7 ms·

What Kind of Logo Do You Get for $5?

155 points by sebgeelen 12y ago

onion2k 12y ago
This is how disruption works. Fiverr are doing to the graphic design industry exactly the sort of disruption that many of the startups we admire have been doing in other sectors for years - vastly reducing the price to the end user by using software to connect them with the lowest cost supplier. Exactly as the taxi industry decries Uber saying UberX isn't as professional or safe or fast, the design people are saying that the user is getting a raw deal as the product they buy is demonstrably inferior, stolen, ill-thought and slow. Just as Google did to advertising, Youtube did for television, Spotify did for music, and AirBNB did for hotels. The incumbents all said the upstarts offered a worse service while failing to understand that there are huge numbers of people that don't want, or care about, the 'essential' qualities that the incumbents insist on selling. Disruption is made possible where an industry charges for things that represent no value to the customer. In the case of Fiverr, fortunately I think, their customers are people who want a logo that's better than what they can make themselves but without the bells and whistles like rounds of design changes, high quality vector artwork and Pantone reference colours. Designers think they need to charge for those things. They are wrong. Lots of customers are quite happy taking what they're given if the price is low enough. And one day this will come to the software industry. Someone will make a service that enables businesses to build applications for $5. Apps that work, that scale, and that are 'good enough' not to need a developer any more. We will have to change the way we sell what we do, just as Fiverr is going to make designers have to think about the way they sell their services now.
- sgdesign 12y ago
  I think you can disrupt the design industry without setting up a structure that condones plagiarism. So I would argue that http://studio.envato.com/ http://studio.envato.com/ or even http://www.squarespace.com/logo/ http://www.squarespace.com/logo/ are better examples of your point.
  - runjake 12y ago
    > plagiarism Did I miss something in the article? I thought these designers were using royalty-free designs. That's not plagiarism, is it?
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      It is plagiarism. Plagiarism is using the content of others without appropriate attribution. Copyright infringement is using the content of others without the rights to it. Copying can be either, neither, or both. Whether attribution is needed is situational but in a 'design' context it's important.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    I would seriously doubt actual plagiarism is going on here. Places like istockphoto and 123rf sell royalty free logos - which you can purchase the upgraded license terms which allow you to resell works with that deseign/image.[1] [1] http://www.123rf.com/license_summary.php http://www.123rf.com/license_summary.php
    - d23 12y ago
      We don't know whether these people are paying for each image, but at $5 for a "custom" logo, I doubt they can afford to purchase the rights for each image. Yes, if all of their logos were clouds it would work, but that's not very likely.
      - Scuttles 12y ago
        Automatically assuming plagiarism due to a low price-point is pretty dumb. This is a legitimate website, and plagiarism would be a massive risk for business. If they sell 100 logos a day -- that more than pays for the extended licenses. (They could even be getting bulk deals, going directly to the original creator, special licensing agreements to move more stock, etc).
      - berkay 12y ago
        If we're to accuse someone of plagiarism, we have to present the evidence. Onus is on the accuser. OP has done a disservice to his cause by not providing any evidence.
- peteretep 12y ago
  > And one day this will come to the software industry. Someone > will make a service that enables businesses to build > applications for $5. I think that happened already with open-source, offshore, and sites like elance.
- Poiesis 12y ago
  You have a good, well-intentioned point but the article emphasizes that these designers are trying to sell something that's not theirs. That's not disruption. > Someone will make a service that enables businesses to build applications for $5 Sure, happens all the time. Look at SquareSpace for example. That kind of product you used to need a team of people for. There's examples all over the place. Not sure how you get from there to logo design though. So far computers seem to be at their best when we can clearly describe the rules for them to follow, and design doesn't seem to fall into that category.
- jevgeni 12y ago
  Sorry, but saying, that fraud is entrepreneurial market disruption, is hogwash.
  - onion2k 12y ago
    Note that Fiverr (who are the people I was saying are being disruptive) are not committing fraud. Some of the designers who sell through their platform might be, but that's not really any different to people who sell stolen things through eBay, or install pirated Wordpress plugins through eLance. It's definitely wrong for those people to be doing that, but focusing on the plagiarism aspect is a red herring. That's just some small (or large) number of users, not the platform itself. If you could eliminate all the fraud Fiverr would still be a disruptive platform.
    - dyarosla 12y ago
      You should not be calling something that's based around cheap labour disruptive nonetheless. Or rather, if you were to call Fiverr disruptive, it would not be for the "cheap" aspect but for the fact that their service provides a long list of fast-to-access freelancers (designers or other). A disruptive business is usually defined to be at least better OR faster than what exists that then capitalizes on market share. It can be cheaper only as an added bonus. If the single business advantage is being cheaper, the business is not disruptive, as it adds nothing that's novel or unique, and can simply be either undercut by some or bettered by other competitors.
    - jevgeni 12y ago
      I don't understand, how they would be able to offer competitive priced service, if they didn't rely on people either underselling or plagiarising. I'd understand, if there were some economies of scale that actually enabled the cost reduction, but in this case the nature of the product is always unique: you can seldom sell the same design to several clients, hence the only way to reduce the cost is to lower your margins. And hence it's a race to the bottom.
- Alupis 12y ago
  There is no "bait and switch" here as the author claims. Nowhere on Fivver's website do they claim you are getting a unique one-of-a-kind hand-designed logo -- you are paying $5 for someone else to tell you what a sensible logo should be and provide a few decent choices for starting out with... and that can be valuable (I know because as an engineer, the creative side of things often escape me). I see no issue here. For my side project websites and companies, these sorts of logos (and at this price point) is exactly what I would look for.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    If you're paying for someone to design you a logo, it's definitely deception to link an existing clipart. Did you miss the part* about the second contender actively lying? You make it sound like hand-crafting is hard. I can pump out custom bespoke geometric shapes in seconds! *edit, this part was only in the linked longer version of the first part of the article
  - michael_h 12y ago
