Patrick Burgoyne: "Cheap & Nasty"

Right now, Butcher's Hook is sitting in front of Burgoyne, editor at Creative Review. As we mentioned before, Burgoyne visits Kingston University every monday. This week, he talked about "The £25 Logo"...

Type "Cheap Logo Design" into google and you get this:




119,000,000 RESULTS.



These websites offer "priceless, quality, custom-made logos designed by seasoned professionals". For £25...?

It goes without saying that for many, if not all of these websites, the saying "you get what you pay for" applies. In the same way that the Metro, (a free London newspaper offered to anyone and everyone), keeps many commuters happy, we imagine that a lot of the '£25 Logo' sites keep their clients content: why else would there be nearly 120,000,000 competitors?

This is not to say that we do/don't condone the new, ever-rising and developing world of internet-based crowd sourcing. In fact, we've even been following one of them (www.blurdesigns.com), just to see what they offer. On one hand, crowd sourcing benefits young, aspiring designers who want to have a shot at otherwise unaccessible briefs. On the other hand, vast amounts of the briefs are essentially open to anyone with a Mac and an internet connection.

We think that the internet pioneered in accessibility to countless resources and opportunities, and continues to develop it's repertoire to help the world's increasing jobless population. Which is why the growing debate over crowd sourcing's usefulness can't be answered without taking into account the Internet's responsibility, not to mention Apple and Adobe's coalition to make everyone a creative.

BH agrees that offering a quick turn-around on £25 logos has no justification as Graphic Design. In the same way that stock photo websites, such as Shutterstock have almost abolished the stock photo trade as it was once known, crowd-sourcing websites are slowly penetrating the established, traditional, process-based and honest-hard-working world of Graphic Design. "Graphic Design is not about generating shit logos for £25, over the internet. Graphic Design is about a deep thought process, human interaction and actively-built relationships, sophistication and strategies, intelligence and understanding". There is a difference between easily throwing together conventional elements of a logo and calling it 'top-quality / custom', and a refined process in which a client's value is extended through their visual identity.

Either way, read up on Mat Dolphin's story, where he found out exactly what £25 gets you:

The £25 Logo: Mat Dolphin

Guaranteed a great read.

More from us:


TOMORROW:

  • D&AD so far
  • New Studio Space - 'The Barn'
WEDNESDAY:
  • Dan Jones: "About Me"
THURSDAY:
  • More from Patrick Burgoyne
  • D&AD update