Milton Glaser got paid!

[G-Man79]

I'm not sure if the elected officials in Glens Falls are just morons or Milton Glaser is a smooth operator but a logo + a poster for $25K is beyond crazy IMO. What do you think about it? (pic of logo in the article link)

Logo not worth the price tag (http://www.poststar.com/articles/2007/04/26/opinion/editorials/034d7e86907df6ad852572c900111092.txt)
Our view: Glens Falls logo design should have been open to local artists.

This is the kind of economic development thinking that got us the Burger King at the five-way intersection.

The Glens Falls Industrial Development Agency and the city of Glens Falls said last week that they're spending $25,000 on a new logo to celebrate the city's centennial.

Exactly how is wasting $25,000 on a logo something to celebrate, especially when the city has so many other more pressing economic development needs that could have been addressed with that money? There are many local artists and companies that might have been able to provide the same service at a much lower cost.

The new logo for the upcoming city centennial features a window with rays of sunshine at the top. It was designed by artist Milton Glaser. Most of us have never heard of him. For those who haven't, he came up with the idea of putting a heart between the "I" and "NY" in the "I Love New York" campaign. He's also designed some posters you might have seen. But he's not exactly Andy Warhol as far as being a household name.

We don't have a problem with what he came up with necessarily. The logo is fine. And the artist does have some credentials.

But $25,000?

Really?

Certainly there were better uses for the IDA's cash than commissioning a drawing to put on lapel pins and posters. Didn't the city once have an issue with the appearance of plywood covering the windows of vacant downtown buildings? How about using the money to pay for real windows? And there must be one or two downtown businesses that could use help sprucing up their facades or converting their second floors to apartments, helping bring more residents downtown. Don't like those ideas? Come up with your own list of downtown's needs that could benefit from $25,000. See where the logo winds up on that list.

As for the design of the logo itself, why go to an outside source?

There are plenty of local artists and marketing firms capable of designing an equally attractive logo who could have been solicited to contribute a design. The Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council is located right behind City Hall. Why weren't its resources tapped for a design? Or some famous local artist, like Loren Blackburn or Cate Mandigo, someone with a long-standing personal relationship with the Glens Falls area? What about a talented art student at ACC or BOCES?

Why not take bids from one of the local marketing/design firms or one of the many independent designers who do this sort of thing for a living and could have used the exposure from creating the logo?

Or maybe the city could have opened the design of the logo up to the public and had a contest to select the best one from a group, drawing more regular folks into the centennial experience.

In exchange for making this contribution to the future of downtown, the city might have ended up getting the logo for free, for a modest stipend or in exchange for a share of the profits from the sale of merchandise bearing the logo. Certainly it could have been had for far less than $25,000.

This was a chance for the city to not only get a quality logo at a bargain price, but to promote the talents of the people who live and do business in Glens Falls. It was an opportunity missed.

A window logo for Glens Falls is appropriate. On this decision, the city had the blinds closed.

[reuber1]

Why not take bids from one of the local marketing/design firms or one of the many independent designers who do this sort of thing for a living and could have used the exposure from creating the logo?

Or maybe the city could have opened the design of the logo up to the public and had a contest to select the best one from a group, drawing more regular folks into the centennial experience.

In exchange for making this contribution to the future of downtown, the city might have ended up getting the logo for free, for a modest stipend or in exchange for a share of the profits from the sale of merchandise bearing the logo. Certainly it could have been had for far less than $25,000.
:rolleyes:

[Drorain]

milton is worth every penny, they commisioned a good name to do the project, and so he can bill them whatever he wants. once they sign on the dotted line it's not Milton's problem. The voters of the town should call the elected officials to account for the spending, but otherwise, thats just business, I won't question someone else's price, good for him in making that much.

Corporations pay far more, you wouldn't believe how much a certain printhouse paid for a logo that looks like a roll of toliet paper (literally)

[mojoprime]

i like the windowpane logos. i think they work well. of course, i don't live there...

[Red Kittie Kat]

Want me to go punch em out G-man? I'm just the other side of the mountain ;)

[Broacher]

$25k for a Glaser logo? I'd say Milton got under-paid.

"The logo is fine. And the artist does have some credentials."