    Nowhere on Fivver's website do they claim you are getting a unique one-of-a-kind hand-designed logo On the other hand, http://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_in=everywhere&query=unique&x=0&y=0&category=3&sub_category=49&page=1&layout=auto http://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_in=e... I think the larger issue is that some of these come from stock photo sites which place restrictions on using them as logos. I'd be more than a little annoyed if I built a brand around a $5 logo and then hit legal trouble because of it.
  - enraged_camel 12y ago
    >>Nowhere on Fivver's website do they claim you are getting a unique one-of-a-kind hand-designed logo I'm sorry, but if someone says in their profile headline, "I will design amazing logos for $5" then I expect it to be more than just clipart or color-shaded text.
    - misnome 12y ago
      But this is entirely down to your interpretation of their word "Design"
- mattkevan 12y ago
  It's not disruption. It's how the design industry works. Professional designers have long competed against free, whether it's printers who throw in a logo with letterhead printing or the boss' nephew who knows a bit of Photoshop. The market is big enough for all of this. A smallish company that just wants something to put on a business card is not going to be up for a full branding and identity exercise (though they probably should be) and will be happy with a stock logo. A startup or company with more ambition would look stupid with the same. It's the job of a designer or agency to educate the client as to why they are worth the fees they charge.
- mattkevan 12y ago
  > Designers think they need to charge for those things. They are wrong. Lots of customers are quite happy taking what they're given if the price is low enough. In my experience this is not the case. The projects I've done which have dragged on for longest and been the most trouble are the ones I've done for free or less than the usual amount. Charge a low price and the client will assume your time and skills are worthless.
- DavidMcG 12y ago
  I can't say I agree with the parallels you draw here on disruption. This isn't disruption comparable to Uber or AirBnB, it isn't disruption at all. The examples you give are all companies which have come along and provided an offering on par with or exceeding what is currently being offered by archaic slow moving industries, often both in price and experience. Uber works because the service you receive is a commodity service - transport. Uber fixes the price across all car tier's so it doesn't matter wether you get Larry or Jim, you're paying the same, their job is to get you from point A to point B. There's essentially no qualitative differentiation. What they offer isn't cheaper than a cab but the experience they offer is arguably superior and more convenient. This works and is disruptive. What AirBnB offer is a platform to connect people with spare beds, with people who want a place to stay. The qualitative offering differs from host to host, and as a result, AirBnB allow Hosts to set their own price per night, so essentially making AirBnB a platform conecting people, but allowing a free market to operate upon it. The end experience is unique, and mostly cheaper than the equivalent experience at a hotel. This works, this is disruptive. What Fiverr are doing is offering a highly inferior service at a much lower price. They are taking a service which is not a commodity good, one with a huge spectrum of qualitative differentiation, and fixing it at a very low price. When you do that you just get a bad product bought cheap. That is not new, let alone disruptive. The differentiator between Fiverr design product and a good quality professional designer, isn't that they don't offer the 'bells and whistles'. A 'professional', reputable designer isn't trying to upsell you on the scotch guard for your sofa to make an extra buck or two - pantone references and vector artwork aren't line items on an invoice in design, that's not what you're paying for. The gap is the quality of the final product. This isn't people offering high quality design and somehow making it a leaner, more compelling offering than traditional channels using some kind of an innovative model - this is just poor quality work pedalled on a platform. Not everyone is prepared to pay for 'good' design. Some people just want 'something'. And there will always be those people. That both want just something, and those that produce it. That pool of people, and the rest, which need, and understand the value of good design aren't in conflict. They're totally separate groups, and they've co existed for years, and will continue to. I can confidently say that Fiverr will not make me, or any designers I know 'think about the way we sell our services' in the manner you suggest.
- kevinwang 12y ago
  I don't see it as a disruption, because it's not a replacement as much as an alternative. People and companies that need unique logos and original designs will continue to seek out the services offered by the author of this article, while fiverr will attract everyone else who wants a logo.
chillingeffect 12y ago
A cool article because after starting the experiment, it points out low-grade thieves are incentivized to rip-off other's work.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- newaccountfool 12y ago
  No one is stealing here, they are using template...
chillingeffect 12y ago
A cool article because after starting the experiment, it points out low-grade thieves are incentivized to rip-off other's work.
ggambetta 12y ago
To add a related experience, but with different results... some months ago I used 99designs to get a cover for my novel. It wasn't $5 but $300, but still, I was amazed by the quality of [some of] the entries - 126 in total! See here: https://99designs.com/book-cover-design/contests/book-cover-action-thriller-novel-golden-seed-277703 https://99designs.com/book-cover-design/contests/book-cover-... In this case the freelancers were required to disclose the licenses of the assets they used, and even provide the sources so I could verify them. I understand why some artists complain about sites like these, but for a "consumer" like me it's a fantastic idea - and as another commenter said, "disruption". They do other things, like UI design and so on... check them out. FWIW, I'm in no way affiliated to 99designs, I just had a good experience with them.
- slantyyz 12y ago
  We used 99designs and were happy with their work too. Our competition offered something like $700 -- we wanted to ensure that the better designers pitched for our logo while still being affordable to us. What I noticed and found interesting was that the designers who participate in 99designs would do a lot of "police work" by calling out plagiarism and reuse by the other designers. I'm guessing that it's because more money was at stake than $5.
- smackfu 12y ago
  >In this case the freelancers were required to disclose the licenses of the assets they used, and even provide the sources so I could verify them. My worry would be that they seem to tag all the imagery as "stock imagery; does not require purchase." OTOH, the good part is that you can verify that yourself.
- unsquare 12y ago
  If you are happy with the end results as a consumer, that's what counts. I would argue that with a talented artist and a slightly higher budget, you would of gotten a better result. The real pain point (in my opinion) , is finding the right designer/artist that you can work with on a constant basis, that search alone makes websites like 99designs an optimal choice. EDIT: 99Designs seems to have changed their model since my last visit. Definitely more sustainable for all parties.
