Hacker News Reader

Comment by cperciva | Hacker News Reader

in the end, the final decision is going to be made by you, someone "useless at anything artistic".

That's a fair point... but I do know what Tarsnap is, and it's not exactly "typical". I don't know how many non-tarsnap-using designers would come up with something which is consistent with the rest of the "tarsnap brand".

View on HN

Well, part of the $500 would presumably be talking through the goals of the project, what message you want to convey with the logo, how you might want to extend the Tarsnap brand in the future, etc.

To put it another way, if you needed to roll out a new feature for Tarsnap but couldn't do it yourself, would you hire someone on contract, or do a contest for it?

He just wants something cool looking and memorable for the FreeBSD sponsors page and for his website. This is part of the problem with paying for designers (something I've done a bunch of times, to varying effect) --- they want to have a conversation about your brand and the message of the logo. No doubt there are productive conversations like that to be had with good designers --- but not in $500 logo projects.

To pay someone $500 and then not want to spend an hour with them making them understand your product/idea/whatever seems like a bit of a waste of money to me, likely making the results hit and miss.

Or have I misunderstood and you're saying that for $500 finding a designer than can hold that conversation is unlikely?

I think he will have a hard time getting a qualified designer to take a $500 project seriously. I have no doubt he can get something for $500, but it won't be something he likes.

You are right if you focus solely on designers from countries with a high cost of living. I'm pretty sure the friend who did my little shop's logo(you can see it at http://rightfold.io) could make something that Colin likes for less than 500$.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com