Wow, what a week. We thought we were flooded in, and we were totally chuffed with the 166 submissions from week 1. You absolutely smashed it with 271 this week!!!!!!!!
That in itself is great news, but even better was the added difficulty we had in picking the shortlist this week. There was a noticeable rise in the overall standard, and relevance to brief (which we’re currently tweaking, the new English version is up with other languages to come in the next few days).
So after long discussion, and internal voting amongst the core OLP, Marketing, Graphics and Brand & Communications teams we’ve settled on these 10:
(from left to right)
Your own logo by MaumerDesign - Very popular entry both internally and with you guys. Simple and striking.
Label Spread by Ulahts - Playful combination of both spread & shirt
Label 02 Update by Whyme - We really liked this last week, whyme made a slight update. We prefer this version and with the additional usage images we have a much clearer idea that this can work, and that its totally awesome! So its back to the shortlist again for the second time running…
Redtab Spread by Kimlarsen - Simple, distinctive. Having the tag attached to the seam like the inside neck of a shirt is a really nice touch.
Spreadlove by Kimlarsen (again!) - Two in a week, congrats Kimlarsen! Innovative combination of a shirt and a heart. Really emphasizes the enjoyment people get from their creations, making something you love.
Pen Shirt by Theoze - Actually although popular, this didn’t get the kind of glowing response internal as you guys gave it. We still have some concerns that it works better as an icon, than a logo. But this got the big community vote, and support from a number of employees so we’re happy it made the list.
Label by Kreadid - Popular with us and you. Smart use of both shirt and label combined, whilst not looking “err yeah seen it all before”. Spread & Shirt are also nicely and clearly seperated.
Label Cut Hole by Prince - One of the most innovative entries this week. We’re really excited to see what could become of this concept.
Spreadshirt TM by Family - Unusual and distinctive. Our first circular logo to make the shortlists. Memorable design, nice use of TM in the shirt.
Tagshirt V3 by Dazzler - Another we wanted to see more of last week. This new version is clean, crisp, we love the tag added to the P and in general we’re rocked by how simple yet memorable and brief ticking this design is.
And those that came close to making the shortlist this week:
The Butterfly Label by Nieke - Original and striking. But perhaps overcomplicated and the butterfly symbol not quite relevant enough. So congrats to Nieke the creator of our Grand Finalist design Label Range, this one is getting there but isn’t quite there yet.
Drop by Japasa - Great design, but the common response along the lines of “Drop could have been my favourite but in my mind I just cannot connect the image of a paint can with t-shirt printing.” - Lets see what week 3 holds for this design.
Congrats everyone who made it, keep trying those that didn’t. Its been a great week, thanks for all your entries and comments!
Congrats guys.
The worst planned contest I’ve attended.
Tweaking the brief during the contest it’s one of many.
congratulations to all! it is really pityful for me that my design was not good enough but I will try to find better idea!
We tweaked it to make it more engaging for you, to give more information about the company past and present. The requirements have only changed in wording. We’ve also provided some more examples of the actual settings the logo will be used in. The goalposts have not have moved :)
Well, I somewhat hope that this doesn’t affect the judging since the bullet “Seperate Spread & Shirt” (sometimes this could be negative visually) didn’t exist when some of us developed our works.
Speaking of tweaking the design brief, i have posted a new comment regarding the “should work as a standalone as well” bit here:
http://olp.spreadshirt.net/wordpress/2007/09/06/off-to-the-grand-final-is/#comment-30375
I wonder if it’s still a requirement or not as there are quite some designs on last week’s shortlist as well as 2 or 3 on this week’s one that would not work as standalone in my opinion.So some clarification would be helpful.Either it is a requirement or it is not…
Oh no, I didn’t make it! I’m not even in “those that came close”! Damn…
Weel, congratulations to all those who made it ! :)
@kim - it was in the “nice to haves” - but since we wanted to make it a little clearer, we also took it into the requirements. however as you can see some participants already made the split before - and we of course didn’t judge only by this point (i think if a design is really strong and working, it should be possible to add this afterwards).
@damiano - I understand that you are disappointed & I’m really sorry your entry was not on the shortlist, but picking the shortlist from many great designs never is easy. yours was close, but others were a little bit more catchy. To be honest I don’t even know why, because I still think your submission is great, but I also feel that something is missing - like some of the other commentators said. of course you might tweak it or redo, like some of the designs we’ve seen in this week.
@logodesigner - you are right -> but it is not in the requirements (but of course welcome if it works alone as well ;)).
@Adam -> It definately *is* in the requirements, look here:
“4. What requirements do we have?
* Needs to be flexible.
As a stand a lone icon
eg as a Favicon.”
To me that clearly says “requirement”.
Well, Damiano has a point. The two picks from week one fit neither the original nor the ‘tweaked’ brief. I’m not saying they are badly designed, i really like the look of ‘tag your brand’ - but how exactly does it fit your requirements?
* Visually separate Spread & Shirt. - Since the seperation is colorbased it will disapear in a single color version.
