Got Logo
What do you need when you start a company? A concept? A business plan? Team bonding sessions? Bullocks! What you need is a logo! So without further ado, I created an account on logotournament.com and posted a description of what we wanted to see in our logo... or something like that.
For those of you who don't know logotournament.com, it's one of these crowd-sourcing platforms specifically for the creation of logos (seems were not the only startup without a graphical designer). To start a logo contest, you submit a high-level description of what you'd like the logo to represent and pay upfront the prize reward (the logotournament plays the middleman role). Later, you rate the logos that other people submit; a very satisfying process for the ego. In the end, the winner takes it all. Number 2 and 3 get a virtual pat on the back.
So how do you get other people to develop something you want but have no idea what it should look like? Most of all how do you not constrain the overall creativity potential? Well, you start by writing a description in what I call "horoscopic" style. Basically you make sure that your statements apply to pretty much anything:
- Color, but not too much...
- Something graphical, yet sober...
- Express boldness, but remain elegant...
- Show taste and fashion...
A couple of hours after posting the description and reward (in our case 400 dollars), the first designs started trickling in. At that point, it is important to incessantly provide personal feedback to individual designers: at least once a day. Be nice, but keep pushing them, most importantly in different directions. Some we pushed into graphical logos, others just simple text, some in color, some in black and white. Another trick is never to provide your true ranking but to put in first position the image you think has most potential or demonstrates an interesting idea.
The contest lasted for a week and be warned if you try: the final hours are pure hectic. More than half of our logos were submitted on the last day with everyone blindly copying the image holding position number 1. The contest ended how they all should: we did a group vote and determined the final ranking during the last minute.
When the contest ends, this doesn't yet mean that the logo is determined. You still have one week, but can only communicate with the contest leader. The trick is that you are still free to change the ranking and determine a new leader; so you still have leverage. Of course we did not do anything cruel, but we did make him churn out several additional concepts and enhancements, including separate black and white background versions. In the end, the guy got his money and we got our logos. I warmly recommend using the logotournament platform to anyone in the need of similar services. What do you think of our new logos?
