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Comment by MDX | Hacker News Reader

> last week i ordered a logo from a contractor on odesk and 24 hours later costing us 44 dollars, i got a logo for my new startup.

And your logo looks like a $44/24hr logo. It's unbalanced, uses simple stock colors, stock fonts and was probably tossed together in a matter of minutes. It looks like something a professional design firm would whip up internally as a way to start building mood boards and ideas to build off of.

> this logo would cost me hundreds of dollars going the normal path and will take forever.

No it wouldn't. If you're typically paying hundreds of dollars for something that looks like this you're either very bad at writing a branding/logo/identity brief or you're hiring the wrong people.

> there is a never ending stream of ... horror stories about odesk.

And your story is now one of them.

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>And your story is now one of them.

MDX, I fear that you're being flagged only because you took a stance (go you! :) ), and that stance doesn't keep the 'bigger picture' in mind. Allow me to elaborate -

Any branding around that price is going to yield something that simply says "Try us out. We're serious about what we're doing, but we haven't reached success yet". Once more successful, sure, they should look to spend thousands on branding; it'll be worth it. But even if the OP had spent twice the amount (still <$100!), they would still be delivering the same message.

What's more important - and this is the OP's argument, and which I am supporting - is that his Odesk experience was positive because of the time saved, i.e. the "Ship Shit Quickly Principle". The cost difference for finding an equivalent logo (say, -$20 or -$30) is minimal compared to the opportunity cost of spending time searching for such a logo. Instead, the logo "does the job" - it's not perfect (or even good), but it presents a fun, memorable brand and getting it done quickly (which is what Odesk allowed him to do) allows OP to focus on the other important facets of their startup (which hasn't even launched yet).

Of course, I might have the 'bigger picture' wrong or even share a flawed view with the OP. In that case, I invite explanations against this view.

P.s., OP, and this may not be your priority... but I have no idea what glue.im does; "gluing phones together" doesn't mean anything to me :( (though is a fun catchphrase that I'm sure will make sense :) )

> And your logo looks like a $44/24hr logo.

You can find cheap made in volkswagen parts in AUDI cars too.

Even if it was $8/1hr logo no one would care if the final product was good enough.

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