Whether you are just a casual designer, who likes to spend some of your spare time doodling on a PC, or are an avid enthusiast who only leaves the PC for ‘snacks’ and ‘toilet needs’, these people/places are a pretty cool way to go for those mental block moments which we ALL acquire occasionally.

Maybe the cloud in your design is perfect, but just not for that design. or you need to see another variation of a cloud, then without a shadow of doubt THESE sites, between them, will provide more than enough inspiration for you to finish the job perfectly.

EVERY designer these days, if they have a good internet connection, can NOT say that they have not ‘had a peep’ over at a different web site for that little piece of inspiration that is needed.
The possibilities can seem endless once you do start to spend time browsing around what is actually an immense digital library!

As a creative designer myself, I think that without such sites, and all of the tools that are freely available out there, that logo designing – in fact ANY type of graphical designing – would be a lot less colorful, and nowhere near as popular as it is right now. Everywhere you look nowadays has some sort of logo or design which usually is instantly recognizable without even reading a word.

The word could be there, yes, but think about how many typography logos you recognize before actually reading what they say. For instance seeing the CocaCola brand name from a distance where it would not be possible to read the actual text. I would be willing to bet pound to penny that 99% of the worlds population would know what that ‘sign’ represents.

So, onto the sites which I think, can help your powers in logo design, and bring a whole new creative perspective on your work. No doubt, once you start browsing, these sites will enhance your skills and give you that ‘boost’ that you are looking for.

I hope you enjoy these sites half as much as I have, and that they point you in the direction that you need to be pointed.

5 – http://www.tutorialsphere.com/ Another place you MUST visit when you just cant get that little something right. My money says that you will find what you need here !

I called the toll-free number listed on the site and got voicemail, so I ended up sending a firmly worded Cease and Desist order to the contact email associated with the site, I included my contact details.

The next day I received a panicky call from a guy that sounded like he was still in his teens, he was extremely apologetic,  terrified that I was going to sue him, and adamant that the pirated images were his website designers fault and he had no idea that they were not original.  He was, however, unable to explain why every example in the site portfolio of “his design work” had been lifted from other sites. We ended the call with him promising to take the site down and stop his advertising campaign. The site was down within the next 6 hours and has not been up again since.

Now the happy ending (for me at least) to that story is not typical. I have had my content stolen repeatedly and many times there isn’t an awful lot you can do about it without hiring a lawyer (you can try contacting the company hosting the offending site but that doesn’t always work).

And in case any one is wondering what a “cease and desist” is, you can find a good template here. If you are now itchin’ to try sending one out you can use Copyscape to find out if anyone has stolen your content.

Now I know that for most of you this is not news, there are entire sites dedicated to it (http://www.humanadspace.com this guy claims to be the original “forehead for sale”, I didn’t take the time to verify his claim) , and  the whole idea was pretty well documented by blogs and popular media when it first debuted, so I’m not going to pretend that I am making some startling revelation.

The question I wanted to raise here is: can putting your logo on someones body help your company in any way? Is it something that a reputable company should consider as part of their advertising campaign?

Now, for the sake of this “study”, we’ll use a currently active auction on eBay, this guy is selling the following for $20,000:
“I will place your company or personal logo or slogan on my forehead with a henna tattoo for 1 month. Included with this auction is a guarantee to spend at least 2 hours per day in public view, and distribute business cards or flyers to anyone who inquires about the artwork.  No profanity or morally objectionable material. Henna colors are limited to black, browns, oranges, reds, and yellows.”

Okay, so you get 60 hours of advertising 60/20,000 = $333.33 an hour. The next question is, how many people actually see the logo? You need to take into consideration that even though the two hours might be spent in the busiest mall in the country, and our society does become ruder everyday, there are still a large number of people out there who consider it impolite to stare unashamedly at someone, even if that person has a tatoo on their forehead. Plus, you need to remember that only your LOGO is on their forehead, and unless you already have a widely recognizable logo the chances of the logo being associated with your company are very slim, the exception would be if you simply had your company name or website address on the forehead – i.e. LogoDesignBlog.com, and even then someone would have to be fairly close and staring your “billboard” in the face to read it.

Now the upside to this would be that anyone that actually saw the logo, or talked to your human billboard about it would probably never forget your company.

The real value of the tatto is in any news coverage that your purchase gets, the first few companies to rent “body real esate” got a very good return on their money, simply because of the national news coverage that they got because of it. Sadly, the media seems to have moved on, and even though you may get some local coverage of it it’s probably not enough to justify the $333/hour rate.

I’m not going to make a call either way here, that is up to you, but it seems to me that the $20,000 would be much better spent on a bunch of TV AD spots, where you get an entire 30-60 seconds of a large number of viewers time, than on the few local people that happen to see your company logo. On the other hand, if you are able to get a “billboard” locally, and you can get the local media to make a big enough fuss about it, you may be able to generate enough of a buzz to make it worth it. Only you know what is best for your company.