Ask the Best and Brightest: Can You Design TTAC's Logo?

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

Of course, the next question is, will you? Companies pay millions for new logos, corporate identities and those terrific little sandwiches they serve inside the meeting rooms. Well, they used to, before the beancounters woke up from their profit-gorged torpor. So why would we ask you, our Best and Brightest, to design a logo for The Truth About Cars without paying for your mad design skills? We wouldn’t. Just not up front (our marketing budget is literally zero). We’ve entered into a revenue-sharing agreement with Car Tatts— they of the “it’s so not a bumper sticker” fame– to split the revenue from TTAC tatts. So we’ll cut our winning artist in on that deal (a buck a pop). We’ll also sneak their initials into the logo, which should please Mom no end. Car Tatts is looking for a car-oriented designer (no really) AND you get recognition and kudos from your peers. Now how much wouldn’t we pay? Anyway, the brief. The logo must be significantly better than our existing design (i.e. nothing) and win the approval of our readers (I’ll build a gallery for comment). Send a jpeg to robert.farago@thetruthaboutcars.com. At this point, we’re talking single use; copyright remains with the artist until we sign a deal. The deadline is next Tuesday. Thanks.

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Kurt B Kurt B on Jan 15, 2009

    @Chuck and elloh7 Couldn't you consider this request as a way to give back to the site? As far as I can tell nobody is getting rich by running TTAC. It's a labor of love. Perhaps you could write if off as a charitable donation?

  • Elloh7 Elloh7 on Jan 15, 2009

    I'd be more than happy to help out, believe me. My issue is the time constraint more than anything else. Takes time to consider all the angles that need to be considered to come up with a genuinely good logo, not just something "generic web 2.0" as seems to float around alot these days. I sat around this evening trying to think of what I'd want a logo for this site to portray, and couldn't come up with anything that wasn't cliché and overdone. Basically, what is truth? How do you relate that to automobiles / cars in a meaningful way that is instantly recognizable anywhere as belonging to TTAC? Thats a tough job for just a few days. I'll be keeping an eye on this post and if anybody has a genuinely good idea but dosn't have the software to work it up, I'll take a stab and rendering something.

  • Maniceightball Maniceightball on Jan 15, 2009

    Yeah, RF, I think this requires more consideration. If you look at your audience, we tend to be uncompromisingly critical, design-saavy, and passionate about what we love (cars, and I'd wager other things too). I could probably whip up a logo if I were given more time, and at least more incentive.

  • Ronnie Schreiber Ronnie Schreiber on Jan 16, 2009

    Robert, I've done a couple of logos for embroidery customers but I'm kind of pressed for time these days (I'll get you that piece later tonight or tomorrow - had an appointment at the ophthalmologist this afternoon and it was kinda hard to focus on the 'puter screen until those dilation drops wore off). If you're thinking about logo apparel, though, I'll be happy to review the finalists and give you my opinion about which ones work well with embroidery. I see logos sometimes, like the Grand Prix Tours one, that were designed with embroidery in mind. Offhand, if you could incorporate a scales of justice into the T of Truth, that might be clever.

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