Someone should submit that one into the 'Understater's Hall of Fame'.

[Typically]

where is the logo? i checked the link but couldn't find it

[G-Man79]

The logo:

http://www.adirondackbasecamp.com/basecamp/wp-content/uploads/new_glens_falls_logo.gif

[Drawing a Blank]

The article is misleading. If you read the minutes from the council meeting he got paid $10,000 for the logo and $15,000 for the poster. He was then going to sign 100 copies of the poster so the town could auction them off and recoupe some of their money. The reporter seems woefully uninformed about a lot of things.

[Red Kittie Kat]

Here ya go ... an article with the logo


http://www.poststar.com/articles/2007/04/24/news/local/50c9df5c27af0d91852572c7001090be.txt

[Red Kittie Kat]

whoops gman beat me to it

[G-Man79]

I'm sure the signed prints will sell but I think they went about the whole process was shady. Taxpayer dollars spent out a project without an RFP isn't right.

[Broacher]

My guess is that this story will and probably has already given that small town more free international publicity than the total for that celebrity design bill could ever hope to match.

Hmm... shrewd marketing?

[Drawing a Blank]

I'm sure the signed prints will sell but I think they went about the whole process was shady. Taxpayer dollars spent out a project without an RFP isn't right.

I'm not saying the process was right, but to misrepresent the facts in a printed newspaper article is not defensable. This is directly from the article "Exactly how is wasting $25,000 on a logo something to celebrate" and it is false.

[Drorain]

I'm sure the signed prints will sell but I think they went about the whole process was shady. Taxpayer dollars spent out a project without an RFP isn't right.
Elected officials spending taxpayer dollars, thats what they do. I could say the exact same thing about the US Congress investigating Major League Baseball steroid use. It's a complete waste of money, but I'll remember that when I go to the voting booth.

[SurfPark]

Milton is blameless in this ordeal. He deserves the money for doing the work. The city cousel is going to have to explain to the citizens that the costs were justified. If the city is in economic trouble, then perhaps they should have gone cheaper. You have to wonder if hiring Glaser is part of a PR stunt, since its drumming up news about a city that no one has ever heard of.

[Randomhero]

^, if they contracted him to do a job and agreed to pay him X amount, that is their decidion. No one forced them to take him on. You pay for what you get, and he did a good job.

[The_Black_Knight]

Milton is blameless in this ordeal. He deserves the money for doing the work. The city cousel is going to have to explain to the citizens that the costs were justified. If the city is in economic trouble, then perhaps they should have gone cheaper.This is all true, and the article even states as much.

It doesn't sound like the author of the article has a problem with paying someone for a logo (even though one of the suggestions amounted to spec work, it was only one of several ideas just sort of tossed out there by the author), or even that Glaser charged $25,000 for his work, it's just that a small town hiring Milton Glaser for a new logo seems like overkill, and of little benefit to the town.

It's understandable when New York State hires Milton Glaser to design a logo for the whole state as part of a campaign to increase tourism. It would even be understandable for New York City to do the same for itself. But for a small town to hire Glaser when a local design firm would have been a more economical option seems to be a bit much, and I can understand why taxpayers there would be upset at the decision.

[PrintDriver]

What's even more hysterical is that article was published in April of 2007.
LOLOLOLOLOL
:D

[NTLemon]

lmao PD.

Could be worse, a county next door to mine in Florida recently spent nearly $100,000 for 10 trees to beautify a street. They imported palms from Arizona.... and we live in Florida. *facepalm*

[Typically]

HAHA duhhhh everyone knows that palm trees from arizona are wayyyyyyyyy nicer than the ones in florida =]

[DesignerScott]

That's a mighty expensive jukebox.

[Kool]

lmao PD.

Could be worse, a county next door to mine in Florida recently spent nearly $100,000 for 10 trees to beautify a street. They imported palms from Arizona.... and we live in Florida. *facepalm*

LOL, I can see it now...

Arizona palm tree guy flies to Florida in dead of night, rents flatbed truck, goes off and finds random patch of palm trees, digs up ten and puts em on the truck, stencils MADE IN ARIZONA on each tree and delivers them to city first thing in the morning. Pockets $95,000. :)

[Mynock]

My yearly salary in one day. I'll take it.

