US Department of the Interior participates in an alarming new trend by crowdsourcing their logo design.

Can you hear the bells toll?

Today, the logo design profession has died. Alright, fine, it has not died yet per se, but a very severe blow has definitely been dealt to it. If not treated quickly, this blow could even turn out to be mortal.

What happened, exactly? Well, it appears that the US Department of the Interior has decided to crowdsource a logo design. We have already spoken of crowdsourcing in our blog previously, so you know why it’s dangerous, and you know why it’s rather immoral. You also know that, despite all this, it’s currently the most popular kind of logo design. And now, you know that even the US Government is at it too.

 What’s this? Do I dare criticizing the US Government? No, of course not! I mean, they’re the Department of the Interior, not the Department of LOGO DESIGN!

And honestly, why should they care that they’re acting like slavers, employing a horde of designers, tossing a crumb (granted, a good sized crumb) to the one who does (according to them) the best work and not a thing to the others?

I mean, why should they give a damn whether they are employing qualified professionals or not? It’s not like the US Government actually needs a quality logo, right? Let them ask a bunch of people, many of them with no experience whatsoever, to come up with a logo for them, or at least something vaguely resembling a logo! You can totally expect a bunch of people you don’t know to come up with a logo that would, in the Government’s own words, “appeal to the 70,000 employees of Interior, as well as (in alphabetical order) cattlemen/ranchers, coal miners, conservationists, farmers, fishermen, historians, hunters, Native Americans & tribal entities, offshore oil and gas producers, recreation enthusiasts (boaters, hikers, campers) and others”?

Why, after all, should the Department of the Interior care that their project is a kick in the ribs to a profession that is already down? That they are participating in the shameless devaluation of creativity that is spec work? $1000 for thousands of designs is totally not a selfish idea, am I right?

And why would they care about unreliability (not to mention the irony of the fact that a logo for the US Department of the INTERIOR will most likely be made by someone outside of the US, and hell, outside of North America altogether?) I mean, who would go ahead and sue the government in case they wind up with a stolen logo? That would totally not cause a gigantic scandal, would it?

Sarcasm aside: it would. Oh, damn, would it ever cause a scandal.

Case in point: the project is not even completed and it’s already causing a scandal. Right now as I write this, a petition to stop this senseless madness is already up on Change.org, and it has collected 711 signatures, so yeah. Whether it can collect enough of them fast enough to make the US Government turn back is unclear, but for now we can only hope and sign.

What a horrible example the government is giving to its people! We have mentioned the organization No-Spec in our blog previously. And in this case, No-Spec puts it best and in a few words: this kind of behaviour is “outrageous, especially coming from a branch of the U.S. Government.”

About the Author:

Daniil Stoenko is a professional writer and translator who produced a variety of articles for LogoBee’s Logo Design Blog over the years.