justification for expensive logos...

[Jason Fraker]

I suppose graphic design could be likened to clothes shopping. There are three main catagories of clothes shoppers:

1) The people who don't care what the clothes look like, as long as they're cheap and they fit. These people shop wherever the close-out sales or outlet malls are.

2) People who want to look fashionable, but not take out a second mortgage in order to do so. They also can be heard saying things like "How can you charge $200 for jeans? They're just jeans!!"

3) People who have the budget and fashion knowledge that will not allow them to buy clothes at Old Navy, but only places like Gucci, Armani, Saks...you get the picture. They are very much concerned with projecting a certain image at any cost.

There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those mentalities. They all end up with clothes on their back, and life goes on. However, there's something to be said for top quality merchandise and the benefits that come with it...but, let's face it, they ARE just jeans.

The question I hoped to get to before now is this: How do designers bill a client like Cingular (who recently changed their logo from all orange to blue and orange) when the actual design aspect of the job is a no-brainer? The same question goes to huge companies with simple typography for a logo. I am not much of a logo designer anyway, but I'm curious about companies paying $75k for a very simple logo that truthfully couldn't have taken much of a creative investment to produce.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the company SHOULDN'T pay that much, I'm just wondering how it got to be that way in the first place. Surely some of you Prada-level guys can enlighten me.

[PrintDriver]

You need to find out how much of that is actually paid to the designers and how much of that is paid to the law firm doing the extensive, exhaustive trademark search to be sure there is no infringement (how would you like to be the firm who did Quark's LOL!)

[carter the artist]

Let's not forget that the Right way of creating a logo, or actually a "Brand", is more time and cost than plucking initials into a square or putting a pretty piece of eyecandy to a few letters. The truth is, to properly do it you must do some research. Look at the competition. Look at the company. Look to the future of the company and where they want to go.

After A LOT of research, you may be ready to do some conceptual thinking and sketching.

After A WHOLE LOT of Sketches, you sketch some more.

Now you can try to build a few good ideas.

Take those few good ideas to a client.... Where you get to deal with the fun game of move this and recolor that....

But it is a Whole Lot Of hard work, when done properly. Important: "WHEN DONE PROPERLY!"

[John G]

Supply and demand.

Finde a niche, market yourself, get work, do work.
"wow, apparently we do really good work, we're completely flooded with work we're doing and we have to turn away tons and tons of potential customers".

Reputation +1
Raise prices.

"well we're making better money now, our product is great, we can afford more qualified and experienced personel, and we're even attracting some upper tier customers. But unfortunately we're still having to turn away potential customers."

Reputation +1
Raise prices.

"wow, finally the upper tier clients. Business is great! We've got experienced personel and quality is great! Our prices seem just about right. We keep up a good profit margin for company expansion, but it's not too high that we can't get good well paying companies who expect quality and blah blah what we offer."

Reputation +1

Such is capatilism and the all mighty dollar.

[Broacher]

Big company logo costs really distort the reality of design work. Like PD and Carter said, there's a lot more at those levels then sketching out a few ideas and working them up into an AI file. But when you look at what's at stake, there's probably less money as a percentage of annual profit being invested in these big company efforts than most of the mid and smaller companies.

[Jason Fraker]

I realize that in the typical case, there is a LOT of time and creative energy invested in the creation of a logo (or brand, if you'd rather), but I was mainly curious about when an established brand (in my example, Cingular) makes a minor change to their logo (in my example, highlight the word Cingular, and click the blue swatch in illustrator). I'm sure they used whomever created the logo in the first place to make the revision. I just wonder what the invoice from said firm might have said under "item description" that makes whatever enormous price listed to the right seem OK to Cingular.

You guys answered my question very well, I'm just revising the question a little...kinda like Cingular :)

[Broacher]

The best example of a minimal 'revamp' I've ever come across was when Bruce Mau (Toronto Designer) was contracted to redo the MOMA logo. Here's the story (in GIF format): http://www.underconsideration.com/random/nyt-moma-article.gif

[undressedmonster]

I'm sure they used whomever created the logo in the first place to make the revision.

