A cheep logo will make you loose $

I am a great businessman because I have a logo that only cost $5... NOT

Here is a great article (edited) about why cheep logos from the internet are a bad idea. For a full version of the story please go here.

Logo design in today’s world is totally under rated. People do not understand how important a good logo is and how valuable it is to their business. In this article I am going to outline the ways in which you should NOT go about getting your logo designed… that is, if you are truly serious about business.

Logo Design Contests The worst deal you could probably go for is a logo design contest. Although this sounds like a mighty good deal, the quality is usually far from anything you would want to represent your business. You will be wasting your money and in the long term, in terms of damage done to your business, that amount could be quite considerable.

Too Good To Be True Deals If you do a search on ‘logo design’ on google you will find many businesses offering logo designs for very cheap and unbelievable prices. Such deals as “5 design concepts from 5 designers!” or “6 logos from 5 designers only $200″ - Stay away! These deals are extremely deceiving and the quality is far from satisfactory. Have you ever wondered how much thought they actually put into your logo design?

Stock Imagery This is a huge no-no. Did you know that stock imagery gets downloaded by thousands of people? This should be reason enough not to use stock imagery as your logo. If you do this, other people will have access to your logo design and can and will use it in places that will potentially devalue your business.

Do It Yourself Logo Design Closely linked to the stock imagery scenario above, business owners or those wanting a logo will try to do it themselves. I highly recommend against this and suggest you leave the design to a professional, much as you would leave your dental work to a dentist.

Free Logo Makers You will find many free online logo makers on the web. Not only do these logos look unprofessional, hundreds of other people could have the same logo as you and what is the point of that? These logos have no thought, concept or memorability about them, they are merely symbols.

Getting A Design Without Feedback Before approving and implementing a design, ensure you get feedback from your clients, peers, and stakeholders. Getting feedback on a design is a crucial part of the logo design process as it ensures that your logo is going to be successful.

What is the cost of a professional logo design? An obviously important question, but one that can’t be answered without details of your logo design project. Every company is different, so it makes sense to tailor a quote to your individual needs. Prices vary depending upon a large number of factors. Take the size of your company as an example. A small start-up business might expect one or two initial logo ideas before finalizing a design. On the other hand, a large multi-national might require exhaustive documentation analyzing the competition and may need to explore a wider range of design variations.

However he is a all park figure for a logo.
$800 to $2,400 yep that little... or that much!

It all depends on how much a budget you have. Logos are the foundation to your Brand. When you have a logo you should use it on the following places first.
- Business card
- Website and all other internet related communications
- Press Release
Once you get a bit more exposure you can start spending money on other items to expand the exposure of your business logo.

Predictions for 2009

Hocus pocus, mumbo jumbo stuff...

This is an edited report from John Battelle who has made some very accurate predictions in the past. I think a lot of this stuff is prity accurate and will definitlyy effect a lot iof us in the marketing world.

1. Macro economy: We'll see an end to the recession, taken literally, by the end of 2009. In other words, the economy will begin to grow again by the end of the year, but it won't feel like we're out of the woods till next year at the earliest. But until we have another year or two to really find our footing, it's going to feel like we're treading water.
   
   
2. The online media space will be hit hard by the economic downturn in the first half, but by year's end, will have chalked up moderate gains over last year in terms of gross spend. This will cause all sorts of consternation and hand wringing, but in the end, it won't matter. The web is where people are spending their time, the web will be where marketers spend their money.
   
   
3. Google will see search share decline significantly for the first time ever. Search is the ultimate harvester of demand, and Google has become search's Archer Daniels Midland - wherever a seed of demand might pop its head through the web's soil, Google is there to harvest it. The media business is more than a demand fulfillment business, and Google must learn to create demand if it's going to diversify. Google has a unique opportunity to become a new kind of branded media company. It will fail to do so, mainly for cultural reasons.
   
   
4. Despite #3 above, Google stock will soar in by the end of 2009, mainly because demand will pick up, and when demand picks up, it's like rain on a field of newly sown wheat. This after the stock tanks when the first half of #3, above, becomes apparent.
   
   
5. Yahoo and AOL will merge.
   
   
6. Apple will see a significant reversal of recent fortunes. I sense this will happen for a number of reasons, but I think the main one will be brand related - a brand based on being cooler than the other guy simply does not scale past a certain point.
   
   
7. Major brands will continue to struggle with the best way to interact with "social media." They will take budget reserved for media spending and start to become publishers in their own right. This is not a new tactic (many marketers, in particular technology companies, have published magazines, for example, and many consumer brands create or co-create television series), but given the plastic and social nature of online media, many marketers will see these efforts fail, in particular when the efforts are executed in partnership with major media companies. The reason has to do with putting the cart before the horse: in order to truly succeed in conversational media, the company must itself be fluent in that conversation.
   
   
8. Agencies will increasingly see their role as that of publishers. Publishers will increasingly see their role as that of agencies. Both can win at this, but only by understanding how to truly add value to real communities - not flash crowds driven by one time events. As opposed to simply being creators of media, media companies have realized (or will soon) that their job is to create platforms for communities to make media. Publishers are agents for communities, agencies are agents for brands. They need each other. It takes both agents to get good media made.
   
   
9. Twitter will continue its meteoric rise. The integration of search into the service, and the monetization of that integration. I think Twitter's management team (and its backers) will want to keep the service independent through 2009, both because prices are down but also because I think they want to prove something. The company has a tiger by the tail, and two really defensible assets: a passionate, committed, and growing community, on the one hand, and a valuable, growing, and meaningful database of realtime conversations on the other. But the key is the community and the conversation that community is having. By the middle of 2009, the integration of Twitter's community and content will become commonplace in well-executed marketing on third party sites.
   
   
10. Facebook will do something entirely shocking and unpredictable. It might be a merger with a traditional media company, a major alliance with Google, hiring a head scratcher as CEO, or something else at that level of "WTF!?" Facebook will "friend" Twitter and the two companies will become strong partners.
    
    
11. 2009 will see the year mobility becomes presumptive in every aspect of the web. Mobile will finally be plugged into the web in a way that makes sense for the average user and a major mobile innovation - the kind that makes us all say - Jeez that was obvious - will occur. At the core of this innovation will be the concept of search