CrITICS ARE ANGRY ABOUT SQUARESPACE'S NEW LOGO-MAKING TOOL. BUT DOES IT REALLY DEVALUE DESIGNERS?
Yesterday, Squarespace released a new tool called Squarespace Logo that brought the company's dead easy, drag-and-drop approach to making a logo. Wewrote it up, and while we didn't think it was revolutionary, we did think it was a nice tool for small businesses and freelancers who wanted to put a dab more polish on their branding.
To hear many of the Internet's designers tell the tale, though, Squarespace just upended a dysenteric bowel all over the community. Just hours after launching, Squarespace Logo had become such a joke that there's even a parody Tumblr account that mocks the new tool.
Just look at these reactions from people on Twitter (in the slideshow above, too)!
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To hear many of the Internet's designers tell the tale, though, Squarespace just upended a dysenteric bowel all over the community. Just hours after launching, Squarespace Logo had become such a joke that there's even a parody Tumblr account that mocks the new tool.
Just look at these reactions from people on Twitter (in the slideshow above, too)!
In short, the consensus seems to be that not only are the logos designed by Squarespace's tool amateurish, but also that by releasing it, Squarespace has signified a casual contempt for the hard work that designers actually do. To critics, Squarespace Logo devalues design and aims to put designers out of work.
But is this vitriol really justified? Squarespace's self-described mission is "to provide creative tools that help anyone give a voice to their ideas." Squarespace's identity, in fact, is all about the democratization of design in web publishing: this idea that the key to improving the standard of design on the web is to give people tools that make it easy to express themselves with a modicum of polish.
We've seen a number of comments online about Squarespace Logo being positioned as a replacement for professional designers. Squarespace Logo is a basic tool for individuals and small businesses with limited resources to create a simple identity for themselves. It is not a replacement for the brand identity a professional designer can craft and deserves to be compensated for. We expect Logo, much like Squarespace itself, to drive more people to appreciate the importance of design, leading to increased demand for professional creative services. Similarly, the fees generated by Squarespace Logo are used in part to compensate the graphic designers who contribute their work to The Noun Project.
Exactly right. Since 2004, Squarespace has specialized in creating simple tools for people without a lot of resources or technical expertise, and saying, "Hey, here's an easy way for everyone to make something that looks nice." Squarespace Logo is no different, yet only now are people's heads exploding about it.
Is Squarespace Logo sophisticated? No, but it does make it easy for someone getting started in web publishing for the first time to make a simple, distinctive header composed of an icon, a name, and a tagline that is distinctly theirs. It might not be much, but to people who weren't going to hire a designer anyway, these are the stumbling baby steps that, as their business grows, may eventually bring them down a more sophisticated path in branding and design.
You can't know to care about something if you've never thought about it before. Squarespace Logo is a gentle prod that gets people who otherwise wouldn't to start thinking about their brand while their businesses are still young. That's hardly a design apocalypse. It's a good thing. The fact that it happens to make for a pretty good tool for making funny parody logos is just icing on the cake.
Digital is turning industries on their heads... it seems to be our turn! This has been coming for a while and is just the beginning. Many traditional design disciplines will soon be widely 'templated' in some form or other. This does devalue what more 'traditional' designers do.
The Squarespace logo generator is poor and no replacement for a 'proper job' by a professional... but it will take work away from freelancers and smaller design businesses... as an industry we must all embrace technological change no matter how challenging... otherwise those that rely too heavily on 'threatened' services will find themselves without the skills that clients wish to pay for.
Squarespaces tool is brave... it puts them firmly in the firing line for disgruntled design professionals who don't like the suggestion by SS that 'what they do can be replicated at the touch of a button'... but the concept of the online service itself was totally inevitable. Sad but true.
Is Etch-a-Sketch a crime? -meh, don't think so either...
I think i wouldn't consider a good potential client someone who actually thinks a logo generator can solve all their "design". I actually can see a client like this on a meeting: "hey why don't you use that really fun font... comic sans isn't it?"
This logo generator is a good filter for us! And I think they mistyped their mission, i guess it should be: "to provide little crativy fancy toolies..."
RAYMOND DUKEJOHN BROWNLEE
The customer doesn't care about the designer. The customer cares about the final result. If this logo designer gives them a final result they are happy with, the logo designer did its job.
If you are a designer that is upset by this simple tool, you should
Position yourself better to not be replaced by a $10 tool.
Realize that there will always be things that disrupt your business.
Use the logo designer to make designs and charge your clients $3,500
Yes that they don't get it ;) 4 is A in leechspeek - not F
MARTIN LIUJOHN BROWNLEE
If any designers feel threatened by Squarespace's logo generator then they should go back to college. Every experienced designer knows a good logo comes a great concept and not just a shape and a nice font.
Another designer here who is not upset at all by this. Seems like, if anything, the limitations of the Squarespace app make the case more than ever for the value of design thinking and creativity. It's weird to see people pretend to be (or actually be) threatened by a fun little app that provides a basic service in a decently basic way.
