The mobile version needs help. I'm not sure I'd recommend this to my clients who have zero budget vs some of the other googlable logo makers (I'm a graphic designer who does periodic logo work and I offer to fix these auto-logos to make them more appropriate).
I tried it out and the UI is poor. Things like clicking buttons don't result in any user-visible action, like a page loading, or even something bad (but not as terrible as nothing) like the button changing contents -- a couple of seconds later the next step happens. This means clicking is click, hope for the best, wait 300ms, get bored, click again, give up. Same for the search, type in a term, the list of icons disappears, and is repopulated when matches are found -- unless no matches are found then nothing happens, you have to wait until you are pretty certain that the blank icon area means no matches and not searching.
Fantastic concept! But I'm completely turned off by the IP terms ([1] below). This suggests LogoFox is pushing icons without doing IP checks, and selling them as finished logo designs without any assurance that the user won't get sued because of this.
Don't take this as negative feedback, but as a tip to re-think the legal side approach. Better would be that you
(a) you do some copyright checks and your terms state what checks have been done; and
(b) once someone pays for the logo, they own the IP rights in the logo.
[1] "Third Party Design Resources – You may use purchased End Products outside of the Site, whether for commercial or personal purposes. Prior to creating and using any End Product, LogoFox highly recommends you to perform due diligence to determine that the use of the Design Resources is free of any adverse claims and is not subject to any third party rights. LogoFox may also use symbols provided by The Noun Project, a third party content provider that obtains the symbols from other third party contributors. All use of these Symbols is AT YOUR OWN RISK. "
A logo? Remove the automatic part and focus just on the deliverable; whether it's made by a computer or by a human, what you get is a few concepts before you select the one you like. And then you go with a lawyer to protect your IP.
Ok, why pay for a deliverable I might not be legally allowed to use, or might be associated with unknown follow-on costs to aquire that right? They are obtaining third-party resources somewhere, they would be in an excellent position to provide relevant documentation.
Unless I'm missing it in the terms, the user isn't even clearly allowed to use their designs as the basis of a known-safe design, since they don't explicitly permit changes to it?
Third party resources? The problem isn't the stock images or shapes the generator uses, the problem is you could create a logo for "Disney" here or accidentally make something too close to Blogspot's logo because your company name has the same initials and you like the rounded square shape that gets generated.
Read the section of the terms of service being discussed. It's about "third-party design resources" and how you are using them at your own risk, not about a general guarantee that the logo isn't conflicting with an existing trademark etc.
When talking about the finished logo, they talk about "End Products".
They define "Design Resources" as
Throughout the process LogoFox will also make use of certain symbols, colors, fonts and other design elements (collectively known as "Design Resources”)
[...]
and then state
d. Third Party Design Resources
[...] All use of these Symbols is AT YOUR OWN RISK. You shall abide by all copyright notices, trademark rules, and shall not use, copy, reproduce, modify, translate, publish, broadcast, transmit, distribute, perform, upload, display, license, sub-license, rent, lend, assign, gift, sell or otherwise transfer or distribute for any purposes whatsoever any portion of the Design Resources not owned by you: (i) without the express prior written consent of the respective owners or (ii) in any way that violates any third party right.
You acknowledge that some fonts and symbols used during the Design Process might have been licensed from a third party provider. Under no circumstances will LogoFox be liable in any way for any Design Resources, including, but not limited to, for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Materials or any part thereof.
Delivering a design where you can't even tell the customer about the license of the fonts you used is... weak. If you want to offer cheap designs, use open fonts or clearly tell the customer where they can get their own license, don't just let them figure it out themselves.
Only if your contract specifically states that the artist will check your logo against registered trademarks for potential infringement. Usually that requires two people, an IP lawyer and a logo designer.
You're technically correct, but for a simple logo designed by an artist doesn't usually need an IP lawyer as long as the concept is unique enough. It's not going to be an issue nearly as much as if the logo was sourced from an icon aggregator site that completely disavowed any copyright claims.
> If I contract someone to make me a logo, I can normally safely assume there won’t be lingering IP issues after I have the deliverable.
This clause is not about copyright on the logo itself. It's about trademark law and all the difficulties therein.