[The_Black_Knight]

LOL, I can see it now...

Arizona palm tree guy flies to Florida in dead of night, rents flatbed truck, goes off and finds random patch of palm trees, digs up ten and puts em on the truck, stencils MADE IN ARIZONA on each tree and delivers them to city first thing in the morning. Pockets $95,000. :)You've done work for government clients before, haven't you? ;)

[Broacher]

I dunno.... I think you guys may be doing what we always accuse clients of doing--jumping to cost conclusions without the facts.

It's my guess that it would take a lot more than $10,000 to transport 10 live mature palm trees. Just to get them prepped would be a major task. These things are fragile-- you nick that top heart and they're firewood. As for imported vs. indigenous-- I know that there's a particular virulent virus or something that is killing off American palms all over the coasts-- and if I remember correctly, that's one of the reasons people are turning to desert palms which are resistant to that disease.

Maybe I'm wrong on all of this, but tourism for an area is a big, expensive, long-term project, and a picture of a palm-lined street is likely worth that hundred g's, when you think of what market they're competing for.

Just get the fact first is all I'm asking.

[NTLemon]

I agree with you about the facts of the issue, I delivered the more shorthand version of it but what it came down to was that there were some existing palm trees that already lined one of the other streets and they wanted to use the same ones.

These particular palms were a middle eastern palm and somewhat rare. I'm sure the cost of transporting them and disease resistance among many other factors were evaluated but it kinda came down to the same argument as Milton Glaser's work. Basically they could have got double the trees for the price of only one of the imported trees if they used a local nursery and went with the more common royal palms.

In both cases I think the company that delivered the trees or Glaser's logo work were deserving of their money but whether the city/county necessarily made the best choice in their use of that money is debatable. I certainly think Glaser's work is well worth it but not being familiar with Glen Falls its hard to say whether it was a wise choice in seeking his expertise. I don't agree with the article's stance that it should have been farmed out to the schools or made into a contest though simply because the writer was under the impression that paying for design work wasn't worth it. If they had any local professional firms that could deliver a similar quality of work even if they are not Glaser would have probably made more sense public relations wise and economically if the firm could deliver on what was requested just the same as if an equally good tree could have been purchased from a Florida nursery.

[Kool]

I dunno.... I think you guys may be doing what we always accuse clients of doing--jumping to cost conclusions without the facts.



I can state equivocally that my scenario contained not one single actual fact.

[Yossarian]

Well, according to this article (http://www.poststar.com/articles/2007/06/16/news/local/5fdd367382a2fa4b852572fc0011f844.txt) it wasn't necessarily taxpayer money.
Local sponsors, including Finch, Pruyn & Co., Ames Goldsmith Corp., and the Glens Falls Industrial Development Agency, along with other various businesses and organizations, collectively paid $25,000 to hire Glaser. I suppose the Industrial Development Agency could be getting funds that originate from taxes, but otherwise it sounds like people specifically gave their money to hire Glaser.

[budafist]

$25,000 is not expensive if you compare this kind of job with other cities.

Our city spent close to a million on our logo and it didn't have a famous designer's name tagged to it. I wish I could have told our city council that I would have done it for half price ;)

I think that it is cool that cities are realising how important their logo is to their image.

[Randomhero]

I can state equivocally that my scenario contained not one single actual fact.

The best source of info is the one without facts. Al Gore created the intarweb btw.

[seamas]

Well, according to this article (http://www.poststar.com/articles/2007/06/16/news/local/5fdd367382a2fa4b852572fc0011f844.txt) it wasn't necessarily taxpayer money.
I suppose the Industrial Development Agency could be getting funds that originate from taxes, but otherwise it sounds like people specifically gave their money to hire Glaser.

I suspected as much.
All in all it doesn't strike me as an outrageous situation.
Glens Falls is relatively small, but 25K isn't all that huge an outlay for a town that size for this kind of branding. (especially when you consider the real outlay will be closer to 10K)


The author of the op ed didn't know who Milton Glaser is and assumes no one else it town would.
Gotta love when someone goes out of their way to assume that everyone else harbors the same level of knowledge or less.
Sure, Glaser isn't a household name, but once people in town get wind of his notoriety, they should feel appeased.

