Candid Review of Logo Angel

Not too long ago I was contacted on one of my websites by a representative (or maybe owner) of Logo Angel. Basically, they were looking to create a logo for that particular website, free of charge, in exchange for a link to their website. I’m not a graphic designer by any means… and so I agreed to the exchange.

Skip ahead a little bit – I changed the website that I wanted the logo created for to a different site, one that I will be starting up here in very short order – PLR Niche Content; the site has a butt-ugly design & I figured a professional logo would go a long way, plus I could then redesign the website to match the logo.

In any case – here are my personal thoughts on the LogoAngel.com website, the services that they provide, their support and the quality of their work. This review was not solicited – I am doing this on my own accord; I figure that if they’re going to the trouble of creating a logo for me, gratis no less, that I could at least blog about my experiences.

First thoughts from the website

Before I accepted the offer for their custom logo design (yea, they asked for this anchor text…) services, I checked out their website.

LogoAngel.com has a nice design; it has a pseudo Web 2.0ish feel to it and overall comes across as a professional website. Thus, I agreed to the offer. Plus, if you take a look at their membership logos you can see that the logos are definitely professional looking. And, that’s what I was looking for – a professional logo for my website.

Now, the logos displayed on their site are probably just pre-made templates, though I could be wrong about that – but I don’t really care. I was just looking for a nice logo so that I could improve the credibility of my website.

Initial Logo Creation

So – I forwarded them the instructions for the logo; I left the color/design criteria open ended because I was looking to redesign the PLR Niche Content website anyway…. though I thought that I would be getting a “professional” design – much like the sample logos displayed on their website.

This afternoon when I checked my email around Noon, I received the logo that they had created for me:

Needless to say – I was less than thrilled about their initial creation. In all fairness, this is partially my fault, at least the design part of it. I assumed that the logo design would be similar to the logos displayed on their website…. but this wasn’t even close. This is what you can expect when you assume – something that doesn’t quite live up to your expectations.

However, the “PLR, Niche and Content” part – that’s no good.

Language Barrier

Not so much in the initial contact, but in the last few email communications I’ve noticed that there is a language barrier; I’m not sure if they are using a translation tool to communicate or whomever I am chatting with is not completely familiar with the English language – but it has demonstrated itself to be a problem.

Now, I work with people who have English as a second language every week or at least every couple of weeks – it’s generally not an issue. However, obviously if the website name is represented as PLR, Niche and Content in the logo… that’s a problem.

To be fair, however, I did send Logo Angel an email stating this:

Please note, the domain plrnichecontent.com is comprised of 3 words; PLR, niche and content. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with PLR content, so I wanted to explain that before the logo was created.

Which obviously was misinterpreted by whoever read it or whoever communicated the message internally. Because of this misinterpretation I am guessing that the company (or this particular employee) is using a translation tool – I think that most non-native English speakers that I have dealt with & continue to deal with would have understood that email.

The language issue kind of baffles me because at times I can understand the emails completely, and other times it’s pretty difficult to understand the sense of what is being said…. maybe I’m dealing with multiple employees or maybe the person who is writing is just tired… or maybe they’re relying on a translation tool – I really don’t know for sure.

Of course, now that I’m aware of the communication problem I am trying to “dumb down” my writing so that it can be understood better – and I have no problem with doing that either, it’s a part of doing business with a worldwide audience.

More Observations

I received the initial logo at 3:52 am this morning, according to my email client. At that time the email stated that I should add the link as soon as possible.

As a side-note here that ties into the language issue, I stated several times that I would not be adding the credit link from the plrnichecontent.com website until I have redesigned the site – I still do not think that they understand that point because I am almost 100% certain that they’re wanting the link from my PLR site today.

Anyway – I received another email at 6:41 am asking me to “please try to add the link soon”.

And, I received another email at 8:02 am asking me, yet again, to add the link soon along with the reasoning behind why they needed the link on my site before tomorrow.

So, somebody from LogoAngel.com sent me 3 emails in 4 hours asking for the link to be added to my website. That is unprofessional. The emails all have the same name at the end – so I’m assuming that it’s the same person.

Personal Thoughts

Right now the only thing I am impressed with is their website and the sample logos on their website. The logo I received was, in my opinion, less than professional and there is a language barrier that seems to be causing problems; things are not getting communicated in a way where there is understanding, and that is a headache that many people will not be willing to deal with.

Now, I’m not saying Logo Angel is a bad company in any capacity. All of their responses thus far have been pleasant and amicable, their response times to emails run around 18-24 hours, but I think that’s because we’re on opposite sides of the world (their support phone number is India, so that’s what I’m basing my guess on)… so the response time is normal. Maybe others have had better experiences and maybe my experience thus far would have been better had I been more specific with what I was looking for in my design.

In any case – this review is not complete yet because I am still waiting on the updated logo. This time around I provided explicit instructions and even provided a sample logo of my own to demonstrate how I wanted it created, worded, etc. While I wanted to wait until my logo was finished before I wrote the review – the 3 emails in 4 hours today told me (not so subtly) that they were looking for their link ASAP… so I’m giving it to them.

I’ll be making a new post with any additions to this review.

Update 1/27/2008

Updated: Logo Angel Review – Part 2