What is the difference between a Great Logo and a Winning Logo?

Gary... I used to work for the Spirit Pub Group in Burton on Trent, near the railway bridge... they have been bought out now by Coors or someone, not sure, I know it well... a long commute for me every day : )

Wow - it's a small world Liz. I've lived in Burton all my life although my sons school is out of town so hopefully we'll be moving to the countryside this year.

Coors is correct - they bought bass and now own half the town.

Far enough away that I don't have a Birmingham accent!

That was another shock. The English i was used too from the school (i am very far from a native accent), movies and occasional contacts on holidays with English speakers is one thing, the crude street reality in Birmigham and even London is totally different.
I never imagined that almost everybody speaks like in Guy Ritchie movies or worse. Ah, and on the plane back to Romania i sat near a chap from Liverpool. I am not sure that English is the official language in that particular city, we had a conversation during flight, but don't ask me what he was talking about....
I can watch movies, american and even british actors (like Patrick Stewart or Anthony Hopkins) without reading the romanian caption translation. I like listening, i pay attention to the pronunciation and try to learn by immitation, but following somebody speaking in Birmingham and even in London was a hard.

yeah there are so many regional accents and in London or Birmingham you'll come across them all. People who speak like Patrick Stewart are a vast minority!

I just looked over the statistics for the level 10 designers and noticed a few things.

Ambush and VladTodirut have an extremely high success ratio. Both seem to craft very, very nice posters for a CH who has taste and knows what he wants. Each enters few contests. Each selects contests that match their individual extremely high skill set with the CH's expectations. The active, long time CH is well understood by the contestants.

lizonil has a very large number of personal contests. I suspect that her communication skills make it a pleasure for the CH to contact her for additional work.

To me, the lessons are: 1. Communicate with the client. 2. Select clients carefully.
What do you think?

To be back on topic, i have to admit that you are right.

Good communication (and a bit of persuasion) makes good sales in general. If you "sale" logos, voila! And Liz, along with her very good designing skills and style, is a very good communicator. She even admitted that most earning are from one-on-one. If you keep a customer happy, he will return. I know this from another place, not here, since here my success isnt so great (at one-on-ones).
Noe, my analysis:
- Ambush has most (if not all) of his golds from the poster contests, held by the same CH. He knows what the CH wants to see and he wins. He is a good designer of print/posters.
- Vlad Todirut is not a poster designer but a webpage designer, i think you overlooked that. He has a nice simple, clean style and he also has a great entry/win ratio.
- Eximius has the most golds, and he removes silvers and bronzes from his portfolio... REally, is there anyone who know how many silvers/bronzes he removed?.
- And you forgot Operhal and Gary (GJRDesings), who both have great success rations reported to total entries... Very strong designers, with different styles, a pleasure to watch and a nightmare to compete against.
- There are also others in top 10-20..

So the truth is that you have to enter mostly contest where your skills match the requests of the CH. Communication is also important (to explain what your design means, mostly), but you have to admit that most CH don't communicate that much. They dont even provide feedback.

And that i do not understand, how can you expect to have a great logo if you say nothing during 7-10-12 days of contest. If you rate something high as a CH but dont comment on it, most "designers" will start copying the top rated ones.

That's my oppinion. But as you can see, i enter lots of contests, and throw in lots of ideas in most of them. And i also do/did lots of changes to winning designs and those count too i think, so i have a large number of entries and a small number of medals compared to my fellow level 10 designers. Ah, and a lousy one-on-one record of 2 (actually 1, because 1 was not funded so never started...).

Edited by aandrei_24, 23 January 2014 - 11:49 PM.

Herbert, just a curiosity... How come you are "capslock" under the avatar? I never seen that at anyone...

That was another shock. The English i was used too from the school (i am very far from a native accent), movies and occasional contacts on holidays with English speakers is one thing, the crude street reality in Birmigham and even London is totally different.
I never imagined that almost everybody speaks like in Guy Ritchie movies or worse. Ah, and on the plane back to Romania i sat near a chap from Liverpool. I am not sure that English is the official language in that particular city, we had a conversation during flight, but don't ask me what he was talking about....
I can watch movies, american and even british actors (like Patrick Stewart or Anthony Hopkins) without reading the romanian caption translation. I like listening, i pay attention to the pronunciation and try to learn by immitation, but following somebody speaking in Birmingham and even in London was a hard.

I'm actually from Liverpool, but moved to the states when I was little. @Aandrei - What is wrong with a Liverpudlian accent?! LOL! Yes, I'm a scouser! Most of my family is still in Liverpool (and I have an uncle that lives in Ipswich now). He and my aunt came for a visit here (NC/SC) for a month in the fall. All of my family of course has an English accent - except for me and my sisters.

Hi aandrei_42
I have no idea what capslock means. Perhaps Sharie knows. It is probably from an earlier iteration of DC.

I just meant that those two designers were Level 10 with only a few hundred contests and entries. Most (like me) will need thousands.

In an earlier contest, I don't remember which one, I saw a level five designer who should be level ten but never bothered to post on the forum. He didn't participate in the "community," just contests. He also had a very high success ratio.