jeremymcanally 12y ago
Neat experiment. Buying design through places like Fiverr is a hard proposition (unlike, say, voice over or something) because faking and fraud is so easy. But let's not pretend this is relegated to things like Fiverr. I've paid pretty good money for web design work before only to find out later it was recycled or stolen from an open source project, grabbed off ThemeForest and re-colored, or straight copied and pasted off someone else's website. I worked with a startup that hired through a High Class™ marketplace for a lot of dough and they ended up with a logo that the designers eventually admitted was "heavily inspired" by another popular logo. Just because you pay more doesn't mean you get a more honest vendor.
dbg31415 12y ago
I always ask clients if they would go with a $5 plumber, or a $5 bus driver for their kids. Always the response is, "No!" So it's a matter of them not being able to judge quality of tech / design work... not just them being cheap. Any small business is going to want to pinch pennies, but if you know they make irrational decisions you should just walk away. The cure, I think, is for our industry to develop non-subjective ways of saying, "I'm a level 60 Developer spec'd for RoR," or, "Designer with .333 Batting Average stepping up to the plate." So customers can compare apples to apples when looking at the billable rate. If you think $5 logos are the only ones who plagiarize; I've seen this from people who charge $150 / hour too. It's still very much the wild wild west and the likelihood of someone getting ripped off doesn't seem to change no matter how much the service provider charges.
- aw3c2 12y ago
  I would love to eat some $5 apples or oranges though.
- gabemart 12y ago
  >I always ask clients if they would go with a $5 plumber, or a $5 bus driver for their kids. Always the response is, "No!" So it's a matter of them not being able to judge quality of tech / design work... A $5 plumber might flood your offices. A $5 bus driver might crash the bus your kids are in. A $5 logo designer might... design a logo for you that isn't great?
  - molf 12y ago
    A $5 logo designer might steal copyrighted work and get you into all sorts of expensive legal trouble.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  > $5 bus driver Five dollars per what? The bus here costs $1.75 and children are half price.
jere 12y ago
I'm confused. How is using a stock template a "rip-off"? If you design something with a stock photo, is your entire design a rip-off? If you use a popular library such as Bootstrap, is your site a rip-off? It's lazy, sure. But you honestly weren't expecting anything else. >There’s nothing wrong with going with a cheaper freelancer instead of hiring an expensive agency, just like there’s nothing wrong with choosing McDonalds over a 3-star restaurant. Totally, but this is like reviewing an egg mcfuffin and being disappointed they didn't serve you pastured eggs. There's a disclaimer near the beginning of the article about a potential conflict of interest. When I first read it, I blew it off thinking "oh that's not necessary, this is just a bit of fun." In hindsight, the article reads like an ad. I was expecting a little more from the tag line "An epic tale of deception, stolen artwork, and crappy logos."
- smackfu 12y ago
  And honestly, paying someone $5 to look through stock design sites and pair a logo with an appropriate font seems about right.
- d23 12y ago
  Whoa, that's one hell of a bullshit disclaimer. Even after reading it (and it's not exactly highlighted), it was unclear that Folyo was his company. Definitely sketchy.
  - Johnathanb 12y ago
    >First, a bit of background: my own startup Folyo helps connect startups with a selection of hand-picked freelance designers. Like first paragraph in the article that isn't the introduction.
  - vonklaus 12y ago
    To be fair to the author, in the disclaimer it is stated, "my startup Folyo". So it is pretty clear that an opinion and competing biz model are assumed, which is why their is a disclosure. The conclusions can certainly be disputed though
ensignavenger 12y ago
Apparently the work wasn't really stolen- it was a stock design that was (presumably) paid for. I would not call it a rip-off, and would ask "what about fiver makes people think they are going to get completely original designs?" If fiver (or their designers) are indeed somehow misleading customers into thinking their design is completely original, with no stock art involved, that is a problem- but it seems clear to me that for 5 bucks that you would be starting from stock.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  I was thinking the same thing, which is that if these folks are going through the web, finding licensable and free content for creating a logo out of, putting it into a logo and then mailing it to you, that is probably 30 - 45 minutes of your time so worth $5 is it not? I don't know if designers get more angry at people who take logos constructed out of stock parts in this way and use them or at the people who supply those logos. There are lots and lots of them out there.
- grimtrigger 12y ago
  This is probably more obvious to HN readers than the average buyer
  - PostOnce 12y ago
    Why would you think you could get any sort of creative work at all for 5 dollars? Even at just above minimum wage, wouldn't the time this person spent communicating with you about your company consume at least $5 of wages, before any actual graphical work began? At the very least I'd hope $5 worth of thought went into it before $5 worth of actual drawing work commenced. In other news oh my god my $5 shoes fell apart.
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      Reading the description of a company should take no more than 1-2 minutes. I understand that drawing takes time but I could easily do some form of creative blurb writing at $5 a pop and make $50 an hour. Couldn't you?
michaelbuckbee 12y ago
Then, at the other end of the scale, you have 'What kind of logo do you get for several million dollars?' Aka, the Pepsi Gravitation Field: https://code.google.com/p/daxp/downloads/detail?name=pepsi%20gravitational%20field.pdf https://code.google.com/p/daxp/downloads/detail?name=pepsi%2... Where their logo redesign was pumped up by a fantastic amount of tenuous justifications and logic.
- wuliwong 12y ago
  haha, that is crazy!
- jere 12y ago
  Woooow. Thank you for that. It's so bad that it sounds like parody.
  - AndrewNCarr 12y ago
    The missing link between the new Pepsi logo and TimeCube! Saddest thing is I can see a board room eating this up. Remember when Marissa Mayer redesigned the Yahoo logo with a small team over a weekend? "no straight lines in nature" she said. Sounds good, except it is wrong.
SimianLogic2 12y ago
This reminds me a lot of sound effects in video games. At the high end you can hire a sound designer to do custom foley/SFX. For a small game, maybe $1-5k. Midrange, you can hire a sound designer with extensive knowledge to pick royalty-free sounds for you (maybe $250). On the cheap, you can browse through SFX libraries yourself and pick out what you want and pay per-effect (maybe $20-$50 worth). Ditto for music. It's kind of a spectrum of "custom-for-you" to "off-the-shelf" AND a separate spectrum of "no-effort" (picking) to "put-in-a-lot-of-time-and-effort" (doing your own shopping). None of these are "wrong" or "stealing" -- in this analogy Fiverr isn't even the "cheapest" option (the author could put in some time and browse royalty-free templates on their own). It seems like more a sign of a mature market with too much inventory than anything shady.
