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This isn't terrible, really. The prize, for an entry-level designer, is icing on the cake for the real reward, which is a portfolio piece. A lot of designers try to get jobs straight out of school with a portfolio of 'fake' design work, no real designs that are actually in use.

Kilkrazy wrote:
There isn't an unfair exploitation if you offer a prize and people volunteer to compete for it.

A-fething-men.

The comp was placed here, amongst those who will use the business. It was open, clear and the prizes and nature clearly stated.

It was a community activity and also raised the profile of the future business.

The suggestion it was exploitative is bizarre.

MajorTom11 wrote: Real designers have to compete with these fakes

If you get hired to design a piece, and you got paid with a check for it, and the check didn't bounce, you are a real designer. The problem here is I think you put an unreasonable value on you work. There is no such thing as, as you put it, "unnatural competition from unqualified people". If you went to school for graphic design, hey, that's great - and totally, completely irrelevant. If you can't compete with someone who does it for less money, regardless of their background, that's the real world.

Your arguments that these "fakes" as you put it, don't produce as good quality as you can - also irrelevant. If it's good enough for the client, that's really all that matters. I get that it's hard to make a living in some fields. I'd like to make a living eating pie professionally. Unfortunately for both of us, your work is worth what others will pay for it, regardless of your rather subjective opinion.

Does this mean we have to shut down Golden Daemon until we can prove the entrants are all professional painters/sculptors and are being fairly paid for their time and effort?

That's right, just like how you're a "pro-painter" if you can sell your garbage on e-bay. Oh wait, no, their work is terrible and bought by idiots that don't know any better.

Baring pedantic dictionary definitions, you aren't a professional just because someone pays you to do something. There's a certain level of quality required and it does matter, which is why it's important to educate people about the impact of quality work.

Again though, in a site where people are equating graphic design with pie eating, this isn't the place to have this discussion. Maybe this can be locked before we have people telling art professionals to get real jobs.


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SilverMK2 wrote:Does this mean we have to shut down Golden Daemon until we can prove the entrants are all professional painters/sculptors and are being fairly paid for their time and effort?

Asinine. Yes, this is exactly the same situation. What an insightful piece of commentary.

plastictrees wrote:Asinine. Yes, this is exactly the same situation. What an insightful piece of commentary.

One hardly has to point out the irony of your post to you I assume?

And thank you. It was not intended as a serious point as the thread is full of arguments and counter arguments from both sides already. The point is that there is a clear distinction between a "contest" designed to attract "amateur" entries, and a request for professional (one would assume) work to be undertaken on a paid basis.

As has been pointed out already, the thread linked to in the OP was clearly a contest, with stated rules and prizes. Participants were aware of exactly what they were involved with from the start and could choose to take part or not. The organiser had determined that they wanted, or were happy with the "amateur" designers who would most likely be attracted by the prize (or price) offered to the winning design. Since they were evidently unwilling to pay out for a professional design, and/or wanted the exposure the contest would bring, etc, they were unlikely to go to a professional firm anyway, meaning that even if the guy had sat at home and drawn something up in paint himself, the outcome would have been the same for the teams of professional designers sitting around the world, just waiting for the phone to ring. Oh, except he would have been able to keep a bunch of cool stuff to actually sell to people rather than give away.

In the same way that GD is not there for GW to get professional painters to convert and paint up showcase quality minis to advertise GW's stuff - it is there for people to take part, compete and show off their talents. Is it bad that GW then happens to then take the best entries and show them off in WD, on their website, etc...

Ouze wrote:

MajorTom11 wrote: Real designers have to compete with these fakes

If you get hired to design a piece, and you got paid with a check for it, and the check didn't bounce, you are a real designer. The problem here is I think you put an unreasonable value on you work. There is no such thing as, as you put it, "unnatural competition from unqualified people". If you went to school for graphic design, hey, that's great - and totally, completely irrelevant. If you can't compete with someone who does it for less money, regardless of their background, that's the real world.

Your arguments that these "fakes" as you put it, don't produce as good quality as you can - also irrelevant. If it's good enough for the client, that's really all that matters. I get that it's hard to make a living in some fields. I'd like to make a living eating pie professionally. Unfortunately for both of us, your work is worth what others will pay for it, regardless of your rather subjective opinion.

