How not to approach me for logo design work

How not to approach me for logo design work – part 3

I receive the odd number of remarkable letters, like this and it usually leaves me with a slight need to express my unhappiness. The black lines just mean I can depersonalise the letter, the pink area is the specific area that caught my eye.

Highlighted text : “Anyway we are sending the brief out to a few designers as it’s quite important to get the logo sorted as soon as possible, anyway if you can send us a few designs we can look at them all and if we decide to use yours we can negotiate a price.”

Translation : “Anywho, we are sending this non-brief to any designers who may be desperate and stupid enough to work with us. As we have left the logo till the very last minute, we of course need this logo designed as soon as possible, specifically this week.

We don’t value your skill or profession, so we don’t see why we should pay you in advance, even a deposit. We certainly don’t trust that you will deliver the goods, even though we have picked you to help us. But we figure, the more designers we have, the more likely we will find a decent logo that will cost us next to nothing.

We want all the designers we have approached to send in their ideas on the off chance one of those will be good enough to use. Only then will the ‘lucky designer’ be compensated. As you can see from how we are approaching this, we will not be paying the winner a fair sum, likely a few hundred pounds if you are lucky. This is your own stupid fault for being such a lame ass mug.

We may also use your design, but tell you that you were not successful, we will also tell everyone else the same thing. We will then keep all the other submitted designs on file for future projects that require a similar theme. Free logos for us, and all it took was a mass mailer to do it.

Thanks ever so much for your time, it is REALLY appreciated.

My end thoughts

I may be using sarcasm as the main offensive here, and I realise many people view sarcasm as the lowest form of wit, but frankly, this sort of letter deserves nothing less.

No matter what you do for a living, if you received a letter like this, I am pretty sure you would not be entirely happy. Even less happy if you love what you do, that you cherish you particular skill, that you and others value what you do. Sending out a letter such as this is a perfect way to alienate yourself. Just try to think a little bit more about how easy it can be to devalue someone else’s profession, and think about how if the roles were reversed how it would make you feel?

Here’s a question to ponder over. Instead of emailing me, why don’t you pick up the phone and ask me exactly the same thing you have written here? If you don’t have the decency to make the call and ask in person, then this shows you know in your heart you are being inappropriate.

Post edited

I have edited this post since some comments ‘called out’ my incorrect comparison examples of photography and architecture. Although I actually stand by them, they were not worded in a clear way. I was simply implying that no matter the creative discipline, in the context of this letter, this sort of communication and first contact is likely to alienate the very people you are trying to ‘hire’. It’s just about thinking what you write and how it could be perceived. This letter just clearly implies you have no real appreciation or respect of the actual skill set of the people you are approaching. This is just rather odd.