ohashi 12y ago
I got my company's logo on Fiverr and wrote about the experience a couple years ago. Quite happy with the result honestly. It offended a lot of people then (feel free to read the comments), and probably still does today. But I've heard designers at $100+/hr down to Fiverr and they serve different purposes. I've been happy with both and disappointed in both types (and everything in between). I wouldn't hesitate to give it a shot though, it's so cheap you're not really losing much budget if you have to go another direction. http://kevinohashi.com/26/10/2012/how-get-logo-30 http://kevinohashi.com/26/10/2012/how-get-logo-30
- Smudge 12y ago
  I consider the $100/hr designer and the Fiverr designer in two entirely different markets. At the low-end, you get what you pay for, which is not much. But sometimes you don't need much. You're not really taking business away from higher-paid designers. That said, as soon as you need any kind of ongoing relationship with someone who can seriously transform the design & aesthetics of your product into something competitive, the value of the high-end designer becomes immediately apparent. $100/hr might even be cheap, depending on your needs. It's just an entirely different market.
- munificent 12y ago
  In your article you say: > A logo is what identifies you. It's the symbol that takes up space in a customer's mind when they think about your company. There is no symbol that is more connected to your company than a logo. And then you end up with a logo that is, frankly, awful. Which means now customers will associate that awfulness with your company. Is that what you want?
  - ohashi 12y ago
    Some companies aren't lasting brands. Mine happens to fall into that category. Nobody has ever given a shit about my logo except from that post. The service I provide, if it does its job well, is something you never should need to go back to ever again. Almost all my visitors are one time visitors and there is little/no return value on what I do. So, in this instance, customers never think of my brand. So it really doesn't matter. And you say it's awful. I don't think it's awful. It's functional. It doesn't distract from everything else, it doesn't add anything special. That's good enough. I don't want people thinking about my logo, I want them getting what they need and leaving.
anishkothari 12y ago
I have used the first designer's work and he did a pretty good job for the grand sum of $5. I think he's a design student, so it's a pretty good gig for him (especially because he lives in a low-cost country). I sent him a stock image that I liked and he made a similar design. No complaints from me!
mproud 12y ago
Reminds me of “The 50 Dollar Logo Experiment” (http://www.logodesignlove.com/the-50-dollar-logo-experiment http://www.logodesignlove.com/the-50-dollar-logo-experiment). Sometimes $50 isn’t worth it either.
joosters 12y ago
They should have tried http://www.horriblelogos.com/ http://www.horriblelogos.com/ - $5 for a hand-drawn logo, so no stock artwork involved. (Logo will still suck though :)
brenschluss 12y ago
$5? At $50/hr that's about 6 minutes; at $30 an hour that's 10 minutes. Barely enough time to load up a stock file, slap some text on it in Illustrator, make some default gradients, and call it a day. And that's exactly what you get. Cheap things are cheap because 1) they take very little materials/labor to make, or 2) they cost a lot to make, but there's a lot of it and the cost is spread over many duplicates. In this case, you're getting the latter, obviously. And you get what you pay for. I'd say, if you're the kind of person who thinks paying for a $5 logo or $300 logo is good enough, you might as well learn Illustrator yourself and whip something easy out, since it will satisfy your two constraints: 1) it's cheap/free, and 2) it looks okay to you but not to anyone else, but that's fine, because the $5 logo would have performed the same role anyways. This is like asking: "What kind of branding do you get for $5?" "What kind of a PR rep do you get for $5?" Etc, etc.
- avalaunch 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure that any attempt by me to learn Illustrator and whip out a logo will be neither cheap (as I value my time) nor look good (even to me). I imagine that's the case for a lot of (most?) non designers.
recalibrator 12y ago
I used Fiverr to design logos for most of the "future-proof" business ideas at StartJumper: http://startjumper.com http://startjumper.com (a side project of mine). There are three that were "professionally" designed and not by Fiverr. Can you tell which ones?
- icushman 12y ago
  "Logical Lodge", "Solar PV", and "Pet Friendly Florist" are the only ones that seem to have been built with any attention to modern design principles. "Foresight Strategist" is ambiguous, in that someone could have thought they were making a good logo while producing it. The remainder would look entirely out of place in anyone's portfolio. I certainly can't say with confidence that $5 is a bad price for those images, but I can say that $500 would be.
  - recalibrator 12y ago
    The three are: Pet Florist, Privacy Enforcer and the StartJumper logo (so it was a bit of a trick question). Good answers by the way. I probably would have guessed the same.
    - icushman 12y ago
      Haha, thanks for the closure, that's interesting to know.
- HeyLaughingBoy 12y ago
  Near the bottom: s/stationary/stationery
gambiting 12y ago
"Yet it also seemed too good to be true: how on earth could anybody make a living creating logos for $5?" $5 is 3x minimum hourly wage in Poland. And you can create more than one logo in three hours.
JabavuAdams 12y ago
The larger issue here is that it's common and expected to have to trademark a logo, so if you're ever going to need to do that a logo made with stock art may be problematic. Other than that I'm a big believer in asset stores, stock art, etc. Especially for prototyping.
ilaksh 12y ago
So the actual logo for his site is the word "Folyo" in a circle. http://assets1.folyo.me/assets/logo-white-41e8dee74424daa4600dbbe8f1222a56.png http://assets1.folyo.me/assets/logo-white-41e8dee74424daa460... Is this an original design? If I spent $20 on Fiverr could I find a designer who could go on 123rf.com or another stock site, get a vector image, adapt it, and make a better logo that would be a less typical design? How much did he actually pay for that logo? I assume it was quite a lot, given the context.
- vonklaus 12y ago
  That logo is a vector circle with 5 characters in it. You are right. Bit ironic to decry unoriginal logo design, i would expect better for 20 into a fiverr account
auxbuss 12y ago
I used this guy a year and a half ago: http://www.vonglitschka.com/5MinuteLogo/index.html http://www.vonglitschka.com/5MinuteLogo/index.html Loved the result. 5 USD for that kind of talent. Unbelievable.
sgdesign 12y ago
Author here. Just to address the point that just because these logos are based on stock templates, doesn't mean they are rip-offs: 1. If you read the original article, you'll see that the second designer assured me in writing that their artwork was original (I had my doubts so I asked). 2. Most stock template's terms of use explicitly forbid using them as logos (presumably to avoid legal issues). 3. At no point in the process was any hint given that the logo would not be original artwork. Here's the blurb from the logo designer's page: > I will design a killer, high-quality, effective and custom-made logo for your website, company or business. And I may be mistaken, but the word "logo" itself carries connotations of uniqueness to me.