I was merely hoping to map out best practices. Thanks

@Herbert~ I noticed Ambush enters a lot of poster contests too. That CH in particular chooses Ambush's designs the majority of the time. Not sure why they don't just do one-on-ones with Ambush?

I've had some success with one-on-ones - most all coming from out of the blue (except one CH wanted to buy my design from a contest where I didn't place gold, silver or bronze, but had high-ranked logo). I do have one CH that I've done several one-on-ones with her - we've built a rapport and I get a one-on-one with her every now and then.

I mostly enter logo contests that I find to be interesting or would like to work on or have an immediate idea for. I usually find I enter about 1-3 logos per contest (unless CH requests revisions).

I think DC is revising the site and I know Sharie mentioned we can expect to see some new and exciting changes. Right now, if you look at the Top Designers statistics, it looks like we've all entered more contests than we have entries. LOL! Looking forward to see the new and improved site!

Herbert - sorry but I break your rules! I don't specialise and don't communicate unless spoken to (due to the reasons Andrei gave).

That aside, I think win rate is meaningless without quantifying effort.

1) it would take me about 20 times as long to make a web design as it would a logo design - not all submissions are equal.

2) Another problem is that you are counting win rate as wins/submissions whereas wins/time is possibly more meaningful - well it is for me because I need more wins over time.

3) My submission count is low because I don't submit many of the logos I make because I know they won't win.

4) it may take me 3 times longer than another level 10 designer to make a single logo submission...

Stats can be very misleading.

Gary... trust you to break the rules... lol such a renegade!
Painted Pony... from Liverpool, I never would have guessed! I used to live in Charlotte NC many years ago, and I love Charleston SC, one of my favourite places in the world, along with Savannah, GA.
Herbert... yes I see those poster entries, I never enter those contests, too much work for too little money... logos for me are quick and easy.
Femaé is my favourite designer on this site... I am working with one of his logos now in a one on one, it is a wonderful logo to work with.
Andrei ... I was wondering too what CAPSLOCK means.
Happy GD I always think of the happy song when I see your name! : )
Thats my input for what it's worth... back to this monster one on one : (

Gary... trust you to break the rules... lol such a renegade!

Lol - you break Herberts rules too so you are as naughty as me!

Liz is fond of mockups and will submit multiple presentations of the same or very similar logos. Don't be fooled by the stats - liz wins very frequently if you look at wins/time.

There's no trick or rule - Liz is a badass designer - it's as simple as that!

Guilty as charged!!! I think it is my power of mock upery that gets me so many one on ones, well, that and my charm of course... lol ;P

... @Aandrei - What is wrong with a Liverpudlian accent?! ...

It is nothing wrong, but i could barely understand it... I wasnt aware that it is an accent/dialect of English, i thought Liverpudlian/Scouse is a language, same a Cockney
This reminds me the faces of hungarians from Hungary when i was there and started to speak what's supposed to be their language. One funny guy even told me that he never imagined that romanian sounds so much like hungarian. That is because i live in Romania, have both citisenships, my mother tongue is Hungarian, but the hungarian from Transylvania is more "archaic" and it is also strongly influenced by romanian and slavic words. Oh, and the pronunciation differs.

... a level five designer who should be level ten but never bothered to post on the forum. He didn't participate in the "community," just contests. He also had a very high success ratio. I was merely hoping to map out best practices. Thanks

i think it is Barkside... but where is the fun and "social life" part of this community? I have to admit that the cash is good, but no fun...

... I don't submit many of the logos I make because I know they won't win...

Stats are ALWAYS misleaeding. Stats can be "fabricated".
About not submittin entries because you know they won't win... Gary, do you remember me posting the romanian expression "you can't s##t in someone's taste" ... you can never know what is in a CH's head...
Enter the damn designs, you never know what unexpected win comes along... Or you do not want to ruin your stats

Guilty as charged!!! I think it is my power of mock upery that gets me so many one on ones, well, that and my charm of course... lol ;P

I think it is your charm. Mockups are allowed only recently, you won a lot before that!
where is Femae? I also liked his/her work....

Guilty as charged!!! I think it is my power of mock upery that gets me so many one on ones, well, that and my charm of course... lol ;P

Your portfolio shows diversity and a wide range of skills - the other designers in the top 5 show mostly logos. If a ch wants a new logo design they are likely to open a new contest, if they want anything print design a one on one is more attractive.

I think even if you weren't so lovely you would get a lot of one on ones.

Stats are ALWAYS misleaeding. Stats can be "fabricated".
About not submittin entries because you know they won't win... Gary, do you remember me posting the romanian expression "you can't s##t in someone's taste" ... you can never know what is in a CH's head...
Enter the damn designs, you never know what unexpected win comes along... Or you do not want to ruin your stats

Maybe i'm wrong but It works for me - I'm not messing with my formula!

Also - misleading stats can be valuable! CH sees medals and number of entries next to a designer before they even look at their profile. It may have some sway - who knows.

Edited by GJR, 24 January 2014 - 02:37 PM.

i think it is Barkside... but where is the fun and "social life" part of this community? I have to admit that the cash is good, but no fun...

This guy is awesome:
margus | Designer Profile | DesignContest.com

level 3!