I understand your concern about copyright. In copyright, the source of the image is what matters, not its appearance: If you created your own logo that happens to be similar to an existing logo, but did not actually copy the existing item (and could prove that), you'd be fine. If you did copy it, and made significant changes until it didn't look confusingly like the original, you'd be guilty. But this isn't the problem that "perform due diligence to determine that the use of the Design Resources is free of any adverse claims and is not subject to any third party rights" is warning you about.
Trademark law is different than copyright law. If you create a brand new logo that, unfortunately, happens to look by random chance similar to another logo that already exists in your market but you didn't know about, that's an IP issue. You need to search out and differentiate your logo from all conflicting logos that already exist.
This search is why no artist or automatic logo generator could guarantee that you're able to use the outputs.
While you're correct, I don't think that's why the terms are stated as they are. This site is aggregating symbols and appears to be completely uninformed about the origin's copyright. The chance that one of the icons has licensing terms is pretty high.
He's not talking about trademark protection, but copyright permissions to the assets used in the logos. I'd absolutely expect to have explicit licensing to redistribute and modify a logo, and from the T&C, it doesn't look like you even get that.
All they really do is take the thing you typed in and put in a few different fonts.. This doesn't seem worth any amount of money. I can do that in mspaint.
Really? You're paying for logo creation. Due diligence is different and likely more costly. I see no problem with the current model because it provides a useful service for a fee. Just because it doesn't provide a more useful service for a larger fee doesn't make it useless.
Wow whats with the instant downvotes? Come on guys get off the high horses and have a little tolerance for banter. This project will most likely trap you in some sort of legal issues. I just summed it
How does anyone know if you have the legal right to use this? I guess you could litigate over it and have a judge rule that you own it? What I am trying to say is that the straight forward way to legal protection is to include lawyer fees in whatever you charge customers. You can either make your product more expensive or you can try make things work for a lot more people. I don't think you can do both (once again I would love to be proven wrong).
Edit: it seems to be talking about copyright. I retract my comment. I think if you pay money, you should definitely have a full copyright license to do everything you need to do with a logo that identifies your business.
Companies pay thousands for logos that are culturally flawed, or just, y'know flawed. OGC was a big example a few years back [the logo version looks rather like a person playing with their penis].
Hi, Alan from LogoFox here. I understand your concern regarding the IP terms.
I will make it straight and simple.
1) We use third-party icons from The Noun Project. We use their Pro API which gave us the right to use and sell the icons in part of the logos. Those icons are from thousand designers around the world. Normally when a designer uploads an icon on The Noun Project, they gave their IP. But, how can we be sure the icon uploaded is really their own creation? We can't.
2) We use hundreds of fonts. We check the license for all of them. But even with that, there is still a small risk of license infringement.
3) Thousand of logos are created every hour on LogoFox. Some will probably look similar to existing logos out there. For obvious reasons, we can't personally take the liability for the logo generated on the site. You have to make your due diligence.
Those 3 reasons mainly explain our current terms. This allows us to protect ourselves from any liability problems that may occur. Those liabilities also exist with a logo designed by a logo designer. The difference is, we don't deal with one logo a week but with thousand. So we adapted our terms accordingly. I hope you understand.
TLDR: no matter if your logo comes from a logo maker or a designer. You have to make your due diligence.
The problem with this model is that if you aren't able to do due diligence yourself due to technical restrictions, how are your end users supposed to overcome the even greater technical restrictions on due diligence that using your service imposes?
Fundamentally, the problem is not the fact LogoFox is a logo maker. Because this applies also to logo designers. A due diligence is done on a case-by-case basis by someone specialized in doing this. We process thousands of logos, we naturally can't make a due diligence for every single one logo created.
Doesn't seem to work, if I choose text+logo, I only get a square with the first letter of the name I chose.
Also, the icon browser needs some kind of loading indicator, now I don't know if there are no results or if the search is taking long.
I used LogoJoy [1] a year or so ago to create a logo for my side business. This appears to have a lot of the same "designs" available as LogoJoy, but with a much less intuitive UX.
This feels like the logos are better than there and logojoy took me through far too many steps. Leaving the forced registration to right before you even get to see the logos they generated.
