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What do I do if the product I receive is just not as good as portfolio?


twolessthree

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Sorry, it’s my first time paying for services on fiverr. I bought a logo design and it was a lower cost service but I upgraded to Standard so I paid them a decent amount. The product they delivered looks nothing like their portfolio, frankly it looks amateurish, like they just wrote block letters and pasted a few pieces of clip art onto it; I have no design training and I feel like I could have done the same thing.

What can I do? Is there a way to suggest a partial refund for “Basic” price instead of standard or something?

If you have experience and know what the usual way of doing things is, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

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Sorry this happened to you. You are clearly a nice person and don’t want to upset anyone. However, in a case like this, if the seller refuses to cancel, then you should contact CS.

Unfortunately, some sellers think that they can get away with copying other sellers’ portfolios … and that’s why this kind of thing happens.

Contact CS - they’ll refund you in full.

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Sorry, it’s my first time paying for services on fiverr. I bought a logo design and it was a lower cost service but I upgraded to Standard so I paid them a decent amount. The product they delivered looks nothing like their portfolio, frankly it looks amateurish, like they just wrote block letters and pasted a few pieces of clip art onto it; I have no design training and I feel like I could have done the same thing.

What can I do? Is there a way to suggest a partial refund for “Basic” price instead of standard or something?

If you have experience and know what the usual way of doing things is, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

I paid them a decent amount.

This is relative. Some logo designers sell their logo services on Fiverr for $500 and beyond so what considers a decent amount?

From my research of the market, a large number of logo “designers” on Fiverr do not know anything about the design process. They have some basic skills in Photoshop, I’ll give them that but other than that - no, nothing.

It comes down to using online logo makers and then selling that as a custom logo. And in 3 out of 5 times I found in their delivery reviews logos from different companies just changed color.

I am amazed how most of them (buyers) not know how to use Google image search.

I have no design training and I feel like I could have done the same thing.

I disagree with this. Sometimes the logo looks very simple and easy to create but behind that “easy” logo usually stands years of experience. If you are interested in the subject read about Paula Scher CITI logo.

The trick here is that, no, you could not do it yourself. If you could you wouldn’t hire a designer.

The full coverage behind the price of logo design includes sellers’ creativity and ingenuity.

Like @mariashtelle1 said, if you are OK with it, share the logo that was created and share please what did you respond to logo brief questions (what did designer had to work with for the development of logo).

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I paid them a decent amount.

This is relative. Some logo designers sell their logo services on Fiverr for $500 and beyond so what considers a decent amount?

From my research of the market, a large number of logo “designers” on Fiverr do not know anything about the design process. They have some basic skills in Photoshop, I’ll give them that but other than that - no, nothing.

It comes down to using online logo makers and then selling that as a custom logo. And in 3 out of 5 times I found in their delivery reviews logos from different companies just changed color.

I am amazed how most of them (buyers) not know how to use Google image search.

I have no design training and I feel like I could have done the same thing.

I disagree with this. Sometimes the logo looks very simple and easy to create but behind that “easy” logo usually stands years of experience. If you are interested in the subject read about Paula Scher CITI logo.

The trick here is that, no, you could not do it yourself. If you could you wouldn’t hire a designer.

The full coverage behind the price of logo design includes sellers’ creativity and ingenuity.

Like @mariashtelle1 said, if you are OK with it, share the logo that was created and share please what did you respond to logo brief questions (what did designer had to work with for the development of logo).

Thank you everyone for your replies, I really appreciate it!

So I can appreciate your skepticism about “I can do better” because experts are supposed to be able to make it look easy 🙂 When I said a decent amount, I mean that I was paying 3x their basic price.

But anyway I appreciate you being willing to give it a more expert eye and tell me if I’m being unreasonable.

First of all, I contacted them and described the idea before I ordered, they said they could do it. So I ordered and sent a detailed description of what I wanted. Then they sent me something that ignored 90% of my requirements and just did random stuff. So I thought maybe there’s a language barrier and I had to spend time to draw this to show my idea:

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nethack guides example1920×1080 195 KB

I apparently can’t embed more than 1 media file so I will have to send a second reply to finish my reply.

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Thank you everyone for your replies, I really appreciate it!

