Only Logo Design

Who really owns the rights of the logo templates

 “But wait!” you cry. The web site claims that they’ll remove the logo template from their library once I purchase it!” Really? Do a search on Google for template logos. You’ll find that a lot of these sites feature the same set of logo templates. There are a few reasons for that. Firstly, many of the sites are owned by the very same people. In order to penetrate search engines (and to maximize exposure, traffic and profit) many companies simply create a shell web site, say sites A, B, C, D, and E, throw a series of template logos on each and hang out (yet another) shingle.

Now, you may wish to believe that when you buy a template logo from site A, they’ll remove the image from site B, C, D, E, etc. We remain a little skeptical. You’re also never sure if someone has purchased the logo template before you, thereby clouding copyright and ownership issues forever. The second reason that many of these templates look the same is that they’ve all been purchased from the same supplier. That’s right. A logo template creator, who sells logo templates to a variety of sellers – for a few dollars apiece, and invariably to the same good folks that own the web sites that you run into. That means the owners of the web sites selling these templates have NO control over the availability, ownership, or future sales of the logos featured. Quite frankly – they don’t really own them either. So how can they possibly transfer ownership to you? It also seems a little disingenuous to feature somebody else’s templates or ‘disguise’ Bob’s Logo Service (.com) as Not Bob’s Logo Design Service (.com) in order to capture clients looking for a new logo.

And if you do run into problems – try and find contact info. It’s usually a web-based form (email addresses can be traced) that promises “we’ll get back to you right away”. When you’re interested in buying perhaps. But if you want satisfaction for that bundle of letterheads, business cards and envelopes you’ve printed with someone else’s logo – let’s see how fast ‘right away’ really is.

Logo templates - the graphic design equivalent of spam.

So why template logos? Simple. Good logo design takes time. The skills of a talented designer. Expensive (if legit) software. Hardware. And a client support infrastructure to manage the business end of things. $50 only buys so much time of a professional’s time. These template logo suppliers figured out it’s much more profitable to hire junior (or student) designers to create a mess of rudimentary icons, and offer them to as many eyes as possible (remember the search engine shenanigans?). Then they can proclaim on their web sites, usually in a star burst – “Logos only $50.00". Ooooh. Very sales oriented. And hopefully, one of the many logo templates will appeal to a percentage of the eyes that see it. Logo templates are the graphic design equivalent of Spam. And a system created to develop as many generic icons as possible (at the lowest cost) and sell them as many times as possible. It’s all about profit. It is NOT about designing a great corporate identity for you. The idea of a logo is to be unique. Using a template logo shoots that theory right out of the water. Just ask yourself this - how many SUCCESSFUL companies used a template logo (as opposed to custom). I'll tell you. None. Nada. Zilch. Think you'll be the first?