155 points by sebgeelen 12y ago

This is how disruption works. Fiverr are doing to the graphic design industry exactly the sort of disruption that many of the startups we admire have been doing in other sectors for years - vastly reducing the price to the end user by using software to connect them with the lowest cost supplier. Exactly as the taxi industry decries Uber saying UberX isn't as professional or safe or fast, the design people are saying that the user is getting a raw deal as the product they buy is demonstrably inferior, stolen, ill-thought and slow. Just as Google did to advertising, Youtube did for television, Spotify did for music, and AirBNB did for hotels. The incumbents all said the upstarts offered a worse service while failing to understand that there are huge numbers of people that don't want, or care about, the 'essential' qualities that the incumbents insist on selling. Disruption is made possible where an industry charges for things that represent no value to the customer. In the case of Fiverr, fortunately I think, their customers are people who want a logo that's better than what they can make themselves but without the bells and whistles like rounds of design changes, high quality vector artwork and Pantone reference colours. Designers think they need to charge for those things. They are wrong. Lots of customers are quite happy taking what they're given if the price is low enough. And one day this will come to the software industry. Someone will make a service that enables businesses to build applications for $5. Apps that work, that scale, and that are 'good enough' not to need a developer any more. We will have to change the way we sell what we do, just as Fiverr is going to make designers have to think about the way they sell their services now.

sgdesign 12y ago
I think you can disrupt the design industry without setting up a structure that condones plagiarism. So I would argue that http://studio.envato.com/ http://studio.envato.com/ or even http://www.squarespace.com/logo/ http://www.squarespace.com/logo/ are better examples of your point.
- runjake 12y ago
  > plagiarism Did I miss something in the article? I thought these designers were using royalty-free designs. That's not plagiarism, is it?
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    It is plagiarism. Plagiarism is using the content of others without appropriate attribution. Copyright infringement is using the content of others without the rights to it. Copying can be either, neither, or both. Whether attribution is needed is situational but in a 'design' context it's important.
- Alupis 12y ago
  I would seriously doubt actual plagiarism is going on here. Places like istockphoto and 123rf sell royalty free logos - which you can purchase the upgraded license terms which allow you to resell works with that deseign/image.[1] [1] http://www.123rf.com/license_summary.php http://www.123rf.com/license_summary.php
  - d23 12y ago
    We don't know whether these people are paying for each image, but at $5 for a "custom" logo, I doubt they can afford to purchase the rights for each image. Yes, if all of their logos were clouds it would work, but that's not very likely.
    - Scuttles 12y ago
      Automatically assuming plagiarism due to a low price-point is pretty dumb. This is a legitimate website, and plagiarism would be a massive risk for business. If they sell 100 logos a day -- that more than pays for the extended licenses. (They could even be getting bulk deals, going directly to the original creator, special licensing agreements to move more stock, etc).
    - berkay 12y ago
      If we're to accuse someone of plagiarism, we have to present the evidence. Onus is on the accuser. OP has done a disservice to his cause by not providing any evidence.
peteretep 12y ago
> And one day this will come to the software industry. Someone > will make a service that enables businesses to build > applications for $5. I think that happened already with open-source, offshore, and sites like elance.
Poiesis 12y ago
You have a good, well-intentioned point but the article emphasizes that these designers are trying to sell something that's not theirs. That's not disruption. > Someone will make a service that enables businesses to build applications for $5 Sure, happens all the time. Look at SquareSpace for example. That kind of product you used to need a team of people for. There's examples all over the place. Not sure how you get from there to logo design though. So far computers seem to be at their best when we can clearly describe the rules for them to follow, and design doesn't seem to fall into that category.
jevgeni 12y ago
Sorry, but saying, that fraud is entrepreneurial market disruption, is hogwash.
- onion2k 12y ago
  Note that Fiverr (who are the people I was saying are being disruptive) are not committing fraud. Some of the designers who sell through their platform might be, but that's not really any different to people who sell stolen things through eBay, or install pirated Wordpress plugins through eLance. It's definitely wrong for those people to be doing that, but focusing on the plagiarism aspect is a red herring. That's just some small (or large) number of users, not the platform itself. If you could eliminate all the fraud Fiverr would still be a disruptive platform.
  - dyarosla 12y ago
    You should not be calling something that's based around cheap labour disruptive nonetheless. Or rather, if you were to call Fiverr disruptive, it would not be for the "cheap" aspect but for the fact that their service provides a long list of fast-to-access freelancers (designers or other). A disruptive business is usually defined to be at least better OR faster than what exists that then capitalizes on market share. It can be cheaper only as an added bonus. If the single business advantage is being cheaper, the business is not disruptive, as it adds nothing that's novel or unique, and can simply be either undercut by some or bettered by other competitors.
  - jevgeni 12y ago
    I don't understand, how they would be able to offer competitive priced service, if they didn't rely on people either underselling or plagiarising. I'd understand, if there were some economies of scale that actually enabled the cost reduction, but in this case the nature of the product is always unique: you can seldom sell the same design to several clients, hence the only way to reduce the cost is to lower your margins. And hence it's a race to the bottom.
Alupis 12y ago
There is no "bait and switch" here as the author claims. Nowhere on Fivver's website do they claim you are getting a unique one-of-a-kind hand-designed logo -- you are paying $5 for someone else to tell you what a sensible logo should be and provide a few decent choices for starting out with... and that can be valuable (I know because as an engineer, the creative side of things often escape me). I see no issue here. For my side project websites and companies, these sorts of logos (and at this price point) is exactly what I would look for.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  If you're paying for someone to design you a logo, it's definitely deception to link an existing clipart. Did you miss the part* about the second contender actively lying? You make it sound like hand-crafting is hard. I can pump out custom bespoke geometric shapes in seconds! *edit, this part was only in the linked longer version of the first part of the article
- michael_h 12y ago
  Nowhere on Fivver's website do they claim you are getting a unique one-of-a-kind hand-designed logo On the other hand, http://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_in=everywhere&query=unique&x=0&y=0&category=3&sub_category=49&page=1&layout=auto http://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_in=e... I think the larger issue is that some of these come from stock photo sites which place restrictions on using them as logos. I'd be more than a little annoyed if I built a brand around a $5 logo and then hit legal trouble because of it.
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  >>Nowhere on Fivver's website do they claim you are getting a unique one-of-a-kind hand-designed logo I'm sorry, but if someone says in their profile headline, "I will design amazing logos for $5" then I expect it to be more than just clipart or color-shaded text.
  - misnome 12y ago
    But this is entirely down to your interpretation of their word "Design"
mattkevan 12y ago
It's not disruption. It's how the design industry works. Professional designers have long competed against free, whether it's printers who throw in a logo with letterhead printing or the boss' nephew who knows a bit of Photoshop. The market is big enough for all of this. A smallish company that just wants something to put on a business card is not going to be up for a full branding and identity exercise (though they probably should be) and will be happy with a stock logo. A startup or company with more ambition would look stupid with the same. It's the job of a designer or agency to educate the client as to why they are worth the fees they charge.
mattkevan 12y ago
> Designers think they need to charge for those things. They are wrong. Lots of customers are quite happy taking what they're given if the price is low enough. In my experience this is not the case. The projects I've done which have dragged on for longest and been the most trouble are the ones I've done for free or less than the usual amount. Charge a low price and the client will assume your time and skills are worthless.
DavidMcG 12y ago
I can't say I agree with the parallels you draw here on disruption. This isn't disruption comparable to Uber or AirBnB, it isn't disruption at all. The examples you give are all companies which have come along and provided an offering on par with or exceeding what is currently being offered by archaic slow moving industries, often both in price and experience. Uber works because the service you receive is a commodity service - transport. Uber fixes the price across all car tier's so it doesn't matter wether you get Larry or Jim, you're paying the same, their job is to get you from point A to point B. There's essentially no qualitative differentiation. What they offer isn't cheaper than a cab but the experience they offer is arguably superior and more convenient. This works and is disruptive. What AirBnB offer is a platform to connect people with spare beds, with people who want a place to stay. The qualitative offering differs from host to host, and as a result, AirBnB allow Hosts to set their own price per night, so essentially making AirBnB a platform conecting people, but allowing a free market to operate upon it. The end experience is unique, and mostly cheaper than the equivalent experience at a hotel. This works, this is disruptive. What Fiverr are doing is offering a highly inferior service at a much lower price. They are taking a service which is not a commodity good, one with a huge spectrum of qualitative differentiation, and fixing it at a very low price. When you do that you just get a bad product bought cheap. That is not new, let alone disruptive. The differentiator between Fiverr design product and a good quality professional designer, isn't that they don't offer the 'bells and whistles'. A 'professional', reputable designer isn't trying to upsell you on the scotch guard for your sofa to make an extra buck or two - pantone references and vector artwork aren't line items on an invoice in design, that's not what you're paying for. The gap is the quality of the final product. This isn't people offering high quality design and somehow making it a leaner, more compelling offering than traditional channels using some kind of an innovative model - this is just poor quality work pedalled on a platform. Not everyone is prepared to pay for 'good' design. Some people just want 'something'. And there will always be those people. That both want just something, and those that produce it. That pool of people, and the rest, which need, and understand the value of good design aren't in conflict. They're totally separate groups, and they've co existed for years, and will continue to. I can confidently say that Fiverr will not make me, or any designers I know 'think about the way we sell our services' in the manner you suggest.
kevinwang 12y ago
I don't see it as a disruption, because it's not a replacement as much as an alternative. People and companies that need unique logos and original designs will continue to seek out the services offered by the author of this article, while fiverr will attract everyone else who wants a logo.

