Crowdsourcing

22. January 2010 by Aidan.

While I was in San Francisco last week I had the opportunity to attend one of the AIGA’s D.Talks events. The theme of last weeks event was “Crowdsourcing“. The event was well run with Josh Levine of Great-Monday as moderator and a panel consisting of Jason Aiken (99designs.com), Jody Turner (Cultureoffuture.com) and Christopher Simmons (MINE).

The mood in the room (full of graphic designers) was predominantly of gloom over the threat from crowdsourcing websites, such as 99designs.com where you can get a logo designed for about $300. The concern was that this was undermining what these professional designers were offering for 10 times the price. The argument for the crowdsourcing side was that the low price attracts many businesses that would have never paid a designer for a logo and it also allows designers to build a portfolio of work based on the submissions.

It went around in circles for a while but what it ultimately comes down to, as I said on the night, is that when you are buying a logo on a website for $300 you are buying a product. When you work with a designer to develop a logo for your business you are purchasing a service and you are paying a premium to develop a relationship with the designer, work through a design process with them and ultimately end up with a logo that is more meaningful to you and your business. (Of course it may or may not look better than the $300 logo - that’s a matter of taste!).

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