[Jeff Fisher LogoMotives]

Why not take bids from one of the local marketing/design firms or one of the many independent designers who do this sort of thing for a living and could have used the exposure from creating the logo?

Or maybe the city could have opened the design of the logo up to the public and had a contest to select the best one from a group, drawing more regular folks into the centennial experience.


NO!SPEC (http://www.no-spec.com/)

In addition, having worked with city and government agencies in the past, I suspect that the Milton Glaser firm earned EVERY cent they were paid during the process.

- J.

[Jeff Fisher LogoMotives]

What's even more hysterical is that article was published in April of 2007.
LOLOLOLOLOL
:D

I thought that was funny, too. The city is STILL getting publicity for a relatively small investment - over a year later!

- J.

[Randomhero]

No publicity is bad publicity? This is true tho. Remeber when 300 was getting banned in the middle east for having a "racists" portrail of the persions. It only got the movie more viewers hehe.

[garricks]

Good point, Jeff. Richmond Heights, a suburb of St. Louis, had a logo design contest several years ago. The winning logo was OK, but there was absolutely no buzz created by its launch and it's largely forgotten outside their city limits today.

[PrintDriver]

This almost looks like a hit made during a research project and posted here to drum up angst of some kind.

I have no doubt either that they earned every penny of it.

An interesting project would be to contact the town and find out if their Glaser logo has indeed produced any measurable upswing in tourism in the year and change they've had it. It isn't readily apparent on their official town website...

Glens Falls is a nice place. Too many tourists would ruin it

Ah, found the entire poster on the Centennial site (scroll down):
http://glensfallscentennial2008.com/products.aspx
All of the details help. There is a rhyme and a reason.

[Red Kittie Kat]

Glens Falls is a beautiful city .. and its not unheard of. There is a great deal of historical events linked to Glens Falls.

... just needed to say that ;)

Here is a couple links if anyone is interested:

http://www.cityofglensfalls.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glens_Falls,_New_York


Glens Falls is also the sister city of Saga Japan, has been a route for the Olympic torch and is home of the best hotdogs on the planet. You haven't lived until you have eaten a Dirty John's Hotdog. (New Way Lunch to those who aren't familiar with them)

:D

[Ben Kessler]

That's it. You all have held me back long enough. I'm booking my Glens Falls vacation!

[Broacher]

Lateral diversion: one of the more popular (and beautiful) conservation areas we have in my area with a nice waterfall, also houses historical buildings from the original settler family that once resided there. Their surname has made for many a driveby chuckle.

http://www.conservation-niagara.on.ca/conservation_areas/ballsfalls/ballsfalls.html

[Red Kittie Kat]

one of these days I'm going to get my patootie up there Broacher. It's only 3 hours away ... you would think it was a million miles ;)

I need to expand my horizons :p

[G-Man79]

This almost looks like a hit made during a research project and posted here to drum up angst of some kind.


No research project here PD - just an Upstate NYer wondering why a nearby municipality paid top dollar for a sub-par product. I'm certain there was a ton of leg work that went into research, development, etc. but the fact local/regional firms didn't get an opportunity to submit an RFP is bunk.

That article that seamas posted cleared up some of my earlier points.

[emucru]

Lateral diversion: one of the more popular (and beautiful) conservation areas we have in my area with a nice waterfall, also houses historical buildings from the original settler family that once resided there. Their surname has made for many a driveby chuckle.

http://www.conservation-niagara.on.ca/conservation_areas/ballsfalls/ballsfalls.html

OT: Last time I was there the waterfall was merely a trickle. With all of the rain we have had lately I'm guessing its flowing pretty good. Might actually be worth paying for parking.

Nice place though, friends of mine had there wedding there.

[PrintDriver]

I'm sorry you think it is sub-par. I posted a link to the entire poster and found it quite simply elegant when seen in its entire context.

I think they got quite a deal to get Glaser for $25k and have part of it paid for by semi-outside sources.

How well did the Centennial do? Did the Committee lose money? It's not what was paid, but what was reaped. Isn't that true of all advertising design? You may not like it, but maybe enough other people did to make the campaign worthwhile.