logo design

Joidiamonds – The Company Behind my Twitter Background

by Melvin · Oct 17, 2010

So I was about to post this a month back but I was too occupied with some of the other things that I have to do first. But now the time has come to talk about it.

A lot of people have asked me who’s behind my slick twitter background that I released about 2 months back. And in today’s post I intend to talk about him her. OK so the company behind my twitter background is Joidiamonds. Joidiamonds is a one girl designing company that is situated in Atlanta, Georgia. She does almost every kind of design work such as Twitter layouts, WordPress Designs, logos, headers, banners, business cards and whatever you could possibly think of.

Speaking of business card, she’s also the one assigned to make that one for me and I’m currently collaborating with her with regards to it. Just in case you’re curious what her name is, it’s Crystal. 😉

Going back to my twitter design, just in case you haven’t seen it yet, it looks like this (click the image for a larger view):

Don’t mind my face in the right side. 😉 It’s totally my idea, lols. Anyway Crystal has been really really approachable as far as the design is concern. I think it took us about one month to complete it due to the fact that we’re both busy and I’ve been really not giving my instructions clearly so it’s my fault. But nevertheless we were able to get it done.

You could also follow Joidiamonds on Twitter because she occasionally gives out discounts so that is something that you may want to take advantage of.

All in all if you’re looking for a premium design and you don’t want to shred hundreds of dollars only to be surprised that there are just limited number of revisions, then you may want to check Joidiamonds as one of the options. I would definitely recommend her services for these types of design. What say you?

LogoBee Review – Another Logo Design Company

by Melvin · May 20, 2010

This is a paid review sponsored by LogoBee

Probably right now, it would be overkill for us to open this blog post emphasizing how important a logo is for branding of websites and blogs. Heck, I covered that here and here already. If you’re not contented you can do a Google Search and find so many articles covering why a logo is a must for every business.

That being said, not having a logo is just a mortal mistake for everyone not just doing online business but any type of real offline business as well.

LogoBee Introduction

Here comes another logo design company LogoBee. According to their site, LogoBee is an award winning logo design company that has been in this business for 10 years. Their core focus is creating custom logo designs although they also do some other stuffs like stationary designs, business cards and etc.

They have several packages to choose from. They have Spring Sale Package which does have 3 classifications. The special package worths the cheapest starting at $199 while the Golden Package is priced at $349. After the spring sale, they have 2 more ‘premium’ packages, one is the Express package priced at $499 where you will get a logo design, stationery design, Word template. Their most expensive package is the BundleBee which costs well over a thousand dollar each. It is actually just the same with the express package except for the fact that it is bundled with a free web design into it.

If you’re main concern is just the logo, then I suggest you pick up the Spring Sale Package You can choose from 6 logos, which contains 6 revisions. The only problem here is that they don’t offer a money-back guarantee which actually most logo design companies offer.

The Process

Like any other designing work, LogoBee follows this step by step process which is located in their site as well but for the sake of the readers here I might as well put it here. Here are the step by step process according to them

You can start by visiting the prices section of our web site to find a list of our Logo Design packages.
Select one which best suits your needs and click on it. You will be directed to a secured online logo design order form. The first part is a personal information questionnaire. Please fill in your name, the company’s name, as well as your email and mailing address.
You will then get a chance to process your payment in real time by using Visa , Master Card AMEX, Discover or PayPal. You can also send a check, money order or wait until a representative calls to get all the needed information.
After your payment has been received, we will begin working on your logo design project.
You will be notified by phone or email, and will be given a web address for your own private web page. A team of 2 to 4 designers will collaborate on each logo design project. In 2 -5 business days we will present 6 or 8 initial logo designs (depending on the package).
Your input will be processed accordingly. We will begin working on your revisions immediately. Simple changes will be completed in one business day.You can take your time on viewing the designs – there is no time limit on any of the packages and unlimited changes apply to Silver, Gold and Express packages.
When all the changes have been completed to your satisfaction and you finalized your logo design, a logo kit will be prepared. You may be asked for stationery information, depending on the package you chose. Your stationary design consists of 1 set of business cards, envelope and letterhead designs. Up to 6 names on the cards are included. The layouts will be viewed and approved on the same private web page and unlimited changes can be applied to your stationary design.

