Logo Hell

The long and short of it, don't use online logo companies to save money. In fact, don't use them at all.

As a small business start up, I was working to keep expenses down and thought an online service would be a suitable replacement. Despite what Wired said about thelogocompany.net, they are not a suitable replacement for a real, live, talented individual or group of designers. I apologize to all of my graphic design friends for attempting to commoditize their skill!

I do know enough to not design a logo myself. I have now learned enough to say only trust a trained professional to create your logo. Don't try this at home! After showing a logo I can honestly say I was excited about to my design friends, they were quiet or nodded. One friend piped up and said she would rather design me a logo for free than let "bad design" be out in the world. Ouch!

The sad thing is, turns out she is right. When I contacted the Logo Company and told them of my dissatisfaction (admittedly, after I had signed off on the logo), they asked what I wanted changed. My answer? YOU are the experts. You need to fix it. There were apparently kerning and quality problems I wouldn't know to look at. After a final round of emails, I got a few tweaks to my design from them but nothing lovely resembling the work from Geez Louise.

It doesn't look like I will get my money back, but I can keep you from losing yours with a seriously sub-par online provider.

Hopefully, you can tell, but on the top is the Logo Company's design and on the bottom Geez Louise. Your vote?