So I can appreciate your skepticism about “I can do better” because experts are supposed to be able to make it look easy 🙂 When I said a decent amount, I mean that I was paying 3x their basic price.

But anyway I appreciate you being willing to give it a more expert eye and tell me if I’m being unreasonable.

First of all, I contacted them and described the idea before I ordered, they said they could do it. So I ordered and sent a detailed description of what I wanted. Then they sent me something that ignored 90% of my requirements and just did random stuff. So I thought maybe there’s a language barrier and I had to spend time to draw this to show my idea:

I apparently can’t embed more than 1 media file so I will have to send a second reply to finish my reply.

They sent me back something which looked very similar, but I emailed and asked for a couple tweaks about minor things like the size of the @ and the face, and told him I was thinking it would be more polished like his portfolio, please add some detail and polish, and he made the minor changes but didn’t do anything to polish the quality and sent me this:

783597380_0585_NetH_ckGuides-02.thumb.jpg.458a9c3b46514ec560dce8efcceaaf25.jpg
0585_NetH_ck Guides-025067×3400 320 KB
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They sent me back something which looked very similar, but I emailed and asked for a couple tweaks about minor things like the size of the @ and the face, and told him I was thinking it would be more polished like his portfolio, please add some detail and polish, and he made the minor changes but didn’t do anything to polish the quality and sent me this:

For reference, this is what his portfolio shows:

do-flat-minimalist-line-art-logo-design-in-24-hrs.thumb.jpg.bb7d2c935960d27921d42d6e43ea693c.jpg
do-flat-minimalist-line-art-logo-design-in-24-hrs2292×1542 219 KB

Am I crazy to think that the quality isn’t the same?

I can send back asking for a revision, but I just feel like he has sent me the same quality “product” 3 times now I don’t know if I’m going to get any better out of him.

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OK. I will answer step by step.

The first image you shared is the image you sent them? You created that as guideline for them?

The second image they sent you as logo looks good comparing to the idea what you drawn, but if it was me (and this is just me keep in mind I am in no way something extra special out there, just normal above average designer) I would modify letters from typography point of view, it would not be a standard font any more but twigged a little.
And depending on what you paid I think you should get some revisions that are not extreme (size of @ and similar).

Portfolio shows Minimalistic logo design while yours is typography mixed with minor special icons.

image.png.9589634249a652115192f3d33065c9ec.png

From creative point of view, there is not much to develop from your guideline image.

Maybe try a different font, change snake head, troll head, make @ different, but that is all done in revisions.

There is nothing else to create from your guideline image.

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“Polish” is like “creativity” - vague and means different things to different people.

I’d ask the person to make all the 3 illustrated parts in the same style (and use the same stroke thickness while they’re at it if they choose to go with the line art). It should bring it more together.

Fiverr doesn’t allow partial refunds. Packages often mean that different files are included. Or more options. Or quiker delivery. It doesn’t automatically mean that you’re getting less effort if you purchase Basic or more effort if you’re purchasing Standard or Premium.

PS It looks like you might have chosen a wrong designer for the job in terms of style. All their samples involve a massive illustrated part and a very minimalist lettering part. Your concept is a direct opposite of that.

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“Polish” is like “creativity” - vague and means different things to different people.

I’d ask the person to make all the 3 illustrated parts in the same style (and use the same stroke thickness while they’re at it if they choose to go with the line art). It should bring it more together.

Fiverr doesn’t allow partial refunds. Packages often mean that different files are included. Or more options. Or quiker delivery. It doesn’t automatically mean that you’re getting less effort if you purchase Basic or more effort if you’re purchasing Standard or Premium.

PS It looks like you might have chosen a wrong designer for the job in terms of style. All their samples involve a massive illustrated part and a very minimalist lettering part. Your concept is a direct opposite of that.

It looks like you might have chosen a wrong designer for the job in terms of style.

Your concept is a direct opposite of that.

Exactly what I was thinking. Nothing more can be done here.

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It looks like you might have chosen a wrong designer for the job in terms of style.

Your concept is a direct opposite of that.

Exactly what I was thinking. Nothing more can be done here.

It’s beyond me why people do it. It’s wasting your time and your designer’s time. Their portfolio is screaming at you that they haven’t done or aren’t willing to do anything creative when it comes to lettering. Like, they made it really-really small and put it at the very bottom. Which is fine, it’s their choice and their comfort zone.