You miss my point...

The point is that these fakes hurt the clients in the end. They simply leave them open to risks and mistakes an educated, trained and experienced professional never would, and that's not even talking skill and creativity. In the end, problems arise, and whether you or anyone likes it or not, there is a clear difference in the look and feel and application of good design vs bad. When you pay cheap, you generally get cheap work. Your company will not make a prestigious first impression, you will run into situations where your logo doesn't work or is inapplicable to the media desired, and in general, these things usually add up to a loss of profit and business growth.

It is subjective, yes, but there are certain things that can be objectively quantified. You may think it is irrelevant to be a trained, experienced professional with several degrees, but I think the world in general kind of looks on that favorably. When I say educated, I don't necessarily mean with a degree, you can most definitely teach yourself with a lot of dedication and hard work, but the point is you have to train, to research and understand what you are doing in a fundamental way. If you just learn photoshop, it means you know photoshop, it does not mean you know anything about design... owning a paintbrush doesn't make you an expert Baroque painter, or even mean you know what Baroque means lol.

There is a reason that you can pay millions for a single logo from an agency and a hundred bucks from one of these 'fakes'. I never said I couldn't compete with the fakes, but I do think that people with attitudes you seem to be espousing the entry of non-educated workers in a field that requires education with the application of any form of sense only end up harming themselves in the longrun. After all, the real competition is between the client and their rivals in the end, if the client takes crap work, then chances are the guy with pro work will come out on top in the end. After all, if branding didn't mean anything, it would be tough to explain the existence of a Billion dollar a year industry built around it now wouldn't it?

ITT buggy whip manufacturers complaining about automobiles.

That's right, a clip art fish recolored in photoshop as a logo is the shiny automobile that professional graphic designers are chasing on the horse of high quality work.

This thread is full of ridiculous analogies.

To be clear I don't agree that the contest was a rip-off in any way. I found the attitude it expressed to be insulting to creative professionals, but that's not inherent to contests in general, just the way Empchild was expressing himself.


Aughh...why can't I stop posting in this thread!

I'm honestly curious what a "real" design by a proffesional done for Battleroad would look like compared to the winner of the contest and what % of people would know which is which.

plastictrees wrote:Baring pedantic dictionary definitions, you aren't a professional just because someone pays you to do something.

That's sort of exactly what a professional is. Someone who earns a living in a given field.

plastictrees wrote:That's right, just like how you're a "pro-painter" if you can sell your garbage on e-bay. Oh wait, no, their work is terrible and bought by idiots that don't know any better.

If crappy painter sells 10 space marines for $10 each, and Bob Master Paint sells one masterfully done marine for $50 - Who is the real professional? The guy who is working to satisfy his market, or the guy who isn't?

I think the real issue is confusing "a professional" with "an artist". An artist creates to express themselves. They may get paid for it, but that's really tertiary - the drive is the creation.

A professional earns a living creating to the level the client is willing to pay for. That's why it's called the "graphic design business". Otherwise, open an art gallery.

MajorTom11 wrote:You miss my point...

No, I get it. You make it plain: You're not really a professional unless you've got a piece of paper declaring it so, and innate talent and practice are not relevant. I personally disagree with you.

Mr Peanut from the KP peanuts packets was designed by a 9-year olf girl in a contest. I believe she won $10.

This is the way things are. Clever people like me don't enter competitions like this, as that's me basically doing my dayjob for nothing.

Read the rules. If you don't agree, don't enter. Simple.

MajorTom11 wrote:

You miss my point...

The point is that these fakes hurt the clients in the end. They simply leave them open to risks and mistakes an educated, trained and experienced professional never would, and that's not even talking skill and creativity. In the end, problems arise, and whether you or anyone likes it or not, there is a clear difference in the look and feel and application of good design vs bad. When you pay cheap, you generally get cheap work. Your company will not make a prestigious first impression, you will run into situations where your logo doesn't work or is inapplicable to the media desired, and in general, these things usually add up to a loss of profit and business growth.

Caveat emptor?

