Recently, there’s been a bit of a s***storm happening online in regards to LogoGarden.com, a new cheap logo site that just launched. While most designers I know (including myself) hate these sites for various reasons, this particular site looks particularly heinous. While sites like LogoWorks and 99Designs at least pretend that you’re getting work from professional designers (hint: you aren’t), this site admits to “compiling the greatest symbols from around the globe” in order to give its users the ability to quickly and cheaply “save themselves from the embarrassment of a crappy logo.” The video below, put together by these folks, illustrates the story of both types of sites pretty well:
The interesting thing about this video, and about the various things that have been written about the aforementioned site (mostly by its owner), is this:
While the various “cheap logo sites” claim to have professional designers, but more often than not use untrained designers who actively steal other people’s work, logo garden basically admits to ripping off the work of professional designers directly in their advertising.
A few of my friends in the design community, including Jeff Fisher and Von Glitschka, have already spotted several of their logos being ripped off by the site; in fact, both of them seem to have found at least 20 of their logos, if not more, being offered to customers of the site.
This is all horrible, and clearly the dude who runs this site is irresponsible, if not actively malicious. But the more I read about it online, the more I wonder if actual legal action is being (or even can be) taken against these guys. Below is a conversation I had about the subject in response to Jeff Fisher’s discovery of yet another logo of his that had been ripped off by this service.
Dani Nordin: Are you and Von planning on delivering Cease and Desist letters to these guys?
Tom Stephan: Von did one better — he tagged the WWF and asked them if they’d seen their logo ^_^
Dani Nordin: +Tom Stephan That’s great, but I don’t see it as “one better.” Frankly, we can bitch and moan about stolen designs as much as we want on the internet; it’s not going to stop these idiots in their tracks until there’s real legal action behind it.
Tom Stephan: I think hitting them from all angles is best. One flashlight scares a cockroach. Floodlights stun it and make it easier to squash. I’m certainly not saying this situation is funny or amusing; I’ve had my own work stolen (not in this scope or scale) and I’m aware that it’s invariably who has the money to fight the thievery. The WWF certainly does, and that may turn the tide in favor of the ‘good guys.’ That being said, LogoGarden will shut down and reopen in a few months or weeks as “LogoForest” or something, and start again…it is what it is, and one of the unfortunate downsides to a tech-enhanced world.
Dani Nordin: +Tom Stephan I don’t disagree with that, actually; I just find myself jaded when I see several days of angry Internet conversation about something without any kind of formal cease and desist letter… of course, seeing it from the outside, it’s very possible that there has been one, but that fact hasn’t been shared. The sad thing is that these types of idiots will never go away; and at least this LG site doesn’t pretend that their competition is professional designers; in the intro video I saw online, they were pretty clear that LogoWorks, etc. was the alternative for this market. They even called out several of the key reasons that professional designers advise against sites like that; the cheap labor, the dude who knows Photoshop (sorta) and throws things together quickly.
Ultimately, the market for all of these sites is the cash-strapped “entrepreneur” who has a “million-dollar idea” but doesn’t know what’s really required to get something like that launched. In other words, the types of clients that most professional designers (especially independents) find crazy-making.
Here’s a thought, let’s set up a “watch-dog” website that specifically pertains to this LogoGarden deal, we can use social media to bring attention to it and get a round-about count of how many logos have been ripped off and give the effected designers a platform to share comparisons/comments all in the same place. Ultimately we can update it with the legal outcomes of the effected parties and share it with our clients and the online community. We need to scare like minded plunderers away from similar ideas, but more importantly we need businesses to understand the risk they take with using sites like this. After all, the only way to make these unethical morons go away is to educate and convince “the market” not to use them. I have never seen this many stolen identities in one place and I really hope this will be the flagship that helps brings down this awful plague . . . I know that’s some extreme optimism, but if we abandon that then they’ve already won and have stolen our profession away from us along with our logos.
Any volunteers / nominations to spearhead something like this? I am willing to help in whatever way I can.
Dani, great post. Unfortunately you are probably correct that there is not much that can be done. It’s a really f**ked up situation and John Williams (LogoGarden) has the advantage. He may be able to slither by due to the wording of his TOS. I really hope that an organization with ample resources goes after him. The best we independents and small firms can hope for is to create enough negative publicity to hurt him financially. Sadly, there isn’t even much hope of getting the copyrighted logos removed. I have already emailed and called them to get mine taken down but they don’t even respond. I am contacting my attorney tomorrow but don’t have much hope that much will be accomplished. The next step is to look into legal action against LogoGarden’s customers. Maybe if we create enough pain for them, they will go after LogoGarden.
Actually, their TOS protects them from their *customers* suing them, not the people whose logos they stole. So there might be hope. The question is, will the designers whose work has been stolen bring a case against them? That, I couldn’t say. As I haven’t seen any of my logos up for sale, my interest is in more of a “man, that guy’s a douche-canoe” sense.
Here’s a link to Paypal’s Infringement Report. If you’ve been affected by John Williams or LogoGarden, fill this out and cut off a vital resource for his ability to collect money to finance his illegal operation(s). https://cms.paypal.com/cms_content/US/en_US/files/ua/infringementreport.pdf
I have just been emailed notification by a design firm in CA that some of Logo Garden’s logos look suspiciously like mine. I have checked and lo and behold, many of my logos are on their site in some form or another. I have tried calling John Williams to no avail. My brother who is an attorney basically told me without the funds, I will no doubt not be able to stop the “BEEEEP” to cease using MY designs. Bill Gardener from LogoLounge was also contacted. It is there, I believe, most of my designs were taken from. Does anyone know if a class action suit is possible for something like this? I have been a designer for 20+ years and have never run across the likes of this monster.
Lucky me, I guess.
It’s such a shame that there’s really not much we can do. Those thieves stole at least 6 of our designs, so we covered them in our blog: http://blog.logobee.com/?p=961 Unfortunately, it appears that this kind of attention only brings fuel for the fire. Thanks to all the attention Logo Garden has risen to the top 10 of companies that Google displays when one searches for “logo design”, which means that if anything, we’re giving them ever more clients. I think that we should appeal to Google itself to make them stop displaying Logo Garden at all in web searches.
I’d look further, though, at what the Google results are actually showing. My guess is there’s a fair bit of this controversy showing up in the results, which Google will also see, and the site itself is getting a lot of attention for that term.
Hi Dani; you are more than welcome to repost my comments on Jeff’s page from Facebook here, by the way.
Is there any sign of Logo Garden going away yet? Or is there news of any actual suit being brought against them? I suppose it would be difficult to prosecute since they’re being so “generous” in removing the offensive images.
Tom, I haven’t heard anything about the controversy of late. If history is any guide, I have a hard time believing, even with the hooplah, that this site will actually go away. As long as there are “entrepreneurs” and small business owners who don’t have a budget or an understanding of their brand/logo’s importance to their business, sites like this will continue to make money, and they won’t go away.