Don’t ask us to judge your logos!

How many postings have we seen where a person is asking you to choose between options A, B, C or D for their companies logo or business? This is not only happening on LinkedIn, but everywhere on social media. It’s becoming a huge pet peeve of mine when I come across a posting asking to make a decision on one logo or design over another option. It not only diminishes and insults the entire design community as a whole, but it completely delegitimizes your own business and professional standard amongst the business community and your peers.

Some of these postings are cat-fishing, click-baiting you or just to drive up engagement so they can go viral. But more than once they are legitimate business owners or start-ups who do not want to spend the extra money on hiring a professional agency, free-lance designer or they did it themselves without any design experience. What ends up happening is that everyone starts to weigh in and provide subjective opinions, without any knowledge or background on the business or brand.

It’s playing Russian Roulette with your business and livelihood.

Trust me in the earlier days I used to fall into the trap myself and spend time giving constructive feedback, thinking I’m providing a professional service or simply being a good representative of the design community. But as I see more and more of these posts, with bad designs and lackluster opinions, I can’t feel but remorse for business owners or companies who are going to end up with a bad logo representing their product or brand. There is no sense of ownership or creative direction in helping someone make a bad or worse decision. The equivalent of doing this is, would be if you put your newborns picture up and ask strangers in the street to select a name for your child by asking them to choose between options A, B, C or D?

Your logo is personal and important to you.

If you are really serious about your brand or your business, you will also be serious about the investment your are about to make in creating your brand or product. Your logo is the representation and outward first expression of your product to the outside world. If it looks cheap or unprofessional, the perception will translate onto your product as well. There is no shame in being a small business or having a great idea with little or no capital to begin with. Even Apple and Amazon started from a garage. But to risk the failure of your brand by crowdsourcing your logo is just asking for you to start on the wrong foot.

We’ve all heard the famous story of how Carolyn Davidson, while she was a graphic design student at Portland State University. It was here that she met Phil Knight, who was at the time teaching accounting classes at the university. Knight had overheard that Davidson was in search of extra funds in order for her to take oil painting classes, so he offered to pay Davidson to do some freelance work for his company, Blue Ribbon Sports (later Nike, Inc.) Knight offered to pay Davidson $2 per hour (about $14 per hour today) for the work that she completed (source: Wikipedia). The rest is history and Carolyn has been compensated for creating the greatest logo ever since in millions of dollars worth of Nike stocks shares.

The point is that designing your logo goes much deeper than asking people for their opinions on font selection or color options. It’s about working with a designer or agency that can help you create a valuable conversation about your business and provide particular knowledge that cannot be distilled down to a text message or a menu of four options.

Finally, designers and studios do make a living at designing logos and brands and asking them to provide free online feedback is the equivalent of you giving out your product for free to anyone who shows up at your door.

Its just bad for business and for you.