Maybe, but not necessarily. The General Electric logo comes to mind. Check out this article on the SpeakUp website (http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/002021.html) where they show the "changes" that Landor and later Wolff Olins made to the original logo from the 1800s. I wonder how much those changes cost.

As far as the Cingular logo, a color change is a bit more significant. I'm no expert, but I would guess that there was some research that came before that change. Perhaps they were conducting a bi-annual brand evaluation (not a bad idea IMHO) and had a design firm do some research on their brand perception at that time. From that research they determine blue would be better (more legible, perhaps) than orange. Then they revise the logo design.

Three months of research time: $xxx,xxx
One week revising logo: $x,xxx

My question is what the heck will happen to Cingular now that AT&T...er, at&t, is back in control of the brand. Personally I think that was the dumbest mistake they could make. The at&t brand is so diluted after all these mergers and splits and buyouts. Whereas the Cingular brand was specific to wireless cellphones and that's it. Oh well for them, I'm still not buying an iPhone.

[Jason Fraker]

maybe the color change at Cingular was meant to transition into the at&t buyout, or whatever it was. I'm not sure if it's the same blue.

As for MoMA and GE, I guess I'm just missing something. This seems to be the graphic design equivilent to NASA's $4000 toilet seats. The fact that 99.9% of people can't tell a difference even at close inspection speaks pretty loudly to me.

The whole thing reminds me of the comparing business cards scene in American Psycho, which can be viewed here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoIvd3zzu4Y

[DougFa]

I agree with Carter. It is all about brand at that level.

As the brand infiltrates almost every facet of the company you can see how it is not taken lightly.

It is definately worth it to a company with resources who want a new look or to improve an old one.

So it goes WAY beyond a "logo"

Doug

[carter the artist]

Maybe, but not necessarily. The General Electric logo comes to mind. Check out this article on the SpeakUp website (http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/002021.html) where they show the "changes" that Landor and later Wolff Olins made to the original logo from the 1800s. I wonder how much those changes cost.

Ha ha, you said Wolff Olins...

[Jason Fraker]

I hope I don't sound like those jackasses who look at a Jackson Pollock or Keifer painting and say "my 2-year-old can do that". If that's the case, the 1,000 apologies.

[MPI]

I think a lot has to do with the mentality of mega-middle management: If you hire ultra expensive "experts" no one can accuse you of doing a bad job, and therefore you're safe at annual review time.

Add to that the layers upon layers of approvials, endless meetings, obssesive focus group testing - big companies are just costly to work for.

But I agree. It's silly that an identical logo should be worth different amounts to different companies.

[carter the artist]

I'll let it slide today. :)

[LeftBrain Artist]

Usually, I'd bet logo redesigns that come with a high price tag are justified by the amount of time the designer(s) put into thousands of alternate, minute adjustments - many, many, many rounds of subsequent presentations and analysis by various committees, subcommittees and focus groups, color studies possibly including hiring panels of "experts" in color psycology, launch parties in New York penthouses catered by Emeril - theoretically, you could work on any project - logo, catalog, brochure - indefinitely with an assigned team of designers at your disposal to endlessly churn out variations until the end of time, getting paid on a regular basis (the ideal design job).

Bureaucracy is expensive.

[budafist]

I guess what is strange to me is that with the fashion example, you pay a fortune for designer jeans so that people can see your designer jeans and know that they're designer jeans.

With a logo, is it obvious which logo is the designer logo compared to merely the "fashionable" example number 2 logo?

Sure, it can be quite obvious at times which logo is the outlet mall logo, but these things vary so much.

Can you tell from looking at a logo how much someone paid for it? Of course not.

[carter the artist]

Can you tell from looking at a logo how much someone paid for it? Of course not.

Not exactly but sometimes you can tell they didn't pay very much for it.

[captain spanky]

I think a lot has to do with the mentality of mega-middle management: If you hire ultra expensive "experts" no one can accuse you of doing a bad job, and therefore you're safe at annual review time.

i think that's what a lot of it boils down to.