* Needs to be flexible. - I don’t see how it will work as stand alone icon or as favicon. Without the tagline it may be to plain, with it, it’s not resizable enough. I haven’t seen a single color version either.
With ‘Labelrange’ you can’t even seperate a icon from the typo at all…
Same applies to some of the new choises - ‘RedTab’ may look nice, but just doesn’t fit the brief. What would the favicon for ‘Spreadshirt TM’ look like?
I also really like how this and especially the ‘Label Cut Hole’ really “help people to understand what you are doing”…
How do these logos make the shortlist other then some of you just liking them?
Either have a briefing with -requirements- that you really enforce, or don’t have requirements at all.
Declining logos saying they don’t fit the briefing enough (without saying how) while selecting ones that (as god as they are design wise) don’t fit the requirements at all doesn’t build much confidence in this contest…
In my opinion what Damiano says is legitimate criticism, ans you should take it more seriously with less smilie faces…
100% co-sign what elwood just said.And i wish Adam or whoever would take a look at the freakin’ design brief again to realize that things like “should work as a standalone icon” are indeed a part of *their* own requirements.
logodesigner - me not adam is, but ami (spot the difference)
& ah, now I see what you mean .. but please also see the line above, it says “for example” and shall give you an idea where and what the logo is used for in regards of flexibility .. in my opinion. but we’ll have another look tomorrow to make it really clear.
and sure - we have to keep in mind the briefing on the one side, but we also try to be as open as possible with innovative ideas and also have to balance between the stakeholders. this is why we ask quite some people here and have the panel onboard, why we do the weekly shortlists to give you more hints and a better guide.
should be okay, too, to nominate a draft that is not 100% there.
as for the nomination of week1 - like adam wrote, it’s also about the *concept* - so maybe give it a little bit more time and a chance to see until it’s refined (I think the labelrange will work with 3 colors, too, and one could use the “T” as a favicon just as example).
@ami : It says “(..it will need to work in the following settings ..) As a stand a lone icon
eg as a Favicon.”
To me that means it will need to work as a standalone icon.One of example where it has to work as a stand alone icon would be a favicon version.
As said, all that i’m recommending is that if above does *not* mean working as a standalone is a requirement (anymore), the guys at Spreadshirt should update the briefing.
Simple.
@kim:We hear your concerns and I apologize if I said something that wasn’t in the last brief is in fact in this one, separation of spread and shirt has jumped from a hint to a requirement.
@Logodesigner/Elwood: We never made it a requirement that you submit a logo with all the different version we need favicon, single colour, plot printable etc. If we did it would have been overkill, put extra work on you all for little benefit. Its Open Logo project because we want it to be open, available for discussion and a collaborative process. Sure we’ll need a favicon version of Label Range before we judge the grand final, all the grand final entries will need to provide all the different versions in the brief. But we’re 6 weeks away from that, so there is time for the artist to refine their submission a little further and think about how a one colour version of tag your brand could separate spread and shirt.
We’ve been clear that we weren’t completely convinced that Label Range hit every point on the brief but that its was overwhelmingly popular and we know that Nieke is willing and far more than capable of tweaking it, the concept we all really liked.
Decisions will always be open to interpretation and opinion, there is unfortunately little science that can be applied to a logo design contest. But we’ll happily discuss any decisions that we make with you so feel free to keep bringing them up in this manner.
Mootise/Japasa: Both of you had designs that received votes, don’t be too downhearted, better luck next week.
I am very happy that my logo made the list. I will try to tweak it so that it makes more logo and less icon. (May I update the logo or should I post another one ?) Thanks and congrats to all the others.
Adam, thanks for the answer.
Sure it doesn’t say anywhere it’s a requirement to *submit* all the possible different versions; but what it does say is that the logo (concept ?) has to work as a standalone as well.
I guess this is where i and others are confused: If a concept clearly shows there is no single part that you could use as a standalone, how do you expect that at a later stage magically a standalone version would emerge ? As that actually would mean a *new* concept, not just an update.
I give you an example: What would the standalone icon be in the “Redtab Spread” design for instance ? I’m not bashing the concept or anything, it’s a fine design, just picked randomly by me for explanation purposes.The thing is, all i can see in the concept so far that could be taken as a standalone icon would be the red label with or without the stitches saying “your own label”.But how would be that a standalone version ? It doesn’t say “Spreadshirt”, it just features the slogan; apart from that it’s “just” a (stitched) label.In other words, if someone would only see that label thing with the slogan on it but without the Spreadshirt company name next to it, they would have no idea that this is Spreadshirt.
I guess my point is to make you think again about a) what requirements a standalone icon should meet and b) if there should be a requirement to provide a standalone version *right away*. This way it would be clearer for you what works and what doesn’t.
Because i just don’t see the sense in having a requirement in the brief if concepts can be submitted and are chosen for the hotlists that clearly don’t meet and cannot meet that requirement.
I appreciate the above comments have some validity, but bear in mind that as mentioned higher up (somewhere), the finalists will go through a series of tweaks, enhancements and so on under the care of spreadshirt themselves.
