[besson3c]

I'd like to hear some of your most depressing stories of people being ripped off with crap work for ridiculous prices. I'm talking about your crappy $100,000 logos that look like they were designed by somebody with MS Paint sort of deal.

Any takers? I have some of my own, but I don't know if I can explain them without identifying the companies involved. Perhaps some of you are far enough removed from some of these situations that you can just expose the victims and/or companies without repercussion though, so fire away!

[boy8cookie]

Company hired a contractor to setup a SAN for our post production department. Contractor charged $190/hr, spent weeks "configuring hardware" and "installing drivers." When he's "done" the SAN is mounted via AFP/SMB even though we have fiber run to all the clients. Terrible. He failed to configure the system properly and overcharged for his "service" to boot.

I was an (unpaid) intern at the time, I told the department head I could fix everything if they hired me at half the rate they paid the contractor. Been working for the same company 7 years now.

[el chupacabra]

It's not just tech. It's every industry. You finally work yourself up to spending thousands for some project and when it's done you feel like you could have done such work yourself... But you didn't because what they finally come up with isn't going to sell and you expected them to be the pros. Could be why a lot of young businesses go under. They don't account for all the things they'll have to pay to redo. Part of the problem is, we have a massive shortage of workers and a surplus of work. With the demand so high and competition low, many people can get away with almost anything and still make money.

Networking helps solve this. Once you get people who are closely tied to you or value your future business quality work will follow. Like visiting casino; you and the whale both pay for the same games, but the whale gets better treatment.

I don't know if "logos" was just your example; but if you're actually looking for one; I recommend you do it yourself. When my minds in logo mode I start paying attention to everyone else's logos and look for symbols in everything, Sometimes I take picture for a template, then go mix elements together. One I'm working on, was inspired by a scene in a Chinese b movie. For a fraction of a second while panning, the light hit a bird in a very interesting way and I thought that would be a good logo template; so I screen captured. When I'm done editing nobody will be able to tell it was ever a bird or ever a picture of anything; but it will be a very interesting designed shape.

[thesearcher]

Originally Posted by el chupacabra 

... Part of the problem is, we have a massive shortage of workers and a surplus of work. With the demand so high and competition low, many people can get away with almost anything ...

[Shaddim]

It's true. It was cheaper to scrap my 3 y/o HP color laserjet (and buy a whole new unit) than it was to get someone out to my home to fix it.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by el chupacabra 

It's not just tech. It's every industry. You finally work yourself up to spending thousands for some project and when it's done you feel like you could have done such work yourself... But you didn't because what they finally come up with isn't going to sell and you expected them to be the pros. Could be why a lot of young businesses go under. They don't account for all the things they'll have to pay to redo. Part of the problem is, we have a massive shortage of workers and a surplus of work. With the demand so high and competition low, many people can get away with almost anything and still make money.

Networking helps solve this. Once you get people who are closely tied to you or value your future business quality work will follow. Like visiting casino; you and the whale both pay for the same games, but the whale gets better treatment.

I don't know if "logos" was just your example; but if you're actually looking for one; I recommend you do it yourself. When my minds in logo mode I start paying attention to everyone else's logos and look for symbols in everything, Sometimes I take picture for a template, then go mix elements together. One I'm working on, was inspired by a scene in a Chinese b movie. For a fraction of a second while panning, the light hit a bird in a very interesting way and I thought that would be a good logo template; so I screen captured. When I'm done editing nobody will be able to tell it was ever a bird or ever a picture of anything; but it will be a very interesting designed shape.

Sorry, I lost track of this thread...

I'm working with a designer on my logo as we speak actually. I think doing it on your own is a mistake unless you really understand the principles of good design, but what you can do is start thinking about some concepts and your basic branding and communication.

The more and more experience I garner in this industry the more I realize that it pays to have some knowledge in lots of different things. I think that the mistakes you are referring to here that result in having to pay for redos often come from people with absolutely no ability to assess whether or not somebody is a good hire because what they do is magic to them.

I think it's a mistake to be completely ignorant to graphic design, branding, communication, marketing, programming, finance, etc. but on the other hand it's also a mistake to not give people rope to do work that they can do better than you under normal, healthy conditions.

Would you agree with this?