Clients

LogoBee boasts wide variety of clients. In their testimonial page, they have about 6 pages of positive feedback from their clients. Aside from that they’ve also done logos for big companies like Heritage Education Funds, Greenpeace and even some prominent people like Kendra Todd, winner of NBC`s hit show “The Apprentice” and Clinton Hart of the San Diego Chargers.

As with any business model, having clients who are prominent figures always help in terms of boosting credibility in a certain field.

Crowdsourcing vs the Traditional Design Process

I am fortunate enough to have my own sets of designers who do this work for me so I really haven’t done any logo contests projects before. But if you’re starting out from scratch, meaning you don’t have any connection, it would be a little bit tough to find a designer willing to do work for you. In fact, most of the designers that you can find through forums are the crappy ones as most of the premium ones aren’t usually available for work.

LogoBee falls into the traditional design process type of company and Im sure they are in an uphill battle against crowdsourcing sites in which a lot of people are more enticed with.

Final Thoughts On LogoBee

Overall LogoBee is a decent custom logo design company. If not, they probably wouldn’t land a review on this blog. They’ve been in this business for long and they have already that good reputation considering they’ve handled more than a thousand clients.

The downside of course is that it is expensive. A lot of small businesses could easily just head out on forums and find equally talented designers for almost half the price. But that would be another thing since in my opinion LogoBee is targeted to a more established and bigger companies which have bigger funding for these types of work.

Now over to you guys? have you ever had any experience with this team from LogoBee? If you do then I would very much like to hear experience from you. If not, then please check them out at LogoBee.com

Start A Logo Contest at LogoMyWay – LogoMyWay.com Review

by Melvin · Mar 14, 2010

This is a paid review sponsored by LogoMyWay.com

By now, you should’ve already realized that logo is probably the most important aspect of your design. Not only that it symbolizes your brand, but also it’s the first one that your audience see when they reach your site. So for a very small space, you already get to express what your site is all about.

One of the common mistakes that I see in most bloggers is that they don’t seem to place that much importance in investing a logo for their site. And much worse is that they don’t even think it’s a necessity for their blog! I know it has been emphasized a lot but Im going to repeat it again, having a high quality logo for your site is a must. That’s the big difference between someone who is serious in his online business from someone who’s not.

LogoMyWay.com Introduction

I was contacted if I could take a look on the site LogoMyWay.com. The site is basically a crowdsourcing logo design marketplace that connects designers and business owners. Crowdsourcing here is the key. For a minimum of $200 you can get hundreds of talented designers all over the world to design a custom logo for your websites/blogs. The beauty of the crowdsourcing model is that you basically enjoy their concepts yet you’re not obligated to pay all of them. You will only pay the design that you want the most.

Going in depth, this is how the process go:

You basically register with them first, then go on and submit your project description including all your requirements. this includes all the basic stuffs such as your site’s name, your slogan, preferred style, font and the color schemes.
After that you specify the prize you’re willing to give to the winner (obviously the higher the better).
Then your contest will go live, you’ll receive a ton of entries and the good thing is you could rank them up or completely ditch the ones that you don’t like. You could also make adjustments within your contest. If you feel something is lacking, you can elaborate your requirements more.
After the contest ends you can basically pick your winner. The winner gets the money and you then receive Industry Standard Vector Logo Files that can be used in almost any application you choose. (Websites, T-Shirts, Mugs, Pens, Business Cards Etc.).

The process is pretty simple and logomyway handles everything reliably. So far I haven’t really seen or heard any problems about them.

Crowdsourcing vs the Traditional Design Process

Crowdsourcing on the other hand is perfect especially if you are looking to get as much ideas as possible. And the great thing about it is you’re not committed to pay those people to take time and do designs for you. You just pay the best design, no questions asked. I’d highly recommend this model to you especially if you’re starting from nothing and have no connections at all.

Final Thoughts On LogoMyWay

Overall I can say LogoMyWay.com is a pretty decent crowdsourcing site. The only other site that I see competing against them is 99designs.com w/c is more established due to the fact that it has been in the business for a long time.

The one key advantage that I see in using this logo design company is that it solely focuses on logo and for me it’s always a plus to be with a company that specializes in only ONE thing.

In terms of quality of logos, just by browsing the current logo contests you can rest assure that the designers participating there are top-notch designers and that would be evident with the logo entries.

What do you think guys? Have you ever had any experience (both good and bad) with LogoMyWay? I know the owner would be very happy to get your insights about them by using the comment form.