Warning! Your Business Is At Risk

There are thousands of logo design websites on the Net. Buying logo design online is a minefield full of lurking dangers. Some of the dangers carry serious legal implications for you. So what can you do to make sure you limit your chances of getting stung down to zero? Well, before we look at that you need to understand what the dangers and implications are.

Danger Danger Danger - Under £100

It is not possible to design unique logos for under £100, even if the designer is working out of an attic in Timbuktu. To understand why it is not possible, you need to understand the process that goes into designing a genuine unique, custom logo design. Let me explain briefly what is required from the designer and the timescale needed to produce a set of rough concepts.

First the designer needs a detailed brief from you that covers things like your industry, competition, your unique selling point, company colours if any (and understand if they work for your industry), your products, your aspirations for your business, how long you have been trading, who your customers are, how you find your customers and so on. This information should lead the designer or team of designers to brainstorm ideas that could work for your business. These ideas are then developed as sketches to see how they play out in reality. Ideas that don’t work are discarded and ideas that have promise are developed further. Peer review is required as is a sample market test to gauge reaction to the designs. Now, lets say your designer has promised you 3 to 5 concepts that are each different from each other. This process must be carried out for each one of them. Once the logo designs have been presented to you, you will need to see what you like and don’t like and the designer can then either overcome your objections if required or make the changes if they are desired. This stage can repeat until a design is refined to perfection. It can take some time. Once your design is completed, it needs to be presented to you in a variety of different file formats so that you can use the logo across many different advertising mediums.

When you add up the time it takes to design just a single concept you should see that at a minimum it will be several hours work for just one rough draft. Times that by the number of concepts you have been promised and the hours start to add up to days. This is just for the rough drafts mind you. This is normal. Someone dedicated to one customer should be able to provide several good, well thought out concepts in about three days.

How Is It Possible

How is it possible for a logo designer to provide 3 to 10 unique logo design concepts in 24 hours? In a nutshell, it’s not. But I hear you say, what about “So and So” website, they do 5 concepts for £50 in two days. Yes, it appears that they do. But let’s explore how it’s possible and what you really get. To understand how they make it possible you need to understand where the shortcuts are. Let’s explore how to provide a “so called” unique logo design in two days for £50-£100.

The Shortcuts

Old Discarded Stuff
A favorite trick of the £50-£100 logo designer is to present you with logo design concepts that have been sitting on his hard drive for sometime because they were rejected by a previous client. You get work that was finished some time ago, has already been paid for once before (minimum) and has been rejected by someone else. How can that possibly represent your business? You got it, it can’t. Because you don’t know any better the con is easy to pass off on you. You are none the wiser.

Outsourcing
Often used in combination with providing old discarded stuff to you is the outsourced logo factory option. From the website it looks like they are UK based and the English used on the site is not too bad. You can forgive them the odd spelling and grammar error because the price is so cheap. The £50-£100 logo designer sends your logo project to Eastern Europe or India. Forget about confidentiality and data protection, your business will be known by all sorts of characters. A secondary money line for these scammers is to sell on your personal details. You then run the risk of ID theft. The worst thing about outsourcing is that you have no clue whatsoever where the logo designs actually come from. The worst case scenario, it’s stolen from someone else’s business. The best thing about outsourcing, it’s cheap, dirt cheap. This is also one of the worst things about outsourcing because by being so cheap it encourages many more shortcuts just so they can make a decent crust. There are a few people in the mix that need to take their cut of your £50-£100 logo payment.

Theft
A common issue with the £50-£100 logo designer is that to make enough money to eat they have to take massive shortcuts, including copying other peoples logo designs. They trawl the Net looking for businesses in your field of expertise or similar and then they copy the logos (this takes a few minutes at most). Your name gets added to the design and they might even change the font a little and the colours a tad but in reality it is still a stolen logo. Turning over many fast “jobs” like this at £50-£100 becomes very lucrative to them. This is bad for you for a number of reasons, the first one is pretty obvious. Do you want to represent your business with a stolen logo? Of course you don’t. You want a unique identity for your business that you can turn into a strong brand.

There are several other problems for you in addition to using a stolen logo for your business. You are infringing someone else’s trademark and you can be prosecuted for passing yourself off as someone else. Getting an unfair advantage in business by passing yourself off (ignorance is no defense in British law) is viewed very dimly by the courts. Trademarks and copyright are protected under British and International laws and companies fight vigorously to defend their assets.

