What Kind of Logo Do You Get When Using Fiverr?

What kind of logo do you get when using Fiverr?

Fiverr is doing to the graphic design industry what Uber is saying UberX isn’t as professional or safe, the design industry are claiming that the user is getting a raw deal as the product they buy is demonstrably inferior or stolen.

I want you to join me on a journey exploring the jungle of the super –  cheap design to try and answer a simple question: what kind of logo do you get when using Fiverr?

The answer won’t be too much of a shock to you! Read on of a tale of deception, lies, stolen work, and of course bad logos.

What is the price of a logo?

This is the age old question I get all the time, how much does it cost? The reply I come back with is ‘how long is a piece of string?’. There is no set price for a logo. Every client’s needs are different, which means every job is different, which in turn means every logo is a priced differently. Some clients know what they want, some need guidance.

At DesignLab we work with our clients and tailor package a cost that meets their budget to create a unique and memorable logo. The good old saying ‘you pay for what you get’ has never been so relevant.

A Logo for $5

For those of you who don’t know who Fiverr is, they are a website that have built their whole business on the promise of cheaper-than-cheap prices.

Fiverr and other similar websites seem to be a direct threat to graphic designers. I mean why pay a logo designer $2000 when you could get 200 logos for the same price, right? Even if these aren’t all of the highest quality, there‘s bound to be a few good ideas among them based on how many you get.

Yet it also seems too good to be true: how in the hell can anybody make a living creating logos for $5?

We did some digging online and found a designer who made up a fake business, and hired three logo designers using Fiverr, just to see what kind of results they would get.

The Set Up

Welcome to SkyStats

Their first step was coming up with a realist-sounding fake business. They settled on “SkyStats”, a SaaS analytics app for travel websites.

Please don’t ask us what “analytics for travel sites“ is. The important thing was that the name that could evocative enough: planes, clouds, graphs… For $5 who want to make their designers think too hard to find a good metaphor.

The Bait

This is the fun part: they found three lucky graphic designers who would win the job, and receive $5 a each.

And this is where they encountered their first issue.

While looking on Fiverr, you see many designers who feature some impressive portfolios. But when you actually browse their on-site portfolio, the quality of work suddenly drops after a few pages, quickly going from simple, modern…

…to tacky, clumsy clip-art:

After noticing the same pattern on most of the designer’s profiles, it became clearer: these designers were appointing other designers’ work, and then passing it off as if it was their own.

This switcheroo is a big no-no in the designers community, and it’s quite misleading for clients as well. But  on Fiverr it seems to be common practice.

Hiring Graphic Designers

They found three graphic designers who were not stealing other designer’s work (well, we think so) and they sent them the following email:

We’re SkyStats, a small startup based in Boston and Japan. We build analytic dashboards for travel websites (such as Expedia) to help track visitors, sales and online bookings.
We require a new logo. We’re looking for something clean, modern and communicates what we do. Maybe featuring a plane or cloud that could represent the travel industry?

Something they found out was even though Fiverr claim they do logos for $5, they actually start from $5. You have to pay more for extra services like actually receiving the source files (which you need).

What They Got

They waited 10 days before receiving the first concept:

 

One day later, they received the second designers’ logo concept:

 

They waited a grand total of 14 days before getting the last logo concept:

 

Oh, I forgot to mention that faster delivery was one of the options you can pay extra for.

So the logos ranged from expectedly poor to actually surprisingly pretty good, they were really impressed with the submissions from the third graphic designer.

Not only did they design two logos, which both were quite good, but they also sent along high-quality versions even though they hadn’t paid for them. And the other two graphic designers only sent low-quality logos that were set on a textured background, making it harder to reuse the logo (smart).

But The Plot Thickens

The crew posted the results of their experiment on over at the Folyo blog. That particular post gained a massive engagement of over 200 comments. Among them were debates over the validity of a $5 logo design, a few people even pointed out something that was obvious: the much loved cloud-ribbon logo was a rip-off.

The Fivver Rip-Off

So that cloud logo which was their favourite was actually ripped from a stock template with some minor adjustments.

What’s even more funny, after they did quick reverse image search by the commenter they uncovered that a bunch of other companies were using the same logo.

Oh well, at least they had second logo to fall back on which was original, right? Guess again.

OK then, well what about the second designer’s concept? Nope.

As far as I can tell, the only original efforts were the first’s designer’s two logos, which coincidentally also happen to be my least favourite of the bunch…

All Deception

Look there is nothing wrong with using with a cheaper designer instead of hiring an expensive design agency, just like there’s nothing wrong with choosing McDonalds over a 3-star restaurant.

But when people try to deceive you by using other designer’s work as their own, and stock clip art as original work then this is another matter altogether. Unfortunately, this is the kind of enticement you get when you drive prices down to such a low.

Takedown

When this agency submitted this experiment to a popular blog, they refused it, calling them “an ad hominem takedown of a competitor”.

We see their point, but I believe that as long as Fiverr continues taking money from dishonest business practices it’s only fair to call them out on. don’t you think?

So what kind of logo do you get when using Fiverr? well as the age old saying goes… you get what you paid for?