There was once a logo...

The logo did not feature the name of the organisation who owned it. Let's call them the Little House. Back then, I did some work for another organisation (let's call them the Big News place), who had this logo on its website.

Unfortunately, the Little House people were not well known. So unlike Nike, Apple or other organisations with a well established name, when people saw the Little House logo (which was a little house), they saw a little house, but did not know what it meant, or what the Little House organisation did, or what they stood for.

So Big News were happy to have achieved recognition from Little House, they were proud to show the logo on their site, but no one who saw that Little House knew. Or could know.

We checked with Little House, to find out if they had a logo with their name on it, but no. So the Big News CEO told me to take a small gif (200 pixels wide or something) with the Little House logo and take any Windows font, open the gif in MS Paint and write underneath what Little House was for. I protested, saying that the logo was not theirs, that if Little House was not known, it was not Big News' job to promote them or edit their marketing assets, that it certainly was a mistake of Little House not to be more recognizable. And then I had to choose between what I thought was right and what I was paid for.
This is simply to remind all logo designers:
1) a good logo does not replace marketing, it only supports it
2) "He who pays calls the tune"

Font licenses

All fonts have a license which protects their copyright, and some of them are free to use, others not, others only free for non commercial use.

Fonts are like software or images or texts really. Someone worked to create them, they deserve payment for their work.

The issue is that as a lot of people have bunches of TTF, PS and OTF files that have no copy protection, there is a widespread belief that fonts are free to use and that they have no license.
Nothing further from the truth.

Typically a font licence will be around 25 USD, and there are quite a few online shops where you can buy the font licence. Having the font file is not having a licence, just like breaking into a car parked on the street is not owning it.

Don't hack software, just don't buy it

Had a look this morning at www.adobe.com

Creative Suite 4 is now happily priced at 1,799 USD. OK it is an impressive piece of software. Upgrade from CS3 (itself a very impressive piece of software) is 599 USD.

Adobe hires designers and they need to sell many licences to pay them. True. But what if, like my clients, you get your money by fund raising, or small university grants? Well that sort of money is just not there for software. So there you go, find a torrent and hack the thing. Bad Bad Bad.

By cracking software, you are first of all doing something illegal (but for which the chance of getting caught remains small), and most importantly you are promoting the release cycles of the software industry (is CS4 not just CS3 + a few fixes + the odd feature or so?) and not promoting alternative solutions.

I run all my logo projects on Inkscape (vectorial design) because while Adobe Illustrator is the standard, Inkscape does awfully well, and for no money at all, including the fact that SVG files are an open standard.

Brochure projects are run on Scribus, which can help my clients rework them and reduces their dependancy to me. Of course Scribus is not better than InDesign. But when something is 90% another one but the price tag is 0, some wheels can start turning in your head.

In short I believe it is wrong to steal a developer's salary, but right to promote a shift in the business model that's in place.

Can you afford software?

A while ago, I was answering a query for this pro bono work. My correspondent was very happy for work I could do, and then asked me "Can you work from existing InDesign files?".

Well technically I can. I know the InDesign interface and can use the software. I even have access to it.
But as a private designer, and a professional in the IT industry, I cannot afford to give the wrong example. Using InDesign without a proper license is a criminal offense. A large number of people think "it's okay to use a cracked (=illegal) software if you can't afford to buy a legal copy anyway".
This certainly does not apply to me because I could afford an Adobe InDesign license, but I don't want to spend this money there, so I don't use the software and certainly will not go into the easy road of cracked software, because somewhere down the line, a fellow programmer is losing out.

Which brings us of course to "what can you really afford?" and I guess that unfortunately if you could walk into a shop and steal your grocery and get away with it, a lot of people would.
This is what happens with MP3 downloads and software. My stand is that this is and remains illegal, and that the only reason why people do it is because they can get away with it most of the time.
I also agree nonetheless that CDs are dreadfully expensive. I can tell you that I really think twice before buying one these days and there's hardly any place left in my budget for an overpriced piece of plastic.

Posters, ads galore!

Desktop Publishing has many possibilities other than just published newsletters and books.

Any ad in the newspapers will have to be submitted in PDF or EPS, and will obey specific rules. For text only, newspapers usually charge extra for "layout". This "layout" or "typesetting" is nothing else but Desktop Publishing.
And you would get charged more for a picture, a logo inserted in the text, or whatever. This I can do for you free of charge.

At some point, for an event, you may need a poster printed - sometimes as cheaply as a photographic enlargement. Again, your local printer may take your material and design it for you. A small company without DTP knowledge will go that route. Another thing I can do for you.

Get the doodle right

by gustav1

Logo design is dead easy once you have the idea.

I mean an excellent logo such as the Apple, Nike, McDonalds are so awfully simple to draw (hence their success). You could get the concept drawing the right doodle, and a junior designer make it come true.

The hard bit is there: get the doodle right.

What makes a successful logo? Simplicity, conceptualization, identity.

Logos are the offspring of the banners of the Middle Ages. They are unique to their bearer, and must be instantly recognizable.
On top of that, they must be degraded. An example I have in mind is the symbol of the Polish Government in exile and the Polish resistance during WWII (image credit: gustav1). The top part shows people going underground to come back "from two sides" - and this also merges unconsciously with a phallic symbol (itself a P for Poland), which in itself tells about vigour and youth.

This is not meant to be printed. It's meant to be painted on a wall, in the wee hours. One colour. Four strokes. Extreme degradability. If your logo is good enough to go through this, you've got a killing machine to tell a powerful message without words. This is also sadly true for the runes used in SS and the swastika.

Why a downloadable newsletter?

These days, you get a lot of newsletter information sent to you by email. Big HTML things which download images on arrival.

This is a new trend which has advantages - it pushes the content in the face of the reader, is graphically attractive, and an incentive for an immediate response.
It has the advantage of being free to distribute (can be a bit heavy on the mail server), and relatively easy to design. Maybe it is stopped by spam filters, or simply deleted, but if your list is managed properly, it should be fine.

These drawbacks are minor. Printed newsletters are more suited to a distribution in person, and for charities who deal with members who are older, will be better perceived.
Like all printed matter, it is kept, read again, passed on.

One advantage is that a downloadable pdf can also be archived on your website, and that you only need to describe the main titles and offer a link for download, this will imply a lower bandwidth on your server.

This site is offering PDFs for download or print only, not web based newsletters.