Real improvement over the old logo. I particularly like that we are now referring to ourselves as U.S. Masters Swimming rather than USMS. If we are trying to attract new members and we are all on occasion walking billboards with meet t-shirts, who knows what USMS means besides those who are already members. I have any number of meet t-shirts in which neither the graphics or text give any indication that it is actually from a swimming event. Kudos to the group who picked the name change and the design.
I was thinking that a silhouette of a guy or gal trying to squeeze into a tech suit might have been better.
Just kidding, of course.
Having been involved in a few company logo selections (not as a designer) you will never get everyone to agree on a logo and then you have all sorts of legal/trademark obstacles you have to overcome with the logo that is selected. Even if this logo is similar to others as long as you have "U.S. Masters Swimming" attached to it they shouldn't have too much or any issue with trademark matters. Maybe the font could be improved, but I am sure that is an easy change.
In general, I like it and it should look good on a T-shirt. Someone can look at this is recognize us as old geezer swimmers without thinking about it. Perfect. It is good that the leadership is trying to move forward.
Trying to do things by committee or volunteers takes a lot longer than just doing it and paying for it and getting it behind you. I am sure they probably didn't spend too much on the design. Doing a contest and then having to legally vet multiple designs from volunteers and doing the trademark research can cost more than the design itself too so it wouldn't necessarily save money to make it into a contest.
Damn, I didn't just agree with Geek again did I? I hate it when that happens.
Preach
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Doing a contest and then having to legally vet multiple designs from volunteers and doing the trademark research can cost more than the design itself too so it wouldn't necessarily save money to make it into a contest.
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Tim -
"We" had to "vet" and "trademark research" the one "we" produced anyway. My comment is more about engaging members than saving money.
Matt,
I understand USMS had these costs anyway to review this design. My concern is that with a contest you want to give some panel of people or the whole masters swimming community a chance to vote on designs, right? Would it not be prudent to have each design legally reviewed before the vote? Otherwise, you might have a winner that didn't pass the legal test and you would have to start all over and incur duplicate costs. Unfortunately, I have seen this done. So, best case a contest costs you the about the same and worst case it cost you much more. There is much more risk involved with a contest.
Not to mention that if you have a contest you might have someone come up with a concept that works for one media really well, but not another media so then you have to have a professional tweak the design to make it work. Added costs and added time. To run a contest you probably would want to spend some professional time on design specificiations as well so that is added costs. You might want a professional to review the designs before the selection to discard ones that don't meet the specifications too. More costs again.
I think the new leadership probably had an idea of what they wanted going into the process and had probably limited their design concepts to minimize costs (both legal and design costs). That is just my guess.
What happens if the swimmers like the design, but Rob and other leadership doesn't think it will help with developing masters swimming? Start over and waste money or undermine Rob's and other leadership's vision? Rob was hired to do a job. It appears he is trying so maybe we should let it go. I have nothing to do with USMS other than being a member and volunteer local coach, but it must be a struggle transforming the organization from being a wholly volunteer organization to a partially volunteer organization.
I don't disagree that there is probably a better design out there, but the time and money to get there is probably not worth it. Overall, good job USMS.
Tim
Matt,
I understand USMS had these costs anyway to review this design. My concern is that with a contest you want to give some panel of people or the whole masters swimming community a chance to vote on designs, right? Would it not be prudent to have each design legally reviewed before the vote? Otherwise, you might have a winner that didn't pass the legal test and you would have to start all over and incur duplicate costs. Unfortunately, I have seen this done. So, best case a contest costs you the about the same and worst case it cost you much more. There is much more risk involved with a contest.
Not to mention that if you have a contest you might have someone come up with a concept that works for one media really well, but not another media so then you have to have a professional tweak the design to make it work. Added costs and added time. To run a contest you probably would want to spend some professional time on design specificiations as well so that is added costs. You might want a professional to review the designs before the selection to discard ones that don't meet the specifications too. More costs again.
I think the new leadership probably had an idea of what they wanted going into the process and had probably limited their design concepts to minimize costs (both legal and design costs). That is just my guess.
What happens if the swimmers like the design, but Rob and other leadership doesn't think it will help with developing masters swimming? Start over and waste money or undermine Rob's and other leadership's vision? Rob was hired to do a job. It appears he is trying so maybe we should let it go. I have nothing to do with USMS other than being a member and volunteer local coach, but it must be a struggle transforming the organization from being a wholly volunteer organization to a partially volunteer organization.
I don't disagree that there is probably a better design out there, but the time and money to get there is probably not worth it. Overall, good job USMS.
Tim
It's not that complicated. Every year USMS has a cover design contest for their Rule Book. It's simple, voted on at convention and there aren't all the issues you mention. Trust me, an open request for logo designs could have been done to the membership via the magazine, emails and here and with very little cost to the organization. I for one, did the Go The Distance logo. I happily have given my time to USMS and Mary Sweat for the project. And I will continue to do so in the future to USMS, my LMSC and other organizations that ask. I do graphic design for a living.
The branding task force is made up of delegates and committee members sent to convention by our LMSCs. Those people are chosen out of their LMSCs to represent their LMSCs at convention - so one can argue that, albiet in a very round-about way, membership helped select a new logo.
A membership vote would have been nice, but decisions on branding are almost always left up to some sort of committee that is representative of the organization of which they are members.
I think the sheer number of unsolicited opinions and offers of "free help" pretty much should settle the debate about the value of using a professional logo/pr organziation versus the general populus of the orgnanization. A logo contest sounds like something a Summer league team does in conjunction with a bake sale to raise money for new flags.
I think the sheer number of unsolicited opinions and offers of "free help" pretty much should settle the debate about the value of using a professional logo/pr organziation versus the general populus of the orgnanization. A logo contest sounds like something a Summer league team does in conjunction with a bake sale to raise money for new flags.
That model (or one similar to it) works fairly well for threadless.com.
Alison,
Isn't there is a pretty big difference between a project like a rule book cover and logo/branding? I am not a graphic designer, but I have seen some companies spend some pretty big dollars on logo/branding and I have seen them take the approach taken by USMS and usually the more people involved and inclusive the process the more expensive it is and the results are often similar in the end.
Now, if there was no contest and they just had a professional like yourself who was volunteering their time from the start or even couple volunteers, then maybe that would have been the best alternative. I guess it is too late to go back, but maybe Rob as he becomes more familiar with how willing people are to volunteer and individual talents will do things different next time.
Thanks for volunteering your time to masters swimming!
Tim
A logo contest sounds like something a Summer league team does in conjunction with a bake sale to raise money for new flags.
Actually, there's a real-life example of what happens when you let a large body of people vote on branding or graphics. If you're driving through Sacramento on your way to nationals in the Spring, you'll be able to easily see this monument to a bad process.
It seems that, several years ago, the City of Sacramento had the bright idea of asking its voters what color to paint the Tower Bridge across the Sacramento River. For decades, this old bridge has been painted silver. The People, however, voted to paint it "gold." Unfortunately, "gold" turned out to be the same shade of yellow that you'd expect to see if you were to swim a 200 free and then give in to your natural urges to puke.
Most people in Sacramento know the color is, at best, wierd. In my opinion, most voters didn't really understand how it would look. And why should they? It's not like they are professionals ... Meanwhile, the People are stuck with that color: the paint will last decades.
For all you do-gooders who want the logo designed by a bunch of unpaid volunteers, take a look at the Georgia State flag. .
No kidding. The new logo is good. And I agree with you about the georgia flag...it got changed because of whinning. Well, maybe if enough people whine, usms will opt to change this new logo to appease a small mass of people.
