The other day I was happy to see that Per Torberger, former writer at Resume, one of Swedens leading media papers, had kick started his blog Pers Värld. Welcome back Per!
One of Per’s first post highlighted the ongoing Swedish discussion about the new 2009 Swedish European Presidency logo made by Bacon. Both Resume and Cap & Design, mainstream media and a lot of Swedish blogs have highlighted the news. Dagens Media, another Swedish media paper got an ongoing poll going where 83% thinks SEK 1.3 million is to much for the logo.
Per posted his thoughts in Swedish, and focused on replying to what most people seemed to comment about. Bear with me as I try to translate to you guys who don’t read Swedish.
(freely translated from Per’s blog)
- ”Wow, SEK 1,3 million for a logo – how the hell can it cost so much!?”
- ”No, it looks like Stockholm Opens (tennis tournament) old logo/other logo” or “It’s ugly”
Per didn’t seem to think that SEK 1.3 million for the new logo was to much. And mostly concluded that people who commented on the logo were focusing on the wrong things and not really understanding that design is first and foremost about differentiating a brand rather than decorating it.
I first made a short comment on Per’s blog where I said the following:
“It would have been really exciting if one had launched a competition for about 1000$ on 99designs.com, spend 10 hours on writing a good brief. After use up another 10 hours to Art Direct the contributions.
You would probably have seen 200-300 contributions of which 30-50 would have been good. Spend another 20 hours finetuning the work. The final check would then have been SEK 100-200 000 and crowdsourced. This would have been a cool case that in it’s turn would have generated more attention in both Sweden and abroad.
Is the logo ugly? – no point of view. Ugly can be good, beautiful can be bad in these cases.
Is it expensive? – No, not if you hire a traditional agency and use a traditional way of producing it.Pling.”
After some bouncing back and forth Per asked for a real case. Right after his last comment yesterday, as sent from the gods came this:
To celebrate the launch of their new website and branding the splendid ever source of information Mashable launches a social design competition on 99designs where their visitors are briefed to ‘mash up’ the Mashable logo.
Mashable didn’t dare to re-do their real logo, or at least not yet. But they did launch a competition. When I started to write this post they had 15 logos uploaded. Now as I’m getting to the end of this post they’ve got 67! contributions and tons of conversation going on. 67 in just a couple of hours!
The competition goes on for another 2 weeks and I actually think we’ll see thousands rather than hundreds of contributions.
Rock on Mashable!
Let’s sum up:
Do I think the Swedish government spend to much for the new European Presidency 2009 logo?
Yes of course. But it’s not about the actual cost. It’s about the entire process!
To me, this is about integrated communication. Do not isolate your logo work as a separate activity. If someone would have thought different about the entire process of designing this new logo they would have done just what Per said in his post “helping the target group to choose that product in front of the competition”. (and saved SEK 1.1 million for other activities)
This is what innovative communication is all about. No single activity must be performed without gaining the overall objective. That means that everything we do should outlive budgets and on top of that generate a social buzz and PR.
This logo will not do that!
No related posts.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I like your comment to Per’s blog. And to keep the competition 100% swedish, it could have taken place Xtraworks (www.xtraworks.se) instead of 99designs.
Hmm. I don’t agree since we’re looking for a European Buzz and the number of contributions on Xtraworks wouldn’t be enough or generate that buzz.
(at least to judge from the traffic now)
Yes, xtraworks is still pretty unknown and not so active these days. The quality and quantity of the contributions is still below what such a task would require. But what if an american guy comes with the best logo? I’m not sure this would be very welcomed…
Then, about the buzz… that’s the kind of logo you only hear about when there’s a scandal about how it was chosen, paid or interpreted. Most of the time they are totally ignored.
Now i’m waiting for the conspiration theory that will pretend that the scandal in this case is just a PR-coup.
Ha, that would be pretty cool considering it’s basically impossible to find information about Bacon online. Cloud Nine however exist for sure.
Well, you never know what would have been created since they would have let the design loose. Who knows where they would have ended up huh?
Still no reason to pay 1.3 for a logo that is produced in an old fashioned way.
Great post. Like you say, i’s not about the money, it’s about the process. Although… it’s a little about the money… I mean 1,3 mil… come on…
My post was more like your heading – I didn’t really have time write something intelligent so I just wrote something I hope would make people go read your blog post
Have a great day!
/Tobias
Absolutely. I sort of commented on your blog on the other post but forgot to specify that
I agree that for 1000 dollars you could get the equivalent logo from 99designs and that 1.3mill is too much.
But for 1000 dollars at 99designs you do not get the whole profile, which I think is kind of included in the 1.3mill-package, along with a lot of other communication directons / thoughts.
Of course not. But I’m talking about the entire effect. And note, I did not think you could land the project for 1000 but instead 20000.
Espacially when the logo isn’t that good looking, and kinda reminds me of this: http://www.strepsils.se/
You should check out spreadshirt, they announced their Open Logo Project (which was won by a friend who now also is my collegue
http://olp.spreadshirt.net/wordpress/
I think that is a great example of crowdsourcing.
Let's see who win the bid.
Of course not. But I’m talking about the entire effect. And note, I did not think you could land the project for 1000 but instead 20000.
{ 1 trackback }