Request for Logo Proposals
May 19th, 2009 –
SIAI is seeking a logo to unify our brand. If you’re a professional designer, feel free to send us ideas. The reason we’re asking our community rather than going directly to a company is that portraying this organization is likely to be a huge challenge to those who aren’t at all familiar with it.
Send proposals to Michael Vassar and Michael Anissimov.
I’ll be the first to point out that you’re doing it wrong. Apart from doing yourself an incredible disservice you are also devaluating the importance of good design.
Although I realize that such contests are a popular way for organizations to generate publicity and participation—and to save costs—there are a number of reasons why asking for work without compensation except for a single design that is selected, which is termed speculative work in the profession, contradicts the ethics of our profession.
The first is that design is a process. It involves time, creative energy, strategy and, most importantly, client participation. For a designer to generate work without going through this process is to create something that is undeveloped and that does not reflect the client’s input and participation. The resulting work is not truly representative of the value or level of service designers provide, nor does it adequately or appropriately address your needs as a client. Just as you wouldn’t seek legal or financial advice from a consultant prior to hiring them, a designer must also be well acquainted with your organization and goals if they are to make informed and responsible recommendations.
The other reason is that expecting speculative or uncompensated work demonstrates a trivializing of the contribution design makes to creating value for clients. Of all the entrants in your contest or competition, only one will be selected as a finalist. The time and work of all others will have gone for naught. This attitude on the part of a prospective client is likely to result in receiving work from students, inexperienced or untrained designers, or those less likely to get work from more traditional ways of demonstrating the soundness of their approach toward clients’ problems. The pool of work from which you will select will not necessarily represent the quality of work you deserve from seeking a professional designer. In the end, everyone loses.
I encourage you to reconsider holding this contest, and instead issue a Request For Proposals from qualified design professionals. I know that selecting a designer can be a difficult and daunting task. To assist you, the AIGA provides resources to help you research firms in your area. This database is available online at www.aiga.org/directory. There is also a helpful guide that can assist you in researching qualified designers, writing a design brief, and managing the design process. This resource is also available free online at www.aiga.org/design-business-and-ethics.
I are pleased that you recognize the need for design, and hope that you will consider these recommendations in the spirit in which they are offered—to help you realize the most that design has to offer. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me directly.
Your consideration of these professional design issues is greatly appreciated.
Bermon Painter
Doesn’t like the commenting handles URL’s that are at the end of a sentence with punctuation. Below are the working urls.
http://www.aiga.org/design-business-and-ethics
http://www.aiga.org/directory
It looks like they took your advice. They originally wrote:
“SIAI is seeking a logo to unify our brand. If you’re a graphic designer or have design talent, feel free to design a logo and show it to us. If we like it and want to use it, we’ll pay you a sum based on our mutual negotiation. Also appreciated would be any pointers to good logo designers you may have used in the past.”
Yes, I updated the post to make it a call for proposals from graphic designers, which is what we were getting before anyway.
That’s understandable. Thanks for taking the time to change it. Wasn’t trying to step on any toes…I just really dislike when people ask for spec work.
Hope it all goes well and you get a great logo.
Though I can understand the concerns presented, that a certain amount of professionalism is required and that effort should be rewarded, I does seem that certain creative aspects could be left out by following the advice given.
Sometimes the best ideas can come from unexpected sources. It is clear that ideas developed by professionals can be more readily transposed to mass production and popular concepts, but sometimes the creative aspect can be lost through what I can only term as “professional dogma” (and I do apologize for that term).
What I suggest is that the request for a logo has greater explanation of submission requirements, such that a child could propose an idea. If the idea has enough merit, no matter its source, than surely it could be handed over for interpretation by professionals, with some reward given to the original designer.
The reward would of course be in proportion to the amount of effort involved by all participants, with the creator of the logo having input throughout the entire process, if they so wish.