Looks like you can browse through some logos by using arrow keys to scroll the logos below the forced registration. But I agree, the forced registration is a really lousy thing to do.
I preferred the design process at LogoJoy though, especially the choice of colors and explaining what the colors often mean.
What's your point? You can also get professional logos for $100,000. Logofox has valued their professional design at $990, it's subjective whether you think that is high or low.
Great concept, congrats on shipping. I think there's a big market for automatic logo creation, however I don't think using icons from The Noun Project is the answer because the output looks generic, and that's not something you want if you are paying $30.
I'm just thinking aloud, but the brand name should get the idea for the isotype and then generate it from scratch, not just using it. Also, the brand name should give the idea of whether is a serious business, or a playful one.
On the experience I had a few ideas: after selecting the icons, there's no «next», just «close» button, which sounds like I will lose my progress. And I get you're generating the logos on the fly, but don't let me see a brief moment of "error creating your logo". At least wait a few seconds before showing it.
I expected the app to somehow "understand" the brand name and that the meaning(s) would influence suggestions. I don't think that's happening, or at least it's very basic. I tried "Cloudera" and "Red Badger" and got very similar suggestions none of which had to do with the name at hand.
The search is case sensitive which produces no result when your phone starts with caps automatically.
I selected icon only, picked an icon, clicked close, and it showed me a bunch of text only logos with no icon. I went back, picked a shape, clicked close, and the loading screen just kept loading.
112 comments
[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 206 ms ] threadMy major annoyance is "trapping" the back button so I can't go back.
Don't take this as negative feedback, but as a tip to re-think the legal side approach. Better would be that you
(a) you do some copyright checks and your terms state what checks have been done; and (b) once someone pays for the logo, they own the IP rights in the logo.
[1] "Third Party Design Resources – You may use purchased End Products outside of the Site, whether for commercial or personal purposes. Prior to creating and using any End Product, LogoFox highly recommends you to perform due diligence to determine that the use of the Design Resources is free of any adverse claims and is not subject to any third party rights. LogoFox may also use symbols provided by The Noun Project, a third party content provider that obtains the symbols from other third party contributors. All use of these Symbols is AT YOUR OWN RISK. "
A logo? Remove the automatic part and focus just on the deliverable; whether it's made by a computer or by a human, what you get is a few concepts before you select the one you like. And then you go with a lawyer to protect your IP.
Unless I'm missing it in the terms, the user isn't even clearly allowed to use their designs as the basis of a known-safe design, since they don't explicitly permit changes to it?
When talking about the finished logo, they talk about "End Products".
They define "Design Resources" as
Throughout the process LogoFox will also make use of certain symbols, colors, fonts and other design elements (collectively known as "Design Resources”) [...]
and then state
d. Third Party Design Resources
[...] All use of these Symbols is AT YOUR OWN RISK. You shall abide by all copyright notices, trademark rules, and shall not use, copy, reproduce, modify, translate, publish, broadcast, transmit, distribute, perform, upload, display, license, sub-license, rent, lend, assign, gift, sell or otherwise transfer or distribute for any purposes whatsoever any portion of the Design Resources not owned by you: (i) without the express prior written consent of the respective owners or (ii) in any way that violates any third party right.
You acknowledge that some fonts and symbols used during the Design Process might have been licensed from a third party provider. Under no circumstances will LogoFox be liable in any way for any Design Resources, including, but not limited to, for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Materials or any part thereof.
Delivering a design where you can't even tell the customer about the license of the fonts you used is... weak. If you want to offer cheap designs, use open fonts or clearly tell the customer where they can get their own license, don't just let them figure it out themselves.
Which makes this way more expensive than a normal logo created by an actual artist.
If I contract someone to make me a logo, I can normally safely assume there won’t be lingering IP issues after I have the deliverable.
This clause is not about copyright on the logo itself. It's about trademark law and all the difficulties therein.
I understand your concern about copyright. In copyright, the source of the image is what matters, not its appearance: If you created your own logo that happens to be similar to an existing logo, but did not actually copy the existing item (and could prove that), you'd be fine. If you did copy it, and made significant changes until it didn't look confusingly like the original, you'd be guilty. But this isn't the problem that "perform due diligence to determine that the use of the Design Resources is free of any adverse claims and is not subject to any third party rights" is warning you about.
