What happens if all the logos you get suck? Do you still have to pay a winner $500, even if you don't use that person's logo? How are you going to handle revisions?
The best designers are far too busy getting paid to make a logo that probably won't get them any money and they also don't need the publicity. I have a friend who had worked with a positively brilliant designer from Uruguay. The designer's quote for a logo for me was $500 for delivery within a month and $600 for less than a week.
If this gets you extra publicity, great. But I think you'd have a better chance of getting a great logo if you just found a logo designer with great style and paid that person $500. Does Kevin Hale do freelance logos?
It's not merely $500! The winner also gets a T-shirt. Pay attention, man! ;-)
We've tried the direct route. All of the logos we've gotten from designers sucked so far. Besides, we're having some fun with it. If you don't think design contests are fun, that's fine.
I tried LogoWorks for Virtualmin, Inc. over two years ago, and the suggestions I got back were horrible--really, truly, awful. One was the Verizon V-Cast logo (literally...not even a little different...same colors and all). I even paid them extra for additional concepts and such. It may have been a fluke, and really, SitePoint contests are the same basic concept; as far as I know, LogoWorks is a bunch of freelancers that work on spec, too.
The difference is that we get to have fun with the contest. we have a mailing list and a forum both full of users who'll get a kick out of discussing the logos. They'll also feel some ownership in the new logo, if they get to take part in picking it. I don't see how we can possibly lose on the deal (holding it at SitePoint assures that the worst case of nobody showing up doesn't happen).
There's also the tradition of Open Source projects choosing their logos via contests to uphold. Now that Webmin is a wizened old-timer in the Open Source world, it's got a responsibility to uphold the finest traditions of its community. Or something.
Ah, ok, I wasn't clear on the distinction between Webmin and Virtualmin... a logo contest makes more sense for an open source project.
For anyone else looking for a logo, I'd recommend you post a logo request on http://www.programmermeetdesigner.com/. The last time I posted I got a broad range of bids, from $30 to $500 to price unlisted. Then you look through everyone's portfolio and pick the person with the style you like the most.
Yeah, I've never used SitePoint contests before, and may never use them again (we'll see). It does rule out some of the best known designers, because the best known don't need to work on spec, but the hope (as with any of the methods being discussed in this thread) is that you'll get the "soon to be best known" designer working on your project.
If the logo we get sucks, it'll hopefully suck less than the current one, and we'll try again in a year. The entries so far aren't great, but they aren't all terrible either. We're only a few hours into the contest, and there's already at least one that I think is better than the current logo. So, we're already ahead. The other neat thing is that the SitePoint contests allow everyone to see what's already been submitted--it's a constant refinement process where everybody knows what everybody else is doing. I dunno if that'll really encourage everyone to bring their A game, but it certainly is more fun than staring at the 12-15 logo ideas I got from LogoWorks was.
I'm still groping to find the best way to get jobs like this done--so far, nothing has been satisfactory. But then, until recently, we had very little money to spend (I was going to put up $1000, but it seemed pointless--$500 makes ours the highest paying logo contest running right now...I might bump it to $750 before it's over, if it needs a little extra oomph). I still managed to waste plenty of money and time on logos, though. ;-)
Best case, the logo will rock, and we'll have found ourselves a little known designer who works reasonably cheap, but whose work we love. I'm not holding my breath, but it could happen.
I'm looking through SitePoint now and I'm actually rather impressed by the functionality and surprised at how well the contests seem to work, even for much lower dollar amounts. I have no doubt that you'll get some good entries and I imagine watching the logos come in is a lot of fun too.
Agreed. I had been there in the past, and it seemed pretty slapped together...but they've used their success wisely by investing in better technology. The contests system is, so far, top-notch.
A new logo and look and feel would be nice, but there are a lot of other ways to improve your product. Virtualmin doesn't really differ from Plesk in a significant way.
Have you checked out the features Splunk or Google Analytics offers in terms of log analysys?
Say I have a lot of users and servers where authentication fails.
I'd love to be able to pick a period (by dragging along a timeline of logs), zoom into to a period, and get any messages regarding LDAP from that time. Then I'd like to take that group of server and regenerate a certificate for each of them to fix the problem.
"A new logo and look and feel would be nice, but there are a lot of other ways to improve your product. Virtualmin doesn't really differ from Plesk in a significant way."
We're not talking about Virtualmin here. We're talking about Webmin, the Open Source general purpose web-based system administration tool that Virtualmin sits on top of. Webmin is more popular than Plesk or cPanel by a large margin, but it doesn't really compete with either (it's a different kind of product--Virtualmin competes with Plesk and cPanel, and nothing really competes with Webmin because nothing has the range of functionality of Webmin). Webmin is downloaded over two million times per year. We're not desperate for users here...
"Have you checked out the features Splunk or Google Analytics offers in terms of log analysys?"