MajorTom11 wrote:

After all, the real competition is between the client and their rivals in the end, if the client takes crap work, then chances are the guy with pro work will come out on top in the end. After all, if branding didn't mean anything, it would be tough to explain the existence of a Billion dollar a year industry built around it now wouldn't it?

I think a large amount of the problem is that you are accusing the people offering sub-quality work of diminishing your overall profitability instead of the companies buying that sub-quality work. You're the Montgomery Ward manager standing around the empty store wondering why everyone is buying that crappy merchandise from that newfangled "Wal-Mart" store across the road. In this day and age, there is "Quality" and then there is "Good Enough". The trend is to side with "Good Enough". This is why companies lease hardware instead of buying it. They're technically getting a worse deal, but it suits them more at the time.

I understand your frustration though; this isn't just limited to the "Creative" professions. A friend of mine got a job about a year ago as a programmer. He has a four year degree, and due to the oversaturation of the market from all of the in-and-out "bad" schools that give you some sort of cert/degree in weeks, he gets paid about what a manager at McDonald's would make. Insert additional competition from outsourcing/visas from people that have never written code, only studied theory, and you've got an industry rotting from the inside out.

Quality is dead; ours is the age of the lowest bidder.

MajorTom11 wrote:There are also a glut of people out there calling themselves designers because they fiddled with photoshop for 15 minutes one weekend. And they can get away with it too, because clients often can't tell the difference between pro work and what my circle lovingly calls 'basement designers' as they simply don't have the eye, education or experience to understand what high quality work is either.

If the client has to go to school for and have experience at graphic design to tell the difference between the Real Designer's logo and one put together by some guy who spend 15 minutes with photoshop, why should he pay 5x as much for the Real Designer? According to what you just said, the vast majority of people who see the logo won't be able to tell the difference, as they haven't been to school and worked as a graphic designer, and paying a bunch more just to have a logo that appeals to graphic designers doesn't make any sense. If your 'pro work' is indistinguishable from 'basement designer work' to 99% of people who see it, it's really not worth paying more for.

Real designers... This is directly because of unnatural competition from unqualified people.

How is it "unnatural" for artists to have to compete with other artists? If your work isn't good enough for people to distinguish it from unqualified, fake designer's work, then it sounds to me like your qualifications aren't as real as you think.


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plastictrees wrote:Baring pedantic dictionary definitions, you aren't a professional just because someone pays you to do something. There's a certain level of quality required and it does matter, which is why it's important to educate people about the impact of quality work.

You're a professional at X if you either get paid for X, or (in the more restrictive definition) make a living doing X. That's it, that's what the word means. If I open a restaurant, cook at it, and make money on it, I'm a professional chef. You might think my food is crap, or that I didn't go to school enough, or that someone more educated would appreciate your food more than mine, but that doesn't matter.

OP: Gee whiz, calm down.

It's a contest for a game store selling army men. How big of a budget do you think they have? Prolly almost none. It's not like Microsoft was here asking for a free logo and seriously, how long does it take to make a new logo? Maybe a 10 minute doodle on a sketch pad, another half hour tops in photoshop or illustrator.

I've been a designer for 20 years now. 45 minutes worth of work for some free minis sounds like a heluva deal to me.

Did you enter and not get picked and thats why you're bitter? who cares. it's a contest for army men on a message board. it's not the end of the world (till 2012).

You guys didn't listen to a thing I said. Ouze you completely missed the point, instead of getting pissy and clever, try actually reading what I wrote before trying to contradict me. I specifically said they don't need a degree necessarily, but they do need training.

Designers aren't artists, they are service providers. Design has nothing to do with 'expressing your feelings' and everything to do with providing a client something they like that pleases them, is viable, researched and usable. The logo is only the first step, it only gets more complex after that, technically, artistically and business wise. If you think a designer just does 'art' then good luck to you.