Regarding the ‘Redtab spread’ submission, the question really is: ‘how can you choose this when it doesn’t answer all the requirements?’ And the answer (I imagine) is: ‘because the requirements it does answer are done well, and it has a lot of potential to fulfil the others at the tweaking stage.’
Personal feelings aside (for the record, I think it clearly needs some work and the font is rather awful), the idea of a stitched label graphic hasn’t been used by anyone else with such clarity before now, and it would be a simple matter to create an iteration that has the ’spreadshirt’ typo written across the red label for standalone versions. It would also work as a single colour, but there are questions about whether it’s too simple or won’t reduce effectively. None of these things necessarily exclude it from the list.
These submissions should be as close to the requirements as possible, absolutely (or else there’ll be a hundred more chameleons) and for this alone I think the ‘redtab spread’ should fail to get through this time. That’s not to say the designer can’t come in next week with a tighter design that more fully explores the brief.
Bottom line: there’s been a hundred or more logos that fulfil all of the requirements in the brief and haven’t been seen since. In fact ‘not fulfilling the requirements’ is enough a reason to strike out any and all of these shortlisted logos. Where do you stop?
You have to accept that a bit of subjectivity will come into it – it will be spreadshirt’s logo after all, and they have to live with it long after the competition dust’s settled.
I think it’s unfair to beef over briefing changes – the aim of the competition is to create the right logo for spreadshirt (which is a learning process for spreadshirt as much as us), and so far I’ve been gratified to see that they remain pretty open to different concepts (that horrid Family one got a look-in, for a start).
And besides – how many projects have you done where the brief changes halfway through? It’s part and parcel of the design trade, is it not? :o)
Dazzler,
i appreciate your thoughts, still all i’m asking is this:
Is the “standalone” a requirement or is it not ?
As for your suggestion to type ’spreadshirt’ across the red label for standalone versions in the Redtab example, that’s exactly what i mean:
If Spreadshirt is serious about branding, their logo and and so the guidelines, they should understand that “simply” putting their company name on a red label would just not be a “standalone version” but rather something that is called “brand confusion”.
Standalone versions that work do so because of one simple fact:
The icon is separate from the text and can stand on its own - *unaltered*.
Because, if you have to alter the icon for whatever reason, it’s not the same icon as before.Simple.
Ideally, not only will a good logo have an icon that can stand on its own unaltered but the icon will also tell who the company is or what they do because of its *uniqueness*.
To have a red label with the company name in it (in the standalone situation) is not something that would look too unique, would it ?
So again, my point is don’t think an issue like “standalone version” is a minor one that can be “fixed in the finals”.Either a concept contains a solution for standalone versions or it doesn’t.You have to think about things like that before and during your concept sketches, not after.
Logodesigner, I can understand you beeing indignant, cause I feel similar. Especially the fact that many chosen designs are not following the requirements or are simply not working with a view on what was asked to communicate. A very few up there are high quality and working well in a kind of way, but most of those feel like the jury choses like what “looks nice”.
Of course am I unhappy that none of my suggestions were picked but it is not that I am now trying to put my competitors down (as I mentioned I think some are not bad at all). It is just that I fear if Spreadshirt is going ahead with their selections like that there will probably be a OLP 2 in half a year.
But in the end it is only week two and everyone has to learn while doing this project, so lets see what the next week brings us and hope that the jury will read the designers brief ones again ;)
Yeeeeeesssss !!! Thank you ! I’m very happy ;-) Congrats to all !!! To be continued…
Morning guys, just approving the first wk3 designs before I jump back in.
Seems to be one main issue that we haven’t nailed so farl. Is stand alone icon a requirement? Yep, but perhaps its one we didn’t remind ourselves of enough each time we reviewed a design. Its definetely an overall requirement, but doesn’t need to be present to get a design on the shortlist at this stage. The design just needs to have the flexibility that convinces us it could easily have the attributes we’re looking for.
@logodesigner: I see your points regarding red tab. While it doesn’t scream standalone version, the stitching and redlabel could make for a distinctive icon. But its not there yet, your right.
We’re also going to tweak the shortlist process a little.
Sunday/Monday - As soon as we finish approving I’ll mail the relevant people as soon as possible internally. Everybody has to justify with one sentence why their selections hit the brief. We did this informally before, now its a requirement for selecting a design.
Monday afternoon - The core team (Ami, I, Carsten and Manuel) meet for a final shortlist review and check the designs that would have made the shortlist on internal staff votes alone, one by one against the brief so we can communicate with you firstly why we like the design and secondly why it hits or we think it could hit the brief. Designs that on final review clearly don’t make the brief but we really like, we’ll encourage as we have other designs in the past, but they wont make the list.
Thanks for all your feedback, comments and suggestions. As Dazzler said “which is a learning process for spreadshirt as much as us”, so things will change or not be too clear from time to time, but we’ll try and keep things as smooth as possible.
Man, we could even write history in graphic design & communication right here right now by refrasing the word “logotype” as “a company symbol that is magically embedded with the name of the company”, haha. It’s all about how you use it. Don’t forget that.