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Final Score: 18 (out of 30)

crowdSPRING

At a Glance

It's logo design, but different. You don't really work with crowdSPRING. The crowdSPRING web site is like a marketplace where logo shoppers and logo designers meet. It's a great idea and catching on, but we do have some reservations...

Quality

With over 50,000 designers signed up at crowdSPRING you know one thing for sure: There are as many brilliant logo designers in the crowd as there are untalented wannabees. Check out some of their completed projects for proof of the talent as well as the lack thereof.

Value

This is difficult to score as the logo shopper determines the price. Typically it's a couple of hundred dollars for a logo. $200 is the minimum that you can offer. How many designs you receive depends on how much interest there is in your project from the crowdSPRING design community, but it's a pretty lively community so you should have many concept designs to choose from.

We are giving crowdSPRING only three stars for value though. The value in terms of design is above average, but there is more to it. When you deal with a regular logo design company, you build a relationship over time. You know the designers by name. You've spoken to them over the phone a couple of times. You can ask questions - before, during and usually long after the project and get expert advice for free. As far as we can tell, all of this added value is sadly lacking at crowdSPRING and similar crowdsourcing sites.

Speed

You decide how long to keep the project alive. It seems that 2 weeks is the maximum.

Guarantee

They offer a money-back guarantee where only your $39 "listing fee" is not refunded. We were not able to find information on the length of the guarantee though. No additional information in their User Agreement. Not that we could find.

Files and Formats

This is up to you as well. You specify what file formats you will need when you post your project.

Support

Very little support that we are aware of. We were only able to find a contact form. We did not find a telephone number, email address, physical address or postal address. They do not seem to offer live support. They do have an active forum though.

Comments

The two main problems with crowd-sourcing in general, in our opinion:

1. Accountability
When you police more than 50,000 designers of all ages and nationalities, people not on your payroll, it seems inevitable that the odd ripped logo will make it through. crowdSPRING makes a commendable effort to address this and there is a good deal of (quite effective) community policing going on, but we were able to find a documented case of plagiarism on crowdSPRING, reported by Specwatch.

2. Responsibility
It's all the logo shopper's responsibility. When you deal with a regular logo design firm, there is someone on the other end who will tell you, for example, "look John, if we go with this logo then I recommend we make that slogan slightly bigger, just to make sure it's legible on a business card - and we need to try a darker yellow. The canary yellow looks good here, but might not reproduce well in print. Let's try that and see." The designer's talent is only part of the package. Don't underestimate the value of his or her technical know-how and experience. Problems like "canary yellow" can become expensive headaches later on. Unless you know all the pitfalls, we would strongly recommend a regular logo design firm over crowd-sourcing.

Final Score: 18 (out of 30)

crowdSPRING

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