In an earlier post I warned of the “Internet Shepherds” who will take your money and act as middle men to help you do things you could probably figure out on your own. I can appreciate the concept, however what they charge is incredible and probably stop many people from moving forward with their inventions.
One of my colleagues suggested that I use an app called Fiverr, which you can download at the app store. It is an interesting app in that it puts you in contact with skilled individuals all over the world to help you with almost anything you can imagine. They have digital marketing, graphic design, writing and translation, music, etc. The list goes on and on! I decided to give it a try!
I found the graphic design section and was surprised that they had a subsection called “logo’s”. I reviewed the previous work of the graphic designers, shared what I was looking for and agreed to a price. The app was very well thought out and I could track the progress of the design and knew exactly when I would get the product. All communication was through the app. I provided the color pallet, what we were looking for and specifically said we wanted something classy and elegant.
5 days later I got a Disney character! It literally looked like a cute mermaid you would see in an animated movie! It was very high quality, but it was not what I was looking for. I had negotiated for several different versions of the logo for the agreed upon price, so I tried to explain (using the app) exactly what I wanted. 5 days later I got a scarier version of the Disney mermaid! I knew the designer (or team of designers) were overseas, and I was beginning to worry that I wasn’t going to be able to overcome the language barrier. But I tried one more time.
5 days later I got an even scarier mermaid! In this particular instance, Fiverr wasn’t going to work.
But I still needed a graphic designer.
Based on my experience with Fiverr, I decided to always first go to people I either knew or were local. That way I could have a personal connection with the person I was working with and hopefully we could have a relationship that was beneficial to both of us!
I turned to Facebook! Because these were my friends, I provided more detail about what I was trying to accomplish and what I needed. I explained that we knew exactly what we wanted, but we needed someone who could work with us to make our vision real. I explained what we were trying to accomplish and its purpose. Since this would be ultimately used for a trademark, once we were happy with design we would need it in whatever format the USPTO demanded.
I posted it and within a few hours I had multiple replies! I was very grateful to my friends and colleagues for trying to help me out. I felt that everyone who was referred to me could have done a great job, but I had to choose. A gentleman that I grew up with back in Augusta, Ga sent me a message and told me that his daughter had just graduated with a Masters Degree in Graphic Design. She had just started her own business and was trying to build an internet presence with her website. I decided to go with her, so I reached out to her and she immediately returned my call.
The conversation was interesting! I had never interviewed a graphic designer before and I was one of her first clients since graduating college. I figured since she had a Masters she knew what she was doing, and I had a lot of faith in my friend who was her father! I explained what we were doing and we agreed to a price. I sent her a detailed description of what we thought the mermaid should look like, and I provided color samples from the Saint Michaels art show.
She said it would take a week or so, but we had a graphic designer and our logo was being created!