If you are working as a designer you should be able to educate your clients on the best way to go about things, if you can't do that because you just know photoshop and never looked at fontography, business design, marketing, print and web standards, customer relations, legal considerations, etc, then a designer you are not. You are just calling yourself one. Its not complicated, stop trying to put words in my mouth and listen to what I'm actually saying, not what you want me to be saying. If you won't take the word of a guy with 10 years experience, self-trained and degrees both, and just think its some pissing contest with these guys who charge 10 bucks an hour 'stealing my business' then there is nothing I will say that will get you to actually pay attention. The fact is they aren't stealing any business off my plate, as arrogant as it may sound, we arent even playing in the same league. That's not ego, it's just fact. The companies I deal with would never do business with a solitary free lancer, they are looking for studio/agency work. So as you can see, inferring I have personal animosity or competition when it's nothing of the kind is really derailing this thread off an honest conversation and point I was trying to make. Disagree if you want, you are absolutely entitled to it, but don't try and make me sound like a child whos arguments are brought on by jealousy of the competition, with no actual experience or logical argument.

Back OT, the contest was fine, Empchild is happy with his logo and congrats to a deserving winner, nothing wrong happend on that thread.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting with Reebok to prep for

daedalus wrote:In this day and age, there is "Quality" and then there is "Good Enough". The trend is to side with "Good Enough". This is why companies lease hardware instead of buying it. They're technically getting a worse deal, but it suits them more at the time.

Not necessarily, as there's no disposition cost / liability on the back end, plus a lot of physical maintenance cost can be pushed onto the lessor. You need to look at the big picture of lifecycle cost, which is more than just the acquisition on the front end.

As I see it, in a corporate environment, it makes sense to own servers for semi-permanent data / IP storage, but little sense to own commodity terminals or workstation.

MajorTom11 wrote:There aren't many other fields other than creative ones where you can just arbitrarily decide to be professional. Im a writer. Im a designer. Im a photographer. Im a painter. That can be pulled off at a whim, at least to get 1 job lol. Not so much with other stuff like I'm a financial advisor, Im a fireman or shockingly enough, even Im a taxi driver.

OMG yes, don't get me started.

You should try being a writer in the age of blogging. "See, I'm a pro! I have a blog!"

rdlb wrote:Most likely doesn't cut it, that is not what's happening.

A legitimate job like this, includes a promise of future contract work.

As it is it's basically damaging the graphic arts business by putting downward pressure on prices so people can't survive as graphic artists.

If you were aware of the situation on a scale larger than this one contest you might understand my objections.

Considering that I linked to NoSpec, on the first post on the contest, and that then generated some discussion, they probably are aware...

LOL hey it's not like they teach you anything at school for 3+ years other than how to type and register a blog right lol

Literary history? Proper referencing? Different writing styles? Proper grammar and sentence structure? How to write for corporate, literary or journalism? Sourcing and protecting your work? Liability issues? Format? Cultural awareness? Proper procedure?

Nah. Just a keyboard and how to mash it. I'm a writer!

It's not like it's our job to be an expert on the subject and help a client achieve MORE than they envisioned when they came to us, or protect them from mistakes and yes sometimes even themselves! Frankly they could do it themselves just as well but they just come to us to save time right???

Ouze wrote:
No, I get it. You make it plain: You're not really a professional unless you've got a piece of paper declaring it so, and innate talent and practice are not relevant. I personally disagree with you.

Being a Professional, can also be a matter of attitude, a while ago I saw a artist complaigning that they didn't get a "professional" standard of service at the art show of a sci-fi con, considering the staff there were all voulenteers, I pointed out that it was a little much to expect.

There is something to be said for some experience in the field, specifically with industry printing and format standards, I saw a post in the original thread that said the entry would probably be best submitted in .psd... this is actually fairly bad...(the best way would probably be .eps or .ai) first off PSD files can't be resized with out loss of quality, they're -bigger- than vector files, and there's the whole RGB/CYMK/Pantone color set issues to reproducing them correctly.. someone with the training and experience, -knows- this and knows how to deliver something that can be used... so the client doesn't find they have a design that -looks- great, but they have to go running back to the designer,or hire someone else because they can't -use- it.

Yeh well this competition wasn't catching my interest until I learnt we have two other pro designers have laready entered, and one who seems fairly up his own arse about how good he is. Maybe I'll be the third.

edit: I see now it's already ended, ....though it's not October first yet. hmmm oh well

Also to the OP, there is nothing wrong with this. This is the kind of stuff you put on your CV when your starting a design career. You don't get paid graphic design work without experience, and you wont get experience without offering your services for free. I won stuff like an xbox, a pc and the adobe creative suite for example in competitions like this when I started out.

