The real bargain of ‘affordable’ designers?

I know that it’s in a good business person’s nature to strive to pay as little as possible for the best quality as possible, but sometimes a line needs to be drawn – somewhere between quality and affordability.
In one of my previous article I listed some of the important phases of professional logo design that amounts to a costly quote from logo designers. Pricing is also without doubt one of the factors to consider before hiring a logo designer but if you regard your branding as an investment rather than an expense then search for an excellent designer not an affordable one.
Some ‘designers’ are able to offer clients ‘affordable’ logo design, because they simply use clipart! All the ‘designers’ basically do is type the client’s company name, apply some ‘fancy’ fonts – then they’re done!
Below is an example of a typical situation that usage of clipart on a logo leads to…

The logos are not similar, they are identical!
…and who’s to blame? the designers or their clients?
Personally I put most of the blame on the designers of the two logos but both companies are also liable – though with quite limited roles.
I know the owners of Moya Technology on a personal level, and I made them aware that there’s a company using a logo same as theirs. They told me that they already printed thousands of marketing materials with ‘their’ logo and they argued that as clients it was impossible for them to take their newly designed logo and search globally to check if there’s anybody using the same logo – which is a fair argument!
The sad part is chances are that to most people it will appear as if Moya Technology copied MyBroadband’s logo since the latter is a more established entity.
I believe between the two companies at least one needs to rebrand to avoid this unprofessional and unfortunate ’situation’ they find themselves in.
Actually if both are serious about their brands they should both get their logos redesigned, chances are that there’s more companies using the same logo.
I doubt that any of the two designers copied the other, it’s just simple rewards of clipart usage. A redesign in this cases will be a costly ‘damage control’ thing to do, which reminds me of some quote I saw on some company’s promotional t-shirts a while back…
If you think competence costs, try incompetence!
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Cipro says Moya Technologies was registered in 2007 — I don’t know when MyBroadband was setup — but it’s an older entity — it was forum before, and I don’t think branding to them is as crucial as Moya.
But, then again, Moya is a technology company and from observational knowledge, IT companies rarely care about brand ‘value’
The problem is not ‘bad designers’ (if the logos are clipart or template driven’ — the problem is what do the diff. companies want from a ‘brand’ if nothing, then it does not matter what they use.
*returns to the left corner.
I don’t condone IT companies not ‘caring’ about their brand value, but point taken.
I can’t help it but wonder why then [do they] have a logo in the first place, a logo is meant to most importantly be a differentiator between brand A and brand B, especially those of competitors.
Thanks for sharing your views.
Amazingly Clever!
well spotted, And i think it’s the client’s fault!
Yasser,
Thanks for sharing your view, I agree with you, at the end of the day it’s the client’s duty to go through the designer’s portfolio and credentials.
[...] Research, research and do more research. This phases does not really entail any design skills but it’s critical as it ensures that you get to know and understand your client’s brand, their products / services and competitors more, which will also ensure that you don’t end up with a logo similar to those of your client’s competitors. [...]
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