chillingeffect 12y ago

A cool article because after starting the experiment, it points out low-grade thieves are incentivized to rip-off other's work.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
newaccountfool 12y ago
No one is stealing here, they are using template...

chillingeffect 12y ago

A cool article because after starting the experiment, it points out low-grade thieves are incentivized to rip-off other's work.

ggambetta 12y ago

To add a related experience, but with different results... some months ago I used 99designs to get a cover for my novel. It wasn't $5 but $300, but still, I was amazed by the quality of [some of] the entries - 126 in total! See here: https://99designs.com/book-cover-design/contests/book-cover-action-thriller-novel-golden-seed-277703 https://99designs.com/book-cover-design/contests/book-cover-... In this case the freelancers were required to disclose the licenses of the assets they used, and even provide the sources so I could verify them. I understand why some artists complain about sites like these, but for a "consumer" like me it's a fantastic idea - and as another commenter said, "disruption". They do other things, like UI design and so on... check them out. FWIW, I'm in no way affiliated to 99designs, I just had a good experience with them.

slantyyz 12y ago
We used 99designs and were happy with their work too. Our competition offered something like $700 -- we wanted to ensure that the better designers pitched for our logo while still being affordable to us. What I noticed and found interesting was that the designers who participate in 99designs would do a lot of "police work" by calling out plagiarism and reuse by the other designers. I'm guessing that it's because more money was at stake than $5.
smackfu 12y ago
>In this case the freelancers were required to disclose the licenses of the assets they used, and even provide the sources so I could verify them. My worry would be that they seem to tag all the imagery as "stock imagery; does not require purchase." OTOH, the good part is that you can verify that yourself.
unsquare 12y ago
If you are happy with the end results as a consumer, that's what counts. I would argue that with a talented artist and a slightly higher budget, you would of gotten a better result. The real pain point (in my opinion) , is finding the right designer/artist that you can work with on a constant basis, that search alone makes websites like 99designs an optimal choice. EDIT: 99Designs seems to have changed their model since my last visit. Definitely more sustainable for all parties.

jeremymcanally 12y ago

Neat experiment. Buying design through places like Fiverr is a hard proposition (unlike, say, voice over or something) because faking and fraud is so easy. But let's not pretend this is relegated to things like Fiverr. I've paid pretty good money for web design work before only to find out later it was recycled or stolen from an open source project, grabbed off ThemeForest and re-colored, or straight copied and pasted off someone else's website. I worked with a startup that hired through a High Class™ marketplace for a lot of dough and they ended up with a logo that the designers eventually admitted was "heavily inspired" by another popular logo. Just because you pay more doesn't mean you get a more honest vendor.

