A Logo for Only $5—Part 1

Don’t we all just love a good deal?

A few months ago I received a call from a company looking to update their brand. They’re tight on budget and time, and let me know that they’ve found the perfect logo online and are just a click away from purchasing it. BUT, they heard from a friend that I do design work for businesses, and want to see what I can offer them before they go through with it.

I’ll be completely honest with you: not once have I been chosen above the $5 logo. My proposal disappears into a bottomless pit of an email inbox. The company hasn’t even taken the time to send me a kind reply of rejection. (Tomorrow I’ll explain why this is.)

In this blog post, I’m going to dissect the appeal of these online logo services and the reason why I’ve never won the battle against them. Then stay tuned for a follow-up blog post about why you should choose a personal designer over an online logo service. (I promise I make a good case.)

Here's why those $5 logos are so appealing:

1. They're cheap. Well, duh. When you look at comparing costs between working one-on-one with a designer and simply plugging in your information online and getting a variety of logo choices- the online resource wins by a financial landslide. I simply cannot hand over a logo, a BRAND, that is worth 20+ hours of my design expert work and professional market research for $5. Or $100. Nor even $200. So when a potential client asks me to “do one better,” I simply can't compete directly with that price. I would be underselling my work far too much.

2. They're fast. Remember my little post about time being key for a designer but the necessary evil of having to often work under pressure? Well apparently the designers these online services hire don’t need the time and/or can handle the immense amount of work involved in logo development in miraculous ways! Many (if not all) boast to have logo concepts to you in as quickly as 24 hours! Literally, you can sign up this morning, and wake up tomorrow with an inbox full of designs for your company. Our culture is a culture of RIGHT NOW. So why not a logo?

3. There are SO MANY concepts you can choose from. Often times these sites break up the price points depending on how many concepts you want. Often the lowest price bracket will give you one to two concepts (that's your awesome $5 deal on Fiverr). But on a lot of other popular sites, you can choose their nicer base package (usually around $75 or so) and receive a minimum of 15 concepts. And from there, you can receive as many as 120 concepts depending on how much you would like to pay! WOW. Why choose a designer who can only provide you with three, maybe four concepts when you could have as many as 120?

4. Hand pick your designer out of hundreds available. You can browse page after page of designers who specialize in logo design. Some sites will even put your job out there for dozens- no, hundreds of graphic designers to compete over! Sure, you can advertise your own project and have multiple designers give you a proposal from which you can choose from. But online, having the option to have multiple designers all presenting you with real concepts- OH, and your money is refundable if you don’t like any of them? Surely, how can this be beat?

I’m going to quickly walk you through using one of the most popular logo design services as of recently. I don't have anything to hide, and I know that Fiverr won't be stealing any of my clients.

So, here we go:

1. Browse. I searched for "logo."

Now, I can't really find anything I like. I mean, I kind of like the vintage logo one, but that's because I know exactly what I'm going to get. The trendy little banners, the arched text, the sans serif font... but he says he'll only do one concept. I want more bang for my buck, so I chose one promising me two logo options.

This guy seems pretty credible. Decent design work, lots and lots of projects completed, a queue of 177 orders, and glowing reviews. And a turn around time of 4 days (give and take your options)!

2. View and select options. I'm just going to stick with my $5 budget here, but it's worth taking a look at the options.

Tomorrow I'll dissect these options...

3. Pay, wait, tell them about your business, and receive your designs!

From here I clicked the big green button that said to purchase now for $5, but I wanted to find out more about how a project brief is handled before I paid. How do I let the designer know what I want? How do they see my business goals and the heart for my business? I can't commit to purchasing yet!

So I signed up, only to find I still couldn't access anything. My guess is that after the designer has made contact with you, you give them a brief and tell them all about yourself and your business. I did find one article that suggests you contact the designer before your purchase, but my guess is that this guy (with his 170+ projects in his queue) isn't one to chat it up with you pre-purchase.

Now before I completely lose you and you help yourself to one of these sites—let me ask (and please do answer in the comments): What’s the catch? Why do you think it’s better to hire a personal designer to design your company's logo and brand than go online through a service?

Why is it that a cheap, quick logo with the potential of hundreds of concepts and multiple designers working on your business logo shouldn’t be a reasonable option?

Tomorrow I'll be posting my response to the $5 logo controversy, and why you shouldn't fall for it.