Design Contest vs. In-House Design

[RWakefield]

I have an interesting conundrum (I take any chance I can get to use the term "conundrum").

I am the only graphic designer at my company, and hence get to touch a wide variety of projects. Mostly I do sales support material which can get very tedious and boring. You can imagine my dismay when the decision to redesign one of our corporate brand logos came through, and my boss decided to give it her husband's 3rd year graphic design students as an exercise and design contest. This was done unbeknown to me until after the winning logo had been chosen. At no point was I involved in the creative process. I just today finally got a chance to see the winning entry, and I was fairly dismayed with the final product. It's not great, IMHO. Good concept, poorly executed.

But, add on to this the fact that there is talk of redesigning another one of our corporate brand logos. My boss's first reaction was to give it to her these design students again as another design contest - and she was worried that there may not be enough time to get them to go through the process. It took my coordinator to "remind" her that I was capable of doing something. My boss's reaction was to remark "We'll have to see what kind of time he has".

Granted, I am busy with a lot of projects. Am I amiss in thinking that I should at least be consulted on my workload before jobs like this are shunted off to my boss's significant other, or a classroom of graphic design students? Am I amiss in thinking that I should have at least been part of the process of the first brand logo redesign?

I'm concerned that much of my frustration over this is just sour grapes, so I'm looking for some opinions. There's a lot of talented, experienced people here. What would you do?

As an aside - what are peoples' thoughts/opinions on design contests and the use of winning entries as commercially used logos? Does the winning student need to be paid for the work? Is the logo legally the property of the company if no money has exchanged hands? What are the in's and out's of this sort of situation?

Thanks for your time and opinions. I'm really at my wit's end, here.

R.

[morea]

Send him here: no spec: an analogy (http://www.no-spec.com/articles/an-analogy/)

or www.no-spec.com (the main page)

[MD]

It's really a win/win situation for your boss and the students. She gets 20 or so designers working on the logo and the class gets a little bit of real world experience. Legally I don't think they need to be paid, I kinda view this like an internship - Experience=payment, but I am not a lawyer.

Sorry to hear about you getting overlooked at work. Her husband probably needed a project to work on in class and your boss was more than happy to help out. The results were probably better than she expected seeing that they are 3rd year students and it was free.

[budafist]

Well I think that is a lousy way to treat an inhouse designer. You should have ben consulted every step of the way - if not given the job redesign job to begin with.

I personally think giving students real jobs as a contest is an excellent idea, but the the winning design should be compensated with $$. I mean, you do so much fake designing as a student, I don't think it hurts to do some real jobs. Too much of student design work is done in a vacuum and without the client in mind.

Saying that, I think it is a wonderful way for Institutes to "give back" to the community by working for charity organisations in the same way. We had a job for Amnesty International. Great organisation and cause.

Commercial companies that are just looking for free work however, well they can just burn.

[Calligirl]

I think in your case, I'd have sour grapes too. It's a nice ego boost to redesign someone's logo and even though you're their designer, they didn't come to you. And now, you're stuck with having to use the darn thing.

On the other hand, as a current student, it's such a wonderful chance to learn real world projects and having to produce for a client instead of a grade. Pleasing a teacher affects your grade, pleasing a client affects your income (in theory!) and it's nice to know if you're up to the challenge. Am I putting out professional work and if not, what am I lacking?

The other thought is that if they are willing to trust their logo to student work, they don't think much of their logo's importance, do they?

Interesting situation there, RWakefield. Whatever happens, maintain your professionalism!

[RWakefield]

it's such a wonderful chance to learn real world projects and having to produce for a client instead of a grade.

I think if students want a chance to learn real world projects, they should try to produce mass quantities of tedious, uninteresting pages filled with technical mumbo-jumbo and specifications. Make sure to fit four days worth of work into eight hours! :)

Thank you for your opinions. I have come to the realization that a lot of what I am feeling is sour grapes - but a good deal is also justifiable frustration and disappointment in management.

I have decided to take a wait-and-see position with this second logo. I am going to make sure that my desire to work on it is known and then watch where it goes. If it disappears without a word to an outside designer, I will voice my concerns not only with my boss, but with my boss's boss. If I need to go to our company's human resources department as well, I'm willing to do that.

As a former student I do understand the excitement involved in getting to work on a real client's logo. However, as an in-house graphic designer I believe that I should have first right of refusal on any project that comes through our department, and that I should at the very least be kept abreast of projects that are being filtered to an outside designer. I also feel that because of my position here I should be involved in the direction of work being done outside.

I may have shot myself in the foot for past projects for not making these opinions of mine known to my boss - I made an assumption that this was just how things were going to work. They're not, and now I'm in the boat that I'm in.

We'll see how it goes!

R.