Comments on: iStockphoto.com Now Selling Stock Logos… Your Thoughts?

By: Colleen

Colleen — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:14:45 +0000

Calm down people! Aren’t most of the logos you see TOTAL POO anyway? I’m including logos “custom designed by professional designers” in that pile o’ dung, too, btw, including a slew of mine.

Getty is just making it easier and cheaper to buy a crap logo. That is what technology is supposed to do. Cheaper. Easier. The businesses who want ‘em can have ‘em. And I’ll have somewhere to send people who want a logo for cheap instead of doing trade out for something I didn’t want in the first place. Or worse, donating my time.

BTW, mom, your Embroidered Potholders-R-Us logo is coming right up. Hurry up iStock!

By: The end of graphic design? Probably not. « Hedoesdesign’s Weblog

The end of graphic design? Probably not. « Hedoesdesign’s Weblog — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:04:55 +0000

[...] [comment link to Design O'Blog] [...]

By: John

John — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:37:57 +0000

Having this service (like spec work, stock and one size fits all pre-made design/web/etc.) actually does the design and marketing community a favor – by getting rid of possible clients that will only be a headache to RFP or in the future.

It is possible they will learn.

If I take a drive down to HomeDepot, buy bags of concrete and lumber, watch a few HGTV shows, then build my front stairs. I will soon learn when the neighbor takes a header and breaks his neck. Then again, maybe I won’t, and like I said – it just saved you a headache.

By: Jerome Iveson

Jerome Iveson — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:52:07 +0000

Terrible idea, badly thought out business models like this devalue the whole graphic design industry; istocks core market. Logos are not t-shirts.

By: Jessi Miller

Jessi Miller — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 05:37:31 +0000

There are so many issues surrounding this venture, I think we could write a small book on it. It’s obviously a good idea for iStockphoto, but it’s obviously ominous at best for real designers who use process.
http://blog.littleblackmask.com/2009/09/designer-cannibalism.html

By: Jason Kilp

Jason Kilp — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:24:11 +0000

…or I guess the logo might say “Your Company” but in the press release they mentioned not giving the typeface to the buyer if it’s not free for commercial use. Which would mean the buyer couldn’t change the name with the original typeface. Unless when they say logo, they just mean the symbol. Very interesting.

By: Jason Kilp

Jason Kilp — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:19:58 +0000

So then I am assuming that this means the person who purchases the logo will have to name their company based on what the words in the logo say, correct? That’s really scraping the bottom when your company has no choice in the name because you want to cheap out on a logo. Oh well.

By: Judy Kirpich

Judy Kirpich — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:15:58 +0000

Designers have a voice and we have power. Boycott istockphoto.

By: Jean-Sebastien Dussault

Jean-Sebastien Dussault — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:22:06 +0000

[...]what I meant in #34 [not #32]

By: Jean-Sebastien Dussault

Jean-Sebastien Dussault — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:20:49 +0000

awesomerobot (#42)
“Lets say they drop that rate down to 35% after those first 6 months. That’s about $50-$280 a logo in your pocket. A logo that if you were able to sell yourself you’d get $140-$800 for.”

Sooo, If your creation was hot enough to get picked early, you’ll have less than the crappier logos which will get the cake?

Everything is wrong with that plan.

As as said in #32, even great designers not using this “service” will have no choice but to deal with the site, just to make sure their ideas isn’t already being used in a parked, still unsused logo.

Since doing logos out of the blue, for no one in particular, is way easier and faster to do than doing real corporate identity, there will be tons more of logo designs in the open—all suceptible to be infringed on copyright—, making the work of graphic designers doing actual corporate ID really, really tough and very risky.

What iStock is proposing is brings the fight (spec) to another level than the logoworks of this world has brought.