I have advised people to use cheap logo services as a way of getting a decent first draft--something they can use temporarily or take to a more involved designer for improvement.
If I pay for a logo (cheap, sure--but also with no opportunity for feedback) I expect to get (1) ownership, not a license and (2) the source files so some other designer I hire can improve it (or make it suck worse, or just make it black and white--doesn't matter, it's my logo).
Re: ownership, if you want to require me to agree to let you display it in your gallery, that's reasonable. (Even then, if you get pushback, consider an option to buy my way out of that. If someone's that concerned, just take their money and put the next one in the gallery.)
You can access our services only through a Google Account. Why? Because virtually everyone has a Google account and this way you don't have to remember yet another password.
I see the logic in using OpenID for signin. But only google?
Defi9nitely not everyone has a google account (though perhaps your target audience will have). Also what about the people that do not want to use Google's services (there are plenty). And if you dont have a Google account it's a pain to go elsewhere - sign up - then come back.
However.... www.clickpass.com will do exactly the same thing and offers a much wider range of logins :) (HN here uses it). YOu might want to look into that - I doubt it will take much to switch to using Clickpass (as the openid sequence for them is similar to Google I believe)
I agree that probably the audience would increase, especially that it's an easy change. How to say, not a big effort with a big benefit in return. I like the idea behind the service though, looks fresh.
I do like the idea - have you seen sites like 99designs? How do you stack up next to them - not competing / different market, or are you a better implementation.
I like the "fun" on the site btw :) made me smile to browse around.
I'm not going to comment on the site itself, but I've read through the comments here and would like to put something forward: You aren't focusing enough on making this a win for your customer.
I'm a potential customer. Right now, I see a process that limits my input to next to nothing, won't allow me to make revisions, and after all that, I don't even own the thing.
As a comparison, for $50 more I can get 4 concepts, two revision rounds and actual ownership at Logoworks. To me, the choice is clear.
I don't want or mean to disparage you but that is the current mindset of your potential customer. All I see are wins for you, but not many for them. I think you need to fix that ratio if you are to be successful.
I do represent your target audience, looking for a logo designer right now.
Besides login issue, already mentioned here, i think the video is too long, you should fit into 30-40 seconds with real example. I am missing portfolio, so can't estimate quality of the service you are providing.
Anyway I submitted request, will see what will be an outcome.
Slideshow is better than video, and out of 20-30 logos I might like just one. Comparing to logoworks quite low rate. I wouldn't submit information if I'd saw this portfolio. Keeping in mind that you need iterations and several logos to choose from, I don't expect something valuable for me as a result. Of course we will see, but still ... I wouldn't use this service if found it not on HN.
Have some idea for you. You have two types of services:
1. Draw it by yourself - which works, for some people
2. Services where you find designer, who will do it for you. But first you need to find a right designer. This is done or by looking thru portfolio of designers or by contest, where designers might or might not participate.
So the problem is to find a right designer. This could be done by asking me to choose several logos to identify what I am looking for a match to the designer that works in that style. It will save my time to find a right person (since I can't even formulate how the logo should look like) and save designer's time.
Your point is perfectly understandable and certainly represents a wide slice of the market - which happens not to be the slice of the market we are ideally targeting.
We don't want to steal customers from logoworks, 99designs or other similar (very useful & well thought) services; we are trying something new here, pursuing an experimental approach to logo design, limiting to an extreme the user input in order to force the customer to get creative with tags - which could open the door to hopefully surprising results from our designers. That's the deed - if you're not quite happy you roll the dice and go again if you want, it's free.
Along the lines of the stir-fried culinary metaphor, we'd like to offer quality stuff on-the-go. This comes from the need of a category of people (and you can pull myself in) who don't wanna bother going through revisions and all that jazz.
This might not be the right service for you, and we won't try to convince you otherwise. If you're craving for Chinese take-away you won't go to the French restaurant. If you need a twitter account you won't get yourself a blog. And so forth.
Said so, your feedback and ideas are certainly constructive and valuable - thanks!
P.S.
The video is known problem (thanks for pointing out). You not liking the logos in the slideshow ... given the subjectivity of the topic it's bound to be a discussion with no end! :-)
The idea here is that if you're not happy with it you can re-submit (there's no official limit on the number of times you can request the same logo) and see what happens - Also you can get creative with tags (i.e. #as_previous_design #no_blue #etc) - being free it won't cost you. You might wanna give it a shot :-)
I've used LogoWorks a few times with success. In every case some revision was required...most logos are a committee effort so users want to be able to revise them...it is also nice to get a couple different versions with the understanding that you can choose to have one polished into a final logo.
Some site feedback: the monitor with rotating logos on the homepage is somewhat confusing. It looks like there are buttons but it is just a graphic.
The video is cute but it is a little drawn out.
The site branding is strong but may be too unprofessional for the market of people looking to pay money for a logo. I don't know if focusing it on "web 2.0 logos" or something might help refine and differentiate the site.
You put in your info once, you don't get to give feedback and request changes, you get one logo at the end--like it or not, and you get it in 24 hours.
These points all make it different from most logo services. Better is another question.
I didn't find the difference difficult to glean from the site, but it wasn't obvious to at least a couple people here, so maybe OP still has some work to do here as far as positioning.
I believe you summarize perfectly the main differences.
I may add that as you correctly point out we don't wanna be better than the others or steal their customers, we're just different - since there's no service which does exactly what we do (good or bad, your pick).
We ideally offer a conceptually different service, covering needs (as said in some other comment around) of a category of people who are craving for results and don't wanna bother with revisions and complicated workflows.
I'd be interested in a nice logo for www.hecl.org , but I would need a BSD open source license for it. I would be willing to link to you guys, but probably not shell out the full price for it, since it's an open source project. Let me know if you're interested.
there is an animated screen with logos passing by, I supposed that was somehow their portfolio even if there is no mention of the companies involved. also I read about a gallery, maybe at some stage some of the logos will endup there.
Completely Javascript reliant and (for me) painfully slow (the site loads, then the content flickers into view. A good half second I guess) if I enable it. Opera 10 beta on Linux.
edit: Actually it takes 4 seconds for the content to appear. And it borks my navigation-back. I have to press back at least 2 times to actually get back.
you're right - being developed in GWT the site is completely javascript dependent. The problem seems to be that with javascript disabled you're still getting the content in somewhat of a mangled form --> you shouldn't be getting any content (just a message), this is obviously not working.
On performance - it's laoding up pretty good on all the browser we've tested, then again we didn't test on any of the environment you refer to, which makes your feedback much appreciated. Thanks!
But you might want to leave open the possibility that designer could be female (and despite what old-school official grammar books might say, in 2009 I don't think it's acceptable to use "he" for a gender-neutral pronoun, and "they" is much less awkward than "he/she")
If I pay for a logo (cheap, sure--but also with no opportunity for feedback) I expect to get (1) ownership, not a license and (2) the source files so some other designer I hire can improve it (or make it suck worse, or just make it black and white--doesn't matter, it's my logo).
Re: ownership, if you want to require me to agree to let you display it in your gallery, that's reasonable. (Even then, if you get pushback, consider an option to buy my way out of that. If someone's that concerned, just take their money and put the next one in the gallery.)