Drawing bad logos for beer money since 2010 | Hacker News Reader

Drawing bad logos for beer money since 2010

horriblelogos.com

160 pointsl0c0b0x45 comments

What's funny to me is this guy is clearly talented. I laughed my ass off, but even in his rush to create total garbage, you can still see his sense of space and weight creeping in.

God, click on on the testimonials and look at some of those logos, so funny.

It seems like 98% of the people "get it", what's really funny is the 2% of testimonials who honestly thought this was legit logo design for $5.

For a more surreal online-request-artist I give you Jim'll paint it [http://jimllpaintit.tumblr.com/].

BTW the name is a reference to a British kids TV show called Jim'll fix it [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim'll_Fix_It] which has recently become somewhat tainted [http://www.theguardian.com/media/jimmy-savile]

There's a cement mixer truck driving around London somewhere with "Jim'll Mix It" written in cartoony writing on the side. I cringe every time I've seen it since the scandal - and I keep wondering if they'll ever change it!

EDIT: aaand my favourite one from that site: http://jimllpaintit.tumblr.com/image/66024818150

Lol.

On a serious note though, this would be an excellent way to get cheap concepts for a logo. Buy the dude 4 beers for the same logo and get someone that uses Photoshop well to digitize it properly.

80% of creating a logo is getting the concept.

  ...and get someone that uses Photoshop well to 
     digitize it properly.

Eh, from what I can gather Horrible Logos Guy seems to possess actual graphic design talent, and would likely be more than capable of properly digitizing any given logo. He actually offers high-res copies in exchange for larger quantities of beer, if you dig deeper into the site.

I'd surmise that Horrible Logos Guy could probably create good logos, but chooses not to, because shitty logos are much more fulfilling to create.

Case in point:

The logo he did for "Get Off My Lawn Records" is recognizable as the face of an old hobo from a picture on a greeting card I've seen 1,000 times at stores like Spencer Gifts. In the picture, the hobo is giving the middle finger, and the card usually says something like "happy birthday, go fuck yourself."

Sketch: http://www.horriblelogos.com/wp-content/uploads/horrible-log...

Orginal: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jmlJwQlujeY/TilxbkpypMI/AAAAAAAAAi...

The fact that he sketched that up in like ten minutes, and that it's recognizable to me, tells me that he has enough artistic talent to source decent photo reference, and trace a crude drawing over it, while staying within the bounds of fair use, and (as advertised) not seriously developing a commercially usable logo. Thus, artistic talent.

Also, if I was running indie music label called "get off my lawn records", I'd probably actually use that logo. Seems fun.

I'd actually use a lot of these logos for the types of companies that they're for, even just as-is. The drawn look lends a lot of authenticity and fun.

That said, the concepts themselves are straight up usually good. I'd say he has a 60-70% decent rate here. Not horrible!

Does this remind anyone else of I Want to Draw a Cat For You, made famous by Shark Tank?

http://iwanttodrawacatforyou.com/

exactly what i thought of!

The about page made me laugh, it's worth a look... http://www.horriblelogos.com/about/

The 'Springy Panther' is one of the best/worst: http://www.horriblelogos.com/springy-panther/

The comment from the buyer: “Thanks Horrible Logos. That’s so appalling we cant use it anywhere…just what we were looking for!”

Also

http://www.horriblejingles.com/

His logos are actually pretty decent - not so much 'horrible' as 'rough hand-drawn concept sketches'. His singing, though....shudder.

A lot of these actually aren't bad.

Yeah, makes you wonder if the 'horrible' part is just his angle.

Of course it's an angle. You can't sell "not bad" without an angle.

>You can't sell "not bad" without an angle.

You'd be surprised.

Oh, I don't know, quite a few live up to the sales pitch.

http://www.horriblelogos.com/hay-wire/

The value seems high given the price.

Man, some of those are so bad I had to buy one!

The testimonials are well worth a click, BTW.

Quite a few of these follow established design principles while remaining creative, quirky, and unique.

Reminds me of the Five-Minute Logo guy - I actually prefer these, but both are superb.

http://www.vonglitschka.com/5MinuteLogo/

I got my own one of these I'm quite fond of: http://www.kevinlordbarry.com/uploads/3/6/5/4/3654649/137492....

Pretty brilliant. Paid to practice logo design with basically zero responsibility.

I guess he will now know for a fact whether or not this thing scales :)

A lot of these are actually brilliant as initial concepts!

I tried this guy last year after a few recommendations. I loved the result I got.

http://www.vonglitschka.com/5MinuteLogo/index.html

There are a bunch of videos on his main site showing how he goes about the process, as well as other stuff.

Actually very good, especially considering the 5 dollar price. The Horrible Logos variety is just a bit too sketchy, although I can see the fun in it.

I'd be really interested to find how much money this guy has made since he setup this site.

Looks like several cases of drunk.

Can narrow it down pretty quickly.

168 pages * 10 per page = 1,680 (there appear to be 200 jingles or so)

It's likely most people are buying the $5 or $10 version, with a bias toward the $5. Generous $7 per * 1,680 = $11,760

And if you had to ballpark it overall: $10k to $15k.

The only way that isn't a good ball park estimation, is if he's doing a lot that aren't getting posted to the site.

An interesting comp would be the I Want To Draw a Cat For You guy: http://iwanttodrawacatforyou.com

He has done 14,300 in three years (at $10+ per). Cat guy is of course treating it more like a business, and likely has a broader appeal (cats / pets vs logos).

Being listed on the site is a specifically enumerated feature of the purchase, so that shoud be accurate.

I am buying the $5 logo, myself.

> money this guy has made

I think you mean "beer this guys has drunk"!

I couldn't resist buying one for a friend who low balls be to do graphic design.

He's still drawing! Here's the one I ordered in 2010: http://www.horriblelogos.com/coding-robots/

I don't know where Brunch Bros is but I sure want to eat there now.

http://www.horriblelogos.com/brunch-bros/

haha i love this one:

http://www.horriblelogos.com/hail-gabe/

This in combination with vistaprint/etc has virtually limitless options for ~$25-per-printed-item.

"No porn or any material considered inappropriate or offensive." In about section :)

Oh the site is run on NSFN. Nice! I am using it as well for forwarding some emails.

One would think that after 3 years you'd learn how to draw a good logo =)

Whoops, traffic's overloading the site...

you guys make truly horrible logos

These look really good to me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com