I think OP wants the entire title as an intricate line work with the animals/gnomes intertwined with the lines inside the letters. But this can’t be miraculously turned into that indeed.

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It’s beyond me why people do it. It’s wasting your time and your designer’s time. Their portfolio is screaming at you that they haven’t done or aren’t willing to do anything creative when it comes to lettering. Like, they made it really-really small and put it at the very bottom. Which is fine, it’s their choice and their comfort zone.

I think OP wants the entire title as an intricate line work with the animals/gnomes intertwined with the lines inside the letters. But this can’t be miraculously turned into that indeed.

I think OP wants the entire title as an intricate line work with the animals/gnomes intertwined with the lines inside the letters.

Slap my fingers 😃 I started to do that in vector, the line work, I traced his image and then it hit me … Why am I doing this for freeeee stop it Marina.

😃

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For reference, this is what his portfolio shows:

Am I crazy to think that the quality isn’t the same?

I can send back asking for a revision, but I just feel like he has sent me the same quality “product” 3 times now I don’t know if I’m going to get any better out of him.

I also totally agree with other people.

That logo almost as good as it could get based on your sketch.

His portfolio is in a totally different style from what you are looking for.

The portfolio is for a minimalist logos and it’s not applicable for your logo idea.

If he’ll try to make all of it in minimalist style then he will have to make letters also in an outline. And your name is quite long. Bunch of outlines wouldn’t make it easy to read or to understand what’s going on on a logo.

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For reference, this is what his portfolio shows:

Am I crazy to think that the quality isn’t the same?

I can send back asking for a revision, but I just feel like he has sent me the same quality “product” 3 times now I don’t know if I’m going to get any better out of him.

A design looks the way it does because of the vision behind it and the vision you provided is not at all consistent with these samples, so they can’t be comparable.

And what you asked for is nothing like the vision that would be behind these other samples, so you can’t have it both ways. You’re comparing apples to oranges.

I agree that the finished product is not as a professional level as the samples, but neither is what you asked him to do.

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Well, thank you all for taking the time to consider my questions and give your feedback and ideas. Even if, I gotta say, I feel like some unfair assumptions are being made about me and I’m feeling a bit berated.

That said, I did ask my initial question in good faith because I didn’t know if I just had the wrong perspective, and it seems I stand corrected. I really do appreciate everyone giving their more experienced point of view. I’ll accept what I’ve been given and refrain from leaving a review.

In my defense, if any of you happen to be interested in it, my choice in picking him was because of the simple stylistic animals in many of his designs. I just expected that the small parts that were illustrated would match the style.

I contacted the designer ahead of time and described my idea, and basically said I wanted 3 of the letters to have stylistic creatures like he has done, and he said enthusiastically he could do it (I contacted 2 others and the others did, in fact, inform me it was not something they wanted to do). So I feel justified in asking for something different, but again, there may have been a language comprehension issue with the initial request.

And no, I did not have any grandiose ideas of intricate intertwining animals, I specifically requested only a few letters and only part of the letters be stylized. 😛

@marinapomorac if you don’t mind me asking, what do you mean by tweaking the letters? I’m not asking for free work! 🙂 Just a better idea. I do know my way around photoshop and maybe it’s small things I could do. And can you give me an example of an online logo maker? Thanks so much.

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Well, thank you all for taking the time to consider my questions and give your feedback and ideas. Even if, I gotta say, I feel like some unfair assumptions are being made about me and I’m feeling a bit berated.

That said, I did ask my initial question in good faith because I didn’t know if I just had the wrong perspective, and it seems I stand corrected. I really do appreciate everyone giving their more experienced point of view. I’ll accept what I’ve been given and refrain from leaving a review.

In my defense, if any of you happen to be interested in it, my choice in picking him was because of the simple stylistic animals in many of his designs. I just expected that the small parts that were illustrated would match the style.

I contacted the designer ahead of time and described my idea, and basically said I wanted 3 of the letters to have stylistic creatures like he has done, and he said enthusiastically he could do it (I contacted 2 others and the others did, in fact, inform me it was not something they wanted to do). So I feel justified in asking for something different, but again, there may have been a language comprehension issue with the initial request.

