We would like to thank all our customers and website visitors for their patronage in 2009 and would like to wish them all a

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!!!

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I had been reading a lot about how designer in design contest sites rip off designs and post them as concepts. Today, we realized Logo Design Works has also become a victim of this issue.

We had created a crab based logo design for a company back in 2005 for a client, Cajun Crab Restaurant. It was a fairly illustrative design and the client was quite happy with it. Here is original logo. You can see it in our mascot design portfolio.

Today we found that a design had ripped the Cajun Crab design from our site, modified it slightly and posted it as a concept on the 99Designs contest site. You can see the contest here. In fact one of the other designers mentioned this design rip off in the same contest.

I find this quite agitating. We have sent off a notice to 99Designs website. Hopefully they will bring the designs down and reprimand the designer. If that does not happen we plan to inform the client (who actually owns a trademark for this logo design) and pass it to our legal counsel.

This is disgraceful. Wanna be designers trolling design sites, ripping off designs and trying to pass them off as their own. Actually I would blame the design contest sites since they are catalysts in promoting such a culture.

Governor Jim Doyle of the State of Wisconsin announced a new logo for the state. He said the new logo was part of an effort to build a unifying competitive brand and business strategy for the state. Doyle first announced this initiative a year ago when he asked his Department of Tourism to explore the attributes that differentiate Wisconsin from its competitors.

The new logo depicts a slightly customized font for “Wisconsin” and a slightly abstract tag line”Live like you mean it”. On top of the name is a silhouette of a man in an upside down position supposedly doing a cartwheel.

“No matter how people come in contact with Wisconsin, they’ll know precisely what we stand for in this state,” Doyle said. “We are a place where the people are fiercely proud, hard working, loyal and have fun with life; and where the culture fuels creativity and embraces original thinking.” I am not sure how these attributes are depicted by the new logo. I don’t see any connections to culture or original thinking. In fact on some online blogs have said that the tag line was ripped off from ‘Bacardi,’ which also uses ‘Live Like You Mean It.’

$50,000 of tax payers money was used for the new logo design and associated brand language. I am not sure what to say to that. Here we have people paying us $147 and getting awesome logo designs!

This year, Logo Design Works proudly celebrates it’s 10 year Anniversary! Started in 1998/99 as a two man passionate about design, garage based company, Logo Design Works has become a leading online logo design service firm.

Even though the name and the domain were not formalized till 2002, Logo Design Works’ CEO, Mallesh Bonigala had started a design/branding company in 1998 along with a friend to provide local small companies an affordable graphic design service.

Logo design became a huge part of the projects that the company, then called Design Works, was undertaking. By 2000 a few more partners joined the company and the team decided to go online.
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A logo is a symbol of pride regardless of the industry you’re in. That’s why you will read so many harsh comments about logo redesigns of cities or brands. And they have the right to do so because we are all part-owners of logos and brands we patronize.
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