dbg31415 12y ago

I always ask clients if they would go with a $5 plumber, or a $5 bus driver for their kids. Always the response is, "No!" So it's a matter of them not being able to judge quality of tech / design work... not just them being cheap. Any small business is going to want to pinch pennies, but if you know they make irrational decisions you should just walk away. The cure, I think, is for our industry to develop non-subjective ways of saying, "I'm a level 60 Developer spec'd for RoR," or, "Designer with .333 Batting Average stepping up to the plate." So customers can compare apples to apples when looking at the billable rate. If you think $5 logos are the only ones who plagiarize; I've seen this from people who charge $150 / hour too. It's still very much the wild wild west and the likelihood of someone getting ripped off doesn't seem to change no matter how much the service provider charges.

aw3c2 12y ago
I would love to eat some $5 apples or oranges though.
gabemart 12y ago
>I always ask clients if they would go with a $5 plumber, or a $5 bus driver for their kids. Always the response is, "No!" So it's a matter of them not being able to judge quality of tech / design work... A $5 plumber might flood your offices. A $5 bus driver might crash the bus your kids are in. A $5 logo designer might... design a logo for you that isn't great?
- molf 12y ago
  A $5 logo designer might steal copyrighted work and get you into all sorts of expensive legal trouble.
Dylan16807 12y ago
> $5 bus driver Five dollars per what? The bus here costs $1.75 and children are half price.

jere 12y ago

I'm confused. How is using a stock template a "rip-off"? If you design something with a stock photo, is your entire design a rip-off? If you use a popular library such as Bootstrap, is your site a rip-off? It's lazy, sure. But you honestly weren't expecting anything else. >There’s nothing wrong with going with a cheaper freelancer instead of hiring an expensive agency, just like there’s nothing wrong with choosing McDonalds over a 3-star restaurant. Totally, but this is like reviewing an egg mcfuffin and being disappointed they didn't serve you pastured eggs. There's a disclaimer near the beginning of the article about a potential conflict of interest. When I first read it, I blew it off thinking "oh that's not necessary, this is just a bit of fun." In hindsight, the article reads like an ad. I was expecting a little more from the tag line "An epic tale of deception, stolen artwork, and crappy logos."

smackfu 12y ago
And honestly, paying someone $5 to look through stock design sites and pair a logo with an appropriate font seems about right.
d23 12y ago
Whoa, that's one hell of a bullshit disclaimer. Even after reading it (and it's not exactly highlighted), it was unclear that Folyo was his company. Definitely sketchy.
- Johnathanb 12y ago
  >First, a bit of background: my own startup Folyo helps connect startups with a selection of hand-picked freelance designers. Like first paragraph in the article that isn't the introduction.
- vonklaus 12y ago
  To be fair to the author, in the disclaimer it is stated, "my startup Folyo". So it is pretty clear that an opinion and competing biz model are assumed, which is why their is a disclosure. The conclusions can certainly be disputed though

ensignavenger 12y ago

Apparently the work wasn't really stolen- it was a stock design that was (presumably) paid for. I would not call it a rip-off, and would ask "what about fiver makes people think they are going to get completely original designs?" If fiver (or their designers) are indeed somehow misleading customers into thinking their design is completely original, with no stock art involved, that is a problem- but it seems clear to me that for 5 bucks that you would be starting from stock.

ChuckMcM 12y ago
I was thinking the same thing, which is that if these folks are going through the web, finding licensable and free content for creating a logo out of, putting it into a logo and then mailing it to you, that is probably 30 - 45 minutes of your time so worth $5 is it not? I don't know if designers get more angry at people who take logos constructed out of stock parts in this way and use them or at the people who supply those logos. There are lots and lots of them out there.
grimtrigger 12y ago
This is probably more obvious to HN readers than the average buyer
- PostOnce 12y ago
  Why would you think you could get any sort of creative work at all for 5 dollars? Even at just above minimum wage, wouldn't the time this person spent communicating with you about your company consume at least $5 of wages, before any actual graphical work began? At the very least I'd hope $5 worth of thought went into it before $5 worth of actual drawing work commenced. In other news oh my god my $5 shoes fell apart.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    Reading the description of a company should take no more than 1-2 minutes. I understand that drawing takes time but I could easily do some form of creative blurb writing at $5 a pop and make $50 an hour. Couldn't you?

michaelbuckbee 12y ago

Then, at the other end of the scale, you have 'What kind of logo do you get for several million dollars?' Aka, the Pepsi Gravitation Field: https://code.google.com/p/daxp/downloads/detail?name=pepsi%20gravitational%20field.pdf https://code.google.com/p/daxp/downloads/detail?name=pepsi%2... Where their logo redesign was pumped up by a fantastic amount of tenuous justifications and logic.

wuliwong 12y ago
haha, that is crazy!
jere 12y ago
Woooow. Thank you for that. It's so bad that it sounds like parody.
- AndrewNCarr 12y ago
  The missing link between the new Pepsi logo and TimeCube! Saddest thing is I can see a board room eating this up. Remember when Marissa Mayer redesigned the Yahoo logo with a small team over a weekend? "no straight lines in nature" she said. Sounds good, except it is wrong.

SimianLogic2 12y ago

This reminds me a lot of sound effects in video games. At the high end you can hire a sound designer to do custom foley/SFX. For a small game, maybe $1-5k. Midrange, you can hire a sound designer with extensive knowledge to pick royalty-free sounds for you (maybe $250). On the cheap, you can browse through SFX libraries yourself and pick out what you want and pay per-effect (maybe $20-$50 worth). Ditto for music. It's kind of a spectrum of "custom-for-you" to "off-the-shelf" AND a separate spectrum of "no-effort" (picking) to "put-in-a-lot-of-time-and-effort" (doing your own shopping). None of these are "wrong" or "stealing" -- in this analogy Fiverr isn't even the "cheapest" option (the author could put in some time and browse royalty-free templates on their own). It seems like more a sign of a mature market with too much inventory than anything shady.

ohashi 12y ago

I got my company's logo on Fiverr and wrote about the experience a couple years ago. Quite happy with the result honestly. It offended a lot of people then (feel free to read the comments), and probably still does today. But I've heard designers at $100+/hr down to Fiverr and they serve different purposes. I've been happy with both and disappointed in both types (and everything in between). I wouldn't hesitate to give it a shot though, it's so cheap you're not really losing much budget if you have to go another direction. http://kevinohashi.com/26/10/2012/how-get-logo-30 http://kevinohashi.com/26/10/2012/how-get-logo-30