And no, I did not have any grandiose ideas of intricate intertwining animals, I specifically requested only a few letters and only part of the letters be stylized. 😛

@marinapomorac if you don’t mind me asking, what do you mean by tweaking the letters? I’m not asking for free work! 🙂 Just a better idea. I do know my way around photoshop and maybe it’s small things I could do. And can you give me an example of an online logo maker? Thanks so much.

First, let me just point out Logo + Photoshop?

It is like you want to boil water by putting it into the freezer.

Completely wrong.

The logo must be made in a vector program. You can use Photoshop for sketch if you like that, but when you have approximate design ready, you do it in vector and vector only.

Second, I hope you did not get my remarks wrong here. I fully understand your situation. I was a buyer for a long time, and it is quite frustrating to spend two hours of conversation before order to make sure he gets you only to realize he can’t draw a straight line in vector even if his life depends on it.

In this case, the seller did the best he could with the given data.

Now the next steps highly depend on how much you paid him and how much he is willing not to leave a job undone for no extra fee and you to explain what you do not like about the logo.

You should always give constructive criticism. Meaning you need to explain either what you think is wrong or how you would prefer it.

Look at that this way. My client wants a logo to have glasses. I showed him five typical styles. Doesn’t like. I showed him 100 different. Doesn’t like. I gave him all humanly possible vector icon glasses available under the Sun. Doesn’t like any of them.

I wasted half my day that no one is going to give me back. I had no idea he is going to refuse infinite glasses.

Point? He doesn’t know what he wants; therefore, nothing I can draw will work.

Regarding logo makers, Google Online logo makers.

You have at least two pages of choices. Some are automatic. Some give you the option to select and work on the design.

And regarding your logo, I do not know where you are planning on using it since for YouTube art is too small to be noticeable. For app or social media - well, you have nothing that can be translated into an icon.

I just have no idea what you want to convey with the logo. Maybe combine first letters into icon/logo and text to be under and used on larger surfaces… I do not know. Plus, he used paid font to create your logo. If you open it in Photoshop and you do not have that font, it will change letters unless he converted them in the object.

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This is a tricky one and I think that there is some negative personal value on each side here.

The Brief is vague or just poor design. Other designers declined as they saw this and dodged. Sorry, that is not meant to offend you - even tho I understand it is upsetting to hear. You asked and this is real help.

This designer seems less skilled and took it on. The result they returned is indeed a vastly tidyier version of the concept which now actually reads “NetHack” as opposed to “NetWack”. Sure it looks nothing like the formula portfolio work but nor does your brief.

I think that from your admission in the OP, you didn’t invest enough in this. Neither in $$ nor your own time. Branding is not done from liking a few pics (esp as seemingly random as these) but understanding the nature of the business and the message they want to send to certain people. That means a lot of investment in talking & thinking. Here is one I did for a friend for a “pathetic” $150

I will put each round of designs in a post. Sadly the discussion is not so easy to share

ROUND 1

logo-concepts-1.thumb.png.d78f518f1e868cf1fd02d6e73d0a59c0.png
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Well, thank you all for taking the time to consider my questions and give your feedback and ideas. Even if, I gotta say, I feel like some unfair assumptions are being made about me and I’m feeling a bit berated.

That said, I did ask my initial question in good faith because I didn’t know if I just had the wrong perspective, and it seems I stand corrected. I really do appreciate everyone giving their more experienced point of view. I’ll accept what I’ve been given and refrain from leaving a review.

In my defense, if any of you happen to be interested in it, my choice in picking him was because of the simple stylistic animals in many of his designs. I just expected that the small parts that were illustrated would match the style.

I contacted the designer ahead of time and described my idea, and basically said I wanted 3 of the letters to have stylistic creatures like he has done, and he said enthusiastically he could do it (I contacted 2 others and the others did, in fact, inform me it was not something they wanted to do). So I feel justified in asking for something different, but again, there may have been a language comprehension issue with the initial request.

And no, I did not have any grandiose ideas of intricate intertwining animals, I specifically requested only a few letters and only part of the letters be stylized. 😛

@marinapomorac if you don’t mind me asking, what do you mean by tweaking the letters? I’m not asking for free work! 🙂 Just a better idea. I do know my way around photoshop and maybe it’s small things I could do. And can you give me an example of an online logo maker? Thanks so much.