Trademark law is different than copyright law. If you create a brand new logo that, unfortunately, happens to look by random chance similar to another logo that already exists in your market but you didn't know about, that's an IP issue. You need to search out and differentiate your logo from all conflicting logos that already exist.
This search is why no artist or automatic logo generator could guarantee that you're able to use the outputs.
It is literally impossible to vet an idea / logo / website name, before you even have it.
First you design, then you apply for protection.
How though? For example, this is one of the things I got when I typed apple: https://d30y9cdsu7xlg0.cloudfront.net/png/620675-200.png imgur at https://i.imgur.com/RmnqgG2.png
How does anyone know if you have the legal right to use this? I guess you could litigate over it and have a judge rule that you own it? What I am trying to say is that the straight forward way to legal protection is to include lawyer fees in whatever you charge customers. You can either make your product more expensive or you can try make things work for a lot more people. I don't think you can do both (once again I would love to be proven wrong).
Edit: it seems to be talking about copyright. I retract my comment. I think if you pay money, you should definitely have a full copyright license to do everything you need to do with a logo that identifies your business.
1) Pretty sure that branding is taken
2) Let's say I was ignorant of the bed sheet brigade, it would be pretty bad to get a logo that's culturally flawed.
If the client only wants to pay $29 or even $990, that barely covers a meeting and a few sketches.
I will make it straight and simple.
1) We use third-party icons from The Noun Project. We use their Pro API which gave us the right to use and sell the icons in part of the logos. Those icons are from thousand designers around the world. Normally when a designer uploads an icon on The Noun Project, they gave their IP. But, how can we be sure the icon uploaded is really their own creation? We can't.
2) We use hundreds of fonts. We check the license for all of them. But even with that, there is still a small risk of license infringement.
3) Thousand of logos are created every hour on LogoFox. Some will probably look similar to existing logos out there. For obvious reasons, we can't personally take the liability for the logo generated on the site. You have to make your due diligence.
Those 3 reasons mainly explain our current terms. This allows us to protect ourselves from any liability problems that may occur. Those liabilities also exist with a logo designed by a logo designer. The difference is, we don't deal with one logo a week but with thousand. So we adapted our terms accordingly. I hope you understand.
TLDR: no matter if your logo comes from a logo maker or a designer. You have to make your due diligence.
[1]: https://logojoy.com/
OP is a lot better.
I preferred the design process at LogoJoy though, especially the choice of colors and explaining what the colors often mean.
I've used it before for some ideas. I just remove the overlay using Chrome's developer tools so I can see the logos clearly.
$30 for a computer generated logo. $990 for a professionally designed logo.
I'm pretty sure you can get a computer generated logo for free from a variety of services, and professional logos for much less than $990.
The UX on the site isn't great, so I wouldn't really pay for a premium service.
They're horrible and only $5
Or it's an error.
What's your point? You can also get professional logos for $100,000. Logofox has valued their professional design at $990, it's subjective whether you think that is high or low.
On the experience I had a few ideas: after selecting the icons, there's no «next», just «close» button, which sounds like I will lose my progress. And I get you're generating the logos on the fly, but don't let me see a brief moment of "error creating your logo". At least wait a few seconds before showing it.
I would also love to recommend http://logodust.com, for open sourced logo designs made by a design agency [1] that you can download and use for free.
[1] http://fairpixels.pro
I would really like a way to go back, so I could actually download, or screenshot my favorite.
Only alphanumeric characters are allowed. 3-25 characters max.
Also, I failed to remember that it was a ".co" domain, but of course getting the perfect domain is hard.
I selected icon only, picked an icon, clicked close, and it showed me a bunch of text only logos with no icon. I went back, picked a shape, clicked close, and the loading screen just kept loading.
I tried to figure that out via the chat, but the developer said he is "not sure".
What does that mean? Isn't everybody who sells physical or digital goods required to provide a valid invoice?
1. Back button/link as well to go back and compare 2. Facility to short list icons and compare later to decide final version