I have to say I have seen plenty of high price, professional design work, which was absolute pants, punted at my company. We bought a lot of it, too.

So you're complaining that you can't compete with "amateurs," because the people who are actually purchasing the product can't tell the difference between your "professional" output, and even prefer the "amateur" work? And that someone should step in and put a stop to this outrage of people being rewarded for this travesty of providing a satisfactory product and being compensated for it, because you aren't getting paid for it yourself?

Get over yourself.

Sigh I give up, you guys have your hissy fits all you want lol. Anyone who will actually READ MY POSTS and wants to engage in an actual conversation about it with logical discourse, let me know. Looks like anyone reading stops at the 1st or second line, gets irate and then posts I can't compete wa wa wa....

For the billionth time, I do pretty well for myself, I don't compete with them, because I work corporate clients only. That's not getting up my own butt, it's just a fact. My clients would never, ever hire a single person, only agencies.

So, if you actually get over yourself and actually read everything I wrote, even if you don't agree with me, it's not a nutty rant on amateurs taking my money. They are posts about respecting hard work, training in any form, and knowing how to deliver a professional product. Stop being a self righteous ass and do your homework reading everything I wrote before posting pissyness at me boy.

I have to agree with MajorTom in that I think you guys might be misunderstanding his posts. As a person who's done a LOT of AMATEUR design work (short videos, logos put on T-shirts/posters/fliers, and the like) there is such a crazy difference between someone like me (with some skill, imho, but no training) over someone who does this for a living / is a "professional".

In the group I did this for (all of us volunteering) there was one professional also donating his time. Our work was night and day. At a glance, it might look about the same. But if you wanted to re-scale it, print it, put it on the website, alter the colors, use the same font/style for another image, etc... the amateurs' work was not reproducible, whereas the professional's was.

I think MajorTom was mostly pointing out how pros need to price themselves accordingly, but it's hard to find people who will pay when they can get good logos like this. In the long run, though, if your company has the money to invest in a professional logo, it will pay off.

Just my $0.02 and my understanding of the posts, of course!

SINCERE THANK YOU RiTides!

That is exactly what I was getting at.

Logos can be put together fairly easily, and yes, you can please a client with relatively little effort and training. But after that, when you start putting together the corporate identities, print campaigns, marketing strategies, web sites with Search Engine Optimization, Content Management Systems, Custom Carts, you can't just wing it. You can't just chuck it out there by pressing a button. It takes time to learn how to do these things, and if you are promising all the above, you owe it to the client to know what you are doing because that is exactly what they expect when they hire you. I learned to do 90% of this stuff outside of school, on my own or on the job, but it still took years and it will continue til I retire...

In addition to the above, the job could encompass focus groups, copywriting, animations, storyboards, tv commercials, smart phone apps, security, image creation, presentations etc etc etc. Logo's are a tiny part of things covered by a 'professional designer'.

I dunno guys, I apologize for coming off wrong, I wasn't looking to get in an argument with anyone. I just hope if you look at that list above, you can understand why I would not be fond of people thinking design is just making pretty pictures.

Well I understand that but having a competition gets publicity and respect for winning in most cases, portfolios are strong things to have.

I'm a website designer (designed sites that the owner sold for over $40,000) and even though its a different fields everyone is looking for the cheapest route for what they want and it's harmful to your pocket. But I see nothing wrong with the thought of holding competitions, the artist enters on there own knowing what they are getting into and the company's know they in most cases they wont get top notch stuff. Its a win-win for more expensive work you have to show boat your portfolio.

Lol . Yeah, I'm not sure where the miscommunication is happening- it might just be a lot of people reacting to perceived exorbitant fees for low quality art, or something similar.

But having seen this kind of contrast up close (between my work and the pro I volunteered with ) I know what you're talking about . My work was good, and fine for our purposes, but a company would've done well to pay 5x more for the pro's work and be able to use it where/when/how they needed it, with the same level of quality across the board!

I'm sure you did fine work sir

And it seems like you picked up some habit tips from the pro on how to make sure the logos are universally applicable, which means you can deliver to the client without them coming back and telling you 'I printed it on a banner for a conference and it looked like it was made of pixels the size of bricks!' lol!