Sunday, January 15, 2023

How to get a professional logo designer - work on your much-needed company logo


 Types of Logo Designers

  1. High-end 
  2. Mid-level cutting corners to serve to let more Small and Medium Enterprises afford quality Logo Designers
  3. Low-end - Printing press Designers, online marketplaces etc.

1.) High-end and Mid-level providers usually offer the same quality and are usually equally experienced.

High-end designers are given high budget to deliver high quality work at the quickest time with 3 options at least at a time the client requests for.

2.) Mid-level providers: if they lower the rates that means they accommodate small entrepreneurs to get good quality work.But at a longer time duration, and with extreme etiquette and protocol to follow through and interact with each other with personal attention. So, In return they expect accommodative, low pressure and ethical behavior for the favor these high-end design houses provide you the client.

3.) Low-end designers are the least reliable because their over-heads are very small to none and it is ok for the small entrepreneur to be over-vigilant, working with this category of designers who may have 

  1. Come up the ranks without education, 
  2. Without proper experience and 
  3. Without exposure and work ethics and 
  4. And may also not be reliable and not well-rounded because their only purpose is delivering design like a commodity and object or cheap mass produced item. 

When an item is delivered, mass-produced just as there are many manufacturing defects because of no personalized production methods, we get cheap stuff from cheap companies who may not even be having a recognized license. For example, either a visiting designer who does not have a license to work in the UAE or who works online-meaning they do not have any license except a free registration on the various marketplaces for instance, not costing them anything.

This crop of designers cannot be compared to the real life Designers offering personalized service.

Most/all professional real branding designers ask for a 50% advance. Whereas online marketplaces becoming popular because of the low price factor, do not require the client to pay a 50% advance to go to the designer, instead they have an Esgrow account. The designers here are quite unsure of how the job online may turn out and sadly work with some suspicion of the situation whether this amount in the Esgrow account will come to them or not (work with real questions whether the client may cancel midway, what if they do then they go through the hassle of filing a dispute which in case may result in them getting the advance or not. In most-likely situations the designer does not get the money that was locked up in an Esgrow account while they started work. So there is always a designer working with suspicion of this system. In some cases we find the freelancer has disappeared with a no-show on a delivery date. I have experienced this sitting in both sides as a designer and a client. And so the client also has a good reason to stay / work with a certain amount of suspicion. 

Sadly many times, jobs here turn out shaudy because designers are cutting down quality, support because they can't afford to offer perfect service when they are not paid commensurate to the job. Working online or getting to know someone online (basically with a faceless account) has it’s big drawbacks. Although in rare cases, if managed well or out of sheer luck, good jobs have come to be. Such design-services and real life designers cannot be gauged side-by-side with online providers under the same umbrella of expertise and know-how and work ethics. There is always value in a one-to-one personal interaction and High-end and Mid-range providers have to be recognized accordingly and treated as such, above cheap and bad work for the passion and care they offer among good design delivery and proven real-life records.

Benefits:

  1. The protocol is have a contract (through direct payment) between you and the artist.
  2. Choosing (1) or (2) is a sure way for a unique design, personalized.
  3. After the payment 50% advance you set the time for the first draft. 
  4. Provide all the supporting material. Exhaustive info to help the design team to come up with a design proposal for the logo.
  5. The artist may give 2 or 3 options or just one based on your agreement and the value of the project.
  6. Look at the explanation on the supporting research material.

Problems may arise if:

  1. If you are not convinced by the design this is your opportunity to make changes based on what is provided to you. 
  2. If you find it is completely off-track. List down specific points why and check if you have given enough reference to the creative team to help them with the research into your expertise and field. 
  3. If you have failed to already give it, then it is your call to make amends and provide more information at your expense because if you did not get what you looked for 
  4. or don’t know what you are looking for, chances are that the designers will not be able to provide you an agreeable logo.

What you can do to resolve any issue:

  1. And they just can’t keep churning out designs after designs with no clue. That is wasting either party’s time. Because the artists are designers and if you have asked and settled with the lowest value affordable to you, the artists will be there only to design for you and you have to be providing them with all research material in your field of expertise.
  2. Remember that the artist is not an expert in your field and they don’t have the ability to research beyond being the color and compositing masters to create that unique logo for you with the knowledge you provide them about the business and market.
  3. If you need their expanded expertise, you will have to keep in mind that you should be able to extend a larger budget for the creative team to bring in branding and communication consultants beyond pure design.