Why do you feel you have to produce logo's for such a small fee.
Have you researched what other design firms are charging.

I dont think you will ever be able to make a living out of design by charging that amount. And I also think that a lot of people who are entering the industry dont realise that they are contributing to damaging the publics perception on what design is worth by charging ridiculous low fees.

I have a friend who was charging such a small amount and when i asked him why, his response was that he wanted to get himself known as a designer. He did eventually get known (really well known in fact) but the problem was he was known as "the guy who does graphic design for free". He went out of business very quickly.

He never re entered the design industry because his portfolio reflected his pricing. Because he had to do everything incredibly fast just to break even he never really come up with any "impressive designs" therefore could not even get a job with another company.

He is now in the newspaper delivery industry.......

Cost does not always equate to value. People know what design is worth, and the cost of design is coming down. Target found a way to mass market good design and people are buying it.

Designers, understandably, are upset by this. That doesn't change the economics of the situation. Some will go out of business, some will work for less money. I've experienced it myself in the computer job market. It's frustrating and annoying but it's not going to change simply because you don't like it.

I've seen businesses who are plenty successful and haven't spent a dime designing a logo. I've also seen professionally designed "logos" that look more like a PICTURE than a logo.

I've read comments on this forum about how much more professional a logo makes a business look and how it will bring them more customers, but where are the hard numbers? Who's willing to cite a couple of studies done by disinterested parties?

I was wondering how long it would take for this thread to take this kind of a turn. Logos and their purpose are often very misunderstood. Just plunking a symbol down and calling it a logo really isn't worth much. Without a plan, without something more, you might as well get it cheap (or better yet skip it all together because it's a waste of money by itself).

A logo is not much more than an identity symbol. It is something that your market will learn to easily recognize that makes you look different from your competition. Then your other marketing efforts will be more effective.

Can you prove the value of a logo? Probably not very easily, but to believe that it isn't important defies human nature. Although I hate McDonald's, I'll use them as an example. A 3 year old who can't read will still spot those golden arches from thousands of feet away. We may get smarter as we get older, but the visual impact of a logo does not diminish after we learn to read.

Where logos go wrong is in bad marketing. A logo by itself is a waste of money for the most part. It certainly wouldn't make sense to pay a premium price for it. If you have a well designed logo supported by an effective marketing plan, that logo WILL help. If you believe otherwise, try to find a highly successful business without a logo. Their logo might even suck, but they have done something else right and distinguished themselves with a stinking logo.

A small business cannot afford to spend the big bucks on marketing like the big companies, nor do they need to. But to think they can be successful using an entirely different set of rules, they only delude themselves.

Bottom line, a business needs a logo, and they need to spend enough time planning a good one as any other element of their success. But it is a mistake to depend on the logo as if it has some magic quality.