ZORRILLA MONSOONJOHN BROWNLEE
whatever, it's a fad that only deserves to be ignored as it will fade away in due time.
Personally I have no problem with the tool that SquareSpace has created. They are attempting to do for "branding" what they did for web design. I have no issue with that as a tool. The concept is the part that gets to me.
This tool is saying that to create something with this preset drag and drop tool is all you need. If you spend some time you can make a logo. I don't think it will put any reputable designers out of business, it may steal from some students and the whole 99design crowd but not anyone who actually practices branding/logo design as a profession.
I guess in the end for me it becomes more of a question that only time can answer. Will tools like SquareSpace is creating help people appreciate good design or will it only help to spread the plague of lookalikes and designs without personality?
Squarespace just gave designers a taste of how photographers are treated. Can't feel too sorry for them.
BOONE SOMMERFELDJOHN BROWNLEE
The people and business who will find this valuable weren't going to pay a designer to do it anyway. They're likely the "Clients From Hell" that think you'll do it for free because you enjoy it.
Squarespace Logo actually made me contact a bunch of designers as a result. You get what you pay for, which is why I want something that couldn't be mistaken for a series of Wing Dings. So... maybe their evil plan worked?
Most established designers are not threatened by these development. This is nothing new. You've always been able to go into any reputable printshop and order quickie, cheap business cards with your choice of icon, typeface, ink color and paper selection.
In the 80s-90s there was a proliferation of do-it-yourself logo software. Too many to mention by name but, all producing only fair-to-middling results. In the 2000s, post dot-com boom came the crowd-sourced logo factories and the $99 dollar solution houses as well as the stock logo sources shilling "add your name here" solutions.
None of these solutions devalued the design profession nor took food out of the mouths of talented designers. If anything these solutions sucked in people who knew they needed a logo but, they couldn't afford a designer. The smart ones know their DIY solution is a placeholder solution for the day when they can afford a well designed rebrand.
I think the key here (beyond echoing what has been said about it not being a suitable replacement for a design service) is that technology/resources (such as the Noun Project) have provided a tool which previously didn't exist. This is the first of many, and an inkling of tools to come (plus, stock sites have been filling this gap for years). It's a fast paced world, keep up or get out. Adapt or die. I don't think many designers are afraid that robots are taking their jobs. I think many designers feel that their services are undervalued (see: Spec work, "I could do that", "this will be great for your portfolio", "I'll pay you in beer", etc. etc.) and I think many are concerned this tool will continue to propagate such patronizing attitudes from clients in an industry that already feels somewhat undervalued and unappreciated.
Seriously designers, give this Squarespace garbage a rest and GET BACK TO WORK. Stellar identities don't design themselves. Case in point: Squarespace.
I bet Squarespace logo will take work from sites like 99Designs, rather than branding professionals. Besides, logo designers, you do more than just putting an image together with typography right? You provide a service to your clients, thinking through how their branding can help them reach their business goals and making sure they know how to keep their brand consistent from vendor to vendor. Point and click can't do that, and those parodies are (hilarious) proof.
MARC POSCHJOHN BROWNLEE
John: You are confusing something here "...a gentle prod that gets people who otherwise wouldn't to start thinking about their brand..". Dude, a logo isn't a brand. Folks who just pick an icon and call it a brand will probably have a hard time succeeding with their project anyway. Brand development is a serious process that helps companies to define their authenticity, language and relevance to an audience... This runs so much deeper than just picking a cute icon from a clip art library. Sorry, no short cut here if you want to start a business right. Marc Posch Design, Los Angeles
This is alluded to in the article but never quite gets to the point that the problem is that people (in the U.S., in particular) don't value design to begin with. That's the problem. Not that they have these tools to make themselves the "expert." How much have DIY tools made designer's jobs harder? Not because the client is getting more sophisticated, but because they think they can do it themselves. Just because you give someone a chainsaw doesn't meant that they should use it.
The other point here is that SquareSpace logo homogenizes the look and feel of brands that are out there to a European (dare I say white) aesthetic: sans serif, vectorized, grid with lots of white space (Swiss). In ways, I would argue that this is really marketing to a certain subset of consumers out there and might not really serve the whole purpose of branding and identity. So, as a designer and a consumer, this is just going to make me question more the authenticity of a brand.
The majority of clients I work with already have an idea for what they want their logo to look like, and, it's highly unlikely that the Squarespace Logo creator will have a solution that even comes close to the custom solution I start with in pencil on paper. Any client who takes more than 10 minutes caring about their brand identity won't use the Logo creator, because they will learn that having their brand designed by a professional is the best route that everyone should take. Really though the likeliness to use this kind of tool depends on the level of uniqueness the client is trying to achieve, and now-a-days I think it's commonplace for people to choose a more unique option to represent their venture rather than a generic one, plus, the learning-curve alone for a tool like this many times drives people away because they aren't willing to spend time learning how to do something that they continually fear will turn out bad because they start with no experience..
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