Smudge 12y ago
I consider the $100/hr designer and the Fiverr designer in two entirely different markets. At the low-end, you get what you pay for, which is not much. But sometimes you don't need much. You're not really taking business away from higher-paid designers. That said, as soon as you need any kind of ongoing relationship with someone who can seriously transform the design & aesthetics of your product into something competitive, the value of the high-end designer becomes immediately apparent. $100/hr might even be cheap, depending on your needs. It's just an entirely different market.
munificent 12y ago
In your article you say: > A logo is what identifies you. It's the symbol that takes up space in a customer's mind when they think about your company. There is no symbol that is more connected to your company than a logo. And then you end up with a logo that is, frankly, awful. Which means now customers will associate that awfulness with your company. Is that what you want?
- ohashi 12y ago
  Some companies aren't lasting brands. Mine happens to fall into that category. Nobody has ever given a shit about my logo except from that post. The service I provide, if it does its job well, is something you never should need to go back to ever again. Almost all my visitors are one time visitors and there is little/no return value on what I do. So, in this instance, customers never think of my brand. So it really doesn't matter. And you say it's awful. I don't think it's awful. It's functional. It doesn't distract from everything else, it doesn't add anything special. That's good enough. I don't want people thinking about my logo, I want them getting what they need and leaving.

anishkothari 12y ago

I have used the first designer's work and he did a pretty good job for the grand sum of $5. I think he's a design student, so it's a pretty good gig for him (especially because he lives in a low-cost country). I sent him a stock image that I liked and he made a similar design. No complaints from me!

mproud 12y ago

Reminds me of “The 50 Dollar Logo Experiment” (http://www.logodesignlove.com/the-50-dollar-logo-experiment http://www.logodesignlove.com/the-50-dollar-logo-experiment). Sometimes $50 isn’t worth it either.

joosters 12y ago

They should have tried http://www.horriblelogos.com/ http://www.horriblelogos.com/ - $5 for a hand-drawn logo, so no stock artwork involved. (Logo will still suck though :)

brenschluss 12y ago

$5? At $50/hr that's about 6 minutes; at $30 an hour that's 10 minutes. Barely enough time to load up a stock file, slap some text on it in Illustrator, make some default gradients, and call it a day. And that's exactly what you get. Cheap things are cheap because 1) they take very little materials/labor to make, or 2) they cost a lot to make, but there's a lot of it and the cost is spread over many duplicates. In this case, you're getting the latter, obviously. And you get what you pay for. I'd say, if you're the kind of person who thinks paying for a $5 logo or $300 logo is good enough, you might as well learn Illustrator yourself and whip something easy out, since it will satisfy your two constraints: 1) it's cheap/free, and 2) it looks okay to you but not to anyone else, but that's fine, because the $5 logo would have performed the same role anyways. This is like asking: "What kind of branding do you get for $5?" "What kind of a PR rep do you get for $5?" Etc, etc.

avalaunch 12y ago
I'm pretty sure that any attempt by me to learn Illustrator and whip out a logo will be neither cheap (as I value my time) nor look good (even to me). I imagine that's the case for a lot of (most?) non designers.

recalibrator 12y ago

I used Fiverr to design logos for most of the "future-proof" business ideas at StartJumper: http://startjumper.com http://startjumper.com (a side project of mine). There are three that were "professionally" designed and not by Fiverr. Can you tell which ones?

icushman 12y ago
"Logical Lodge", "Solar PV", and "Pet Friendly Florist" are the only ones that seem to have been built with any attention to modern design principles. "Foresight Strategist" is ambiguous, in that someone could have thought they were making a good logo while producing it. The remainder would look entirely out of place in anyone's portfolio. I certainly can't say with confidence that $5 is a bad price for those images, but I can say that $500 would be.
- recalibrator 12y ago
  The three are: Pet Florist, Privacy Enforcer and the StartJumper logo (so it was a bit of a trick question). Good answers by the way. I probably would have guessed the same.
  - icushman 12y ago
    Haha, thanks for the closure, that's interesting to know.
HeyLaughingBoy 12y ago
Near the bottom: s/stationary/stationery

gambiting 12y ago

"Yet it also seemed too good to be true: how on earth could anybody make a living creating logos for $5?" $5 is 3x minimum hourly wage in Poland. And you can create more than one logo in three hours.

JabavuAdams 12y ago

The larger issue here is that it's common and expected to have to trademark a logo, so if you're ever going to need to do that a logo made with stock art may be problematic. Other than that I'm a big believer in asset stores, stock art, etc. Especially for prototyping.

ilaksh 12y ago

So the actual logo for his site is the word "Folyo" in a circle. http://assets1.folyo.me/assets/logo-white-41e8dee74424daa4600dbbe8f1222a56.png http://assets1.folyo.me/assets/logo-white-41e8dee74424daa460... Is this an original design? If I spent $20 on Fiverr could I find a designer who could go on 123rf.com or another stock site, get a vector image, adapt it, and make a better logo that would be a less typical design? How much did he actually pay for that logo? I assume it was quite a lot, given the context.

vonklaus 12y ago
That logo is a vector circle with 5 characters in it. You are right. Bit ironic to decry unoriginal logo design, i would expect better for 20 into a fiverr account

auxbuss 12y ago

I used this guy a year and a half ago: http://www.vonglitschka.com/5MinuteLogo/index.html http://www.vonglitschka.com/5MinuteLogo/index.html Loved the result. 5 USD for that kind of talent. Unbelievable.

sgdesign 12y ago

Author here. Just to address the point that just because these logos are based on stock templates, doesn't mean they are rip-offs: 1. If you read the original article, you'll see that the second designer assured me in writing that their artwork was original (I had my doubts so I asked). 2. Most stock template's terms of use explicitly forbid using them as logos (presumably to avoid legal issues). 3. At no point in the process was any hint given that the logo would not be original artwork. Here's the blurb from the logo designer's page: > I will design a killer, high-quality, effective and custom-made logo for your website, company or business. And I may be mistaken, but the word "logo" itself carries connotations of uniqueness to me.