Of course. Virtualmin will setup Google Analytics tagging automagically (along with several other popular analytics services like Clicky and MyBlogLog, and it'll also configure the Open Source AWstats and Webalizer analytics tools). But neither Webmin or Virtualmin is an analytics product (and cPanel and Plesk do not offer analytics functionality).
And we have other analytics tools in development. But again, this isn't about Virtualmin at all. We're just giving our favorite Open Source project a new logo. It's not at all motivated by trying to make more Virtualmin sales--we were Webmin developers before Virtualmin existed, and Webmin is important to us. It needs a new logo, so we're holding a contest to get one. Nothing sneaky here.
"Say I have a lot of users and servers where authentication fails. I'd love to be able to pick a period (by dragging along a timeline of logs), zoom into to a period, and get any messages regarding LDAP from that time. Then I'd like to take that group of server and regenerate a certificate for each of them to fix the problem."
I have no idea what you're talking about. But I wish you luck in your endeavors. ;-)
>> "Have you checked out the features Splunk or Google Analytics offers in terms of log analysys?"
> Of course.
>> Say I have a lot of users and servers where authentication fails. I'd love to be able to pick a period (by dragging along a timeline of logs), zoom into to a period, and get any messages regarding LDAP from that time. Then I'd like to take that group of server and regenerate a certificate for each of them to fix the problem
> I have no idea what you're talking about.
It seems like you haven't used Splunk at all.
I know your a lot of your competitors (eg Plesk) are similarly basic. This doesn't mean that it wouldn't be good to innovate.
> I wish you luck in your endeavors. ;-)
One doesn't have to build something to have an opinion on it. If you think otherwise, you may enjoy other forums more.
>>> Say I have a lot of users and servers where authentication fails. I'd love to be able to pick a period (by dragging along a timeline of logs), zoom into to a period, and get any messages regarding LDAP from that time. Then I'd like to take that group of server and regenerate a certificate for each of them to fix the problem
>> I have no idea what you're talking about.
> It seems like you haven't used Splunk at all.
Hehehe...You misinterpret my remark. I'm saying that what you're describing isn't our problem set with Virtualmin. I'm saying I don't understand why you're talking about something completely outside of the problem domain Virtualmin sets out to solve as though we've failed in being unable to perform the tasks you describe. I'm simply confused by all the smoke and waving hands.
> I know your a lot of your competitors (eg Plesk) are similarly basic. This doesn't mean that it wouldn't be good to innovate.
Here you're exhibiting a lack of knowledge about what we're building (you've already done that earlier by saying, "Virtualmin doesn't really differ from Plesk in a significant way", but I wasn't going to really argue that point), rather than pointing out why we're "similarly basic". The problems you describe aren't the problems the vast majority of virtual hosting customers need or even want to solve.
Splunk seems like a wonderful product, and I'm glad you like it. But it doesn't compete with Virtualmin. It's not even in the same general area--there are some places where Virtualmin overlaps with products that aren't direct competitors (because we are innovating in far-reaching ways and stepping into a lot of different areas that effect hosting providers and their customers).
There's even more where Webmin overlaps, because Webmin covers a lot more ground, including system monitoring and alerts. Splunk doesn't address any of the virtual hosting management problems our products set out to solve--that doesn't make Splunk "similarly limited" to other products that don't do what Virtualmin does. If you don't need Virtualmin features, and you do need Splunk features, then by all means use Splunk.
> One doesn't have to build something to have an opinion on it. If you think otherwise, you may enjoy other forums more.
Certainly. I'm just not sure you've really grasped who our customers are (hosting providers), and what they do with our products (enable their customers to build full-featured websites or applications quickly and without human support). This awareness is a rather vital component in our decision making process. ;-)
That said, we do have timeline features coming in a new analytics product that we're developing (and it shows up in a limited form in the system data analytics graphs provided by Virtualmin). I'm not disagreeing that there are many areas for massive improvement in the analytics and reporting fields...there are. It's barely been touched, even by the best products in the field. But Virtualmin remains a virtual hosting management tool--not an analytics product. It'll work seamlessly with these other products, but their job description is quite different, and their customer set will vary quite a bit.
Also of note, I've wrangled Kevin Hale, of Wufoo/Particle Tree fame into being our celebrity judge. If that doesn't make this contest awesome, I don't know what awesome is.
Loads fine for me, but I'll double check our DNS and such (it's a new domain, so I might have screwed it up when moving it from a private server to a public one).
Go for it. We're really impressed with several of the entries, so far. Even if we stopped it today, we'd already have a half dozen logos better than the current one to choose from...still got 9 days to go. I'm thinking we'll be doing more of these for future design tasks.
The best designers are far too busy getting paid to make a logo that probably won't get them any money and they also don't need the publicity. I have a friend who had worked with a positively brilliant designer from Uruguay. The designer's quote for a logo for me was $500 for delivery within a month and $600 for less than a week.
If this gets you extra publicity, great. But I think you'd have a better chance of getting a great logo if you just found a logo designer with great style and paid that person $500. Does Kevin Hale do freelance logos?