I feel like some unfair assumptions are being made about me and I’m feeling a bit berated.

No, you shouldn’t be 😉 we are really just trying to give a feedback.

Working on a design it’s 2 way street and depend not only on your designer, here you simply picked wrong portfolio style.

Please don’t take it wrong way, it might help you in the future to choose the right designer with our comments and after you see our perspective as sellers.

But the main message is that still think that your designer did the best he could with a brief. Where he turned wrong is in assuring you that he can do the work. 2 other designers I guess where more honest and declined it.

If you ask me I would’ve told you upfront what to expect and that in fact I don’t recommend putting complex elements like Santa as part of a text logo. And on top of that it’s a long text logo with 3 drawings in it. I would’ve been honest to say that even if design that logo it will be difficult to use it.

In a small scale this 3 drawings in letter will be so small that you wouldn’t be able to understand what’s going on a logo. + it’s too many elements for one logo: 3 drawings, @ sign, upper and lower case letters mixed. Uffff, seriously too many things for my taste.

The best I can think of for your revision is to remove pictures from the text and ask your designer to create minimalistic icon with those 3 things And put the text underneath.

I feel it’s my responsibility to tell my clients what will and will not work with their idea but some people like your seller just assumed that you need a logo similar to your sketch and he followed it pretty well tbh 😉

Please don’t take it personal, we are really just trying to explain what can be done better.

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I feel like some unfair assumptions are being made about me and I’m feeling a bit berated.

No, you shouldn’t be 😉 we are really just trying to give a feedback.

Working on a design it’s 2 way street and depend not only on your designer, here you simply picked wrong portfolio style.

Please don’t take it wrong way, it might help you in the future to choose the right designer with our comments and after you see our perspective as sellers.

But the main message is that still think that your designer did the best he could with a brief. Where he turned wrong is in assuring you that he can do the work. 2 other designers I guess where more honest and declined it.

If you ask me I would’ve told you upfront what to expect and that in fact I don’t recommend putting complex elements like Santa as part of a text logo. And on top of that it’s a long text logo with 3 drawings in it. I would’ve been honest to say that even if design that logo it will be difficult to use it.

In a small scale this 3 drawings in letter will be so small that you wouldn’t be able to understand what’s going on a logo. + it’s too many elements for one logo: 3 drawings, @ sign, upper and lower case letters mixed. Uffff, seriously too many things for my taste.

The best I can think of for your revision is to remove pictures from the text and ask your designer to create minimalistic icon with those 3 things And put the text underneath.

I feel it’s my responsibility to tell my clients what will and will not work with their idea but some people like your seller just assumed that you need a logo similar to your sketch and he followed it pretty well tbh 😉

Please don’t take it personal, we are really just trying to explain what can be done better.

recommend putting complex elements like Santa as part of a text logo.

Definitely.

If the vision for the design is unprofessional and ineffective branding, the design can’t be professional and well branded. Vision is everything.

You can’t make an improper vision into a proper design.

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“He told me he’d do it” is not a good enough reason to hire someone if their previous work doesn’t support the claim. The portfolio that was referenced here doesn’t support the claim. The concept has 3 heads instead of 1, it has lettering front and center, etc. When you request something different from what the person usually does, the result is different as well.

I’m not defending desperate sellers who jump at every job opportunity even if they’re underqualified or lack understanding in how to do it. But the whole “All right, where is the refund button?” attitude is way too prevalent on fiverr even when both parties could manage the order better. It’s good that OP decided against the refund. It’s refreshing.

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“He told me he’d do it” is not a good enough reason to hire someone if their previous work doesn’t support the claim. The portfolio that was referenced here doesn’t support the claim. The concept has 3 heads instead of 1, it has lettering front and center, etc. When you request something different from what the person usually does, the result is different as well.

I’m not defending desperate sellers who jump at every job opportunity even if they’re underqualified or lack understanding in how to do it. But the whole “All right, where is the refund button?” attitude is way too prevalent on fiverr even when both parties could manage the order better. It’s good that OP decided against the refund. It’s refreshing.

When you request something different from what the person usually does, the result is different as well.

Well said. And what the buyer asked for can’t resemble anything like the samples he’s comparing them to in polish or design.

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