Legal

When you receive your new £50-£100 logo design and you start using it in your business, you become legally responsible for its usage. Once it’s out in the market so to speak, it is representing your business. With a genuine logo that is great news for you and very exciting. With a stolen logo that is not such great news. The longer it goes on being used, the more trouble you have stored up to be used against you in the future. This means that if your logo is on show for say a year, two years, five years without being detected as a fraud and then you get rumbled (you will be shocked to hear about this because you thought you had a genuine logo) you will be liable in court for damages to the company that the original design was ripped off from. This can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages. There is no limit to the figure that the court can award to the legal trademark owner. Nice aye. But don’t forget the bargain you got when you bought the logo for £50-£100.

Things To Avoid To Stay Safe

Avoid foreign logo design websites. Don’t go anywhere near a logo design company outside of the UK. If the smelly brown stuff hits the fan and you need to take legal action to recover damages then you need to make sure the company you bought your logo from is covered by UK law. You will probably be prosecuted in the UK (you can also be prosecuted abroad) so you need to make sure your designer is available to help defend you in case of a copyright or trademark theft.

Make sure your designer is working for a UK registered company (preferably VAT registered too). If the company is legally registered you have someone to take to court if things go wrong for you. It is also an indication that the business is not a one man band which can be prone to taking shortcuts. If the business is VAT registered it means they are more likely to be a reasonable size and as such you are more likely to get a real service which is legal. VAT registration on it’s own is not a fool proof method of detection because any business can register for VAT. It is however an added check that makes it more likely that a business is in good standing.

Stay away from one man bands. Some freelance designers are excellent. From time to time we use a select pool of freelance designers ourselves when things get busy in the studio. We know everyone of them though and you are covered fully by all our guarantees and legal business status should we use one. The problem with one man bands and freelancers working outside of an agency is that they are prone to lack of time. This can encourage shortcuts and as such you are risking future legal issues. In addition to that, if they go sick when you need them most, there will not be anyone to complete your work. Another problem can be that if you stumble into a legal issue later on, your freelancer may well go missing on you, leaving you to carry the can.

If It Looks Too Good To Be True

Watch out for the logo design websites that offer logos well below £100 and justify the price by saying it is a give-a-way or a loss leader. On the surface this is a great answer because you believe that you will get a genuine service but for a fraction of the price. All the other ticks are in the boxes so this one is a real tempter. If only.

The justification goes like this. We are giving it away. We make no money on logo design. We want you to come back to us for all your other design. This is not giving it away, this is losing them money. It is costing them money because we know that this low price is not possible if they are following the correct design procedures and processes. You then have to ask yourself about the seriousness of a business that provides a logo design to you that you are supposed to build your brand on that has cost them money to supply. Do you see the irony there?

If they turn out to be a genuine business the truth is that the work is often well below par, lacking creativity and well thought out concepts. Many of the design stages are cut to the bone if indeed they are even carried out and this of course leads to the lack of skill, creativity and well thought out concepts. The great thing about this rouse is that it is easy for you to spot. All you need to do is look at their portfolio. The quality of work presented will be of a much lower standard than you would expect to see from a professional design company that specialises in branding.

These designers would also be inundated with this free work, they would not have time to either do a proper job on the logo or the rest of the stuff they say they are pricing themselves so low to win. This is a lose/win situation. You lose because you are sacrificing your brand for price (in that case save the £100 and take your partner out) and the designer wins because they do a sub standard job where they do make a small amount of money from you.

To Conclude:

Apart from getting a design that is stolen or made up of rejected parts of other logos. Apart from risking your whole business on a legal issue over trademark or copyright theft. Apart from using someone else’s logo design for your business and apart from using a logo that was knocked up in minutes without thought. Can you think of any other reason why it’s great to pay £50 to £100 for your logo design?

These are not the only things to look out for. Stay away from websites where freelancers bid for your project. They are often based outside of the UK. Stay away from clipart websites and websites that offer template logos. These will not give you a unique design and it is unlikely that you will be granted a trademark for a template logo. Plus, loads of other people will be using the same design. Never use Microsoft clipart in a logo for your business. This is surprisingly common but is breaking Microsoft’s terms of usage which clearly states that it’s clipart is not to be used in a commercial way.

We Want Your Business But ….

Of course we want your business. We also want you to stay safe and if you follow these guidelines above and look out for these warning signs then you should be OK no matter what design studio you choose to work with. Please call 01753 208022 if you would like to discuss any aspect of this post or if you are not sure of something.

Logo Quality is a brand of Graphic Design Ltd. Graphic Design Ltd is registered in the UK and is registered for VAT. Graphic Design Ltd has a graphic design studio in Slough and employees a full time design team. Graphic Design Ltd never uses old discarded designs for anything and certainly never uses clipart. All work is guaranteed 100% unique and original. Our logo design work is also reassuringly priced at over £100