as a University project. About a year later some snowboarders/skateboarders asked me if they could use it and said that they were willing to pay.

Being young and naive I snatched the £50 note of their hands thinking I was a millionaire :) It got printed on t-shirts and stickers but unfortunately is no longer in use. I still love it though, and wouldn't change it for the world :)

Southwest Realty by Jared Lunde

A family member knew a guy who wanted to help a poor college student make some money. As you can see it uses the beautiful Helvetica type face, as I had no others and was in no way a typographer. It was designed in Macromedia Fireworks of all places. I wish I could redo it because I love the concept (4 corners and all) :)

ohive by Josiah Jost / Siah Design

It was for a domain name selling site. I did over 100 logos for them, and that was the first one I did for them - it was the one that got me the job. The client has the logo for sale here.

Zogozizd Komerc by Bojan Stefanovic / Logoholik

Zogozizd - Logo for family run print house located in Belgrade, Serbia (one of my first paying clients for everything graphic design/prepress related, name derived from family members first names: ZOran, GOran, ZIvka and ZDravko... yeah i know :)...)

Year: 1994
Software used: CorelDRAW! 5
Price: 200 DEM (those are Deutsche marks :)

EUMA by Jeff Fisher / LogoMotives

While I did a few logo-like designs in junior high and high school, the identity design for the Eugene University Music Association was my first professional logo commission. I was a design and journalism student at the University of Oregon at the time. Created in 1978 or 1979, the design was produced using a traditional drafting compass, straight edge, ruling pen, paint brush and India ink. The design does have the "clunkiness," and geometric elements, of many images created in the 1970's and early 1980's.

Powerlite Industries by Leighton Hubbell

In case you didn't know, I got started in the pre-computer days. I don't have the first paid logo, but this dates back to my first full-time design job which was working in-house for a bicycle manufacturer. It's the original inked artwork for Powerlite bicycles' redesigned logo back in 1988.

This is an interim piece of artwork as the original version was inked on board in two pieces much larger than this and shrunk down. I can't seem to locate it at the moment, but I still have it. The logo redesign came after the acquisition of Powerlite by GT Bicycles and an evolutionary version of this design is still used today. When computers came along, it had to be redrawn in Illustrator '88. Goin' old school!

Sixpack Singles by Robert McKenna / Clashmore

I'm not exactly sure which logo was my first paying project, but this one was around that time. It was for a "fitness dating" website.

My Best Mate by Nathan Sarlow / CobaltCow

This was for a business my old neighbour was involved in. It was a pet supplies network. Suppliers pay to be part of the program, members pay to get the rewards and the owners sit in the middle and make all the money. I designed the logo and built the website. The site was live for 12 months (with the dummy text). With no members (suppliers or buyers), the hosting was not renewed and it drifted into obscurity until last month when I was able to dig it up with the help from archive.org.

From memory I was paid $400 for the logo & website. It was drawn with pencil, scanned and colored in Paint Shop Pro.

Year: approx 1994

How does someone find a reputable designer?

After listening to a debate 'Is spec work evil?' (from SXSWi 09) a few weeks ago and one of the questions raised (and not really answered), was [paraphrased] 'How does someone looking for logo design services find a reputable designer without resorting to spec work competitions and the like'?

It's been playing on my mind since hearing that, and made me start to empathize with people who use the 'competition' model for sourcing graphic work. I mean, if you don't know a designer, and have limited contacts to find one, then where do you go?

Experiment: Role play a person looking for a new logo.

Since nobody wants to look stupid when researching an unknown field, the internet is the first obvious choice for research...

Method: Google knows all. Search 'Logo Designer Detroit' (12,900,000 results).

Findings: The 3 Adword results at the top of the page have portfolios with work not much better than the quality you would find on say 99designs, and none of the 3 look like they're actually in Detroit.

Of the 3 'google' provided options with the map, the first is a dog-ugly site playing terrible music & must have hired Yoda to write their copy. The second is a broken link. And the third doesn't even offer logo design services.

Of the first 10 organic results (the first page), we get 4 actual logo design studios, 3 directory listings (of which very few had links to websites), 1 web design (no logos) studio, and a handful of random article and job posting pages.

Of the 4 that provided logo design services, the quality is significantly poor with the exception of maybe 1, but the website isn't very helpful and seems to promote a list of printers more than his own work.

I had to go through 3 pages of results before I found a Detroit (or Metro) based Logo designer with a website that had details about the service & a portfolio that looked like it was actually designed by a professional designer (thankyou Mr Kaufman for putting me out of my misery).

Experiment Result

Without knowing where to look, you are likely to get bombarded by '$50 logo' sites well before you hit anybody with decent skills. With this kind of result, if you're looking for the most cost effective way to brand your business, and not knowing any better - spending $100 on a competition seems like a logical solution.

So how do we combat this?

To be honest, I dont thik I have an answer. Maybe some kind of 'logo designer directory' where clients could post their work and a review would be a solution, but then again it's open to abuse by both designers and a disgruntled client.

I'd love to know your thoughts and or solutions. Maybe together we can come up with a solution that will stand a combined chance against the weight of the poor competition.