ABOGADO, Rosette Guia G.

TFA 180
2011 - 34305 Prof Cocoy Lumbao

Type it, Placeit

Need a quick logo design? Do you laugh at professional designers quoted price for branding for
your start up business? Are you the type of person convinced that graphic design is as easy as
a few clicks and can literally be done by any toddler? Then Placeit logo maker might be the app
for you!

Placeit is a website app where you can simply type up the name of your brand, pick a color
theme and category that fits your product, and select a design generated from over five
thousand templates designed by world class graphic artists. It's easy to use with an
uncomplicated user interface and instantly updating previews for your logo work in progress.
The categories and choices are neatly organized for users with tabs for a lot of things from art
and crafts, to pediatrics, law firms and others.

A generator designed logo from Placeit costs $40 but with its offered membership subscription
of $15 per month or $100 per year, each logo costs $20. The subscription also gives access to
more templates, unlimited downloads and mock-ups, and easy logo editing. Unfortunately, even
with that price point, the logo you’ll be buying would still be largely based on pre-existing
template, with no personal consultation from any of the artists working for Placeit, not even the
original artist of the template you are using for the logo. Not to mention you are merely buying a
right to use the template, not the template itself.

Their templates are also largely just logotypes of a specific font per template, with some abstract
vector art or symbol tying the design together. The vector art is a staple of the template
regardless of what text you input in, thus, your logo ends up not having a unique identifiable
silhouette that is a main characteristic of most successful logos in our world, like the instantly
recognizable Mcdonald’s, Nike, Apple, etc.

Other than logos, Placeit also offers design templates for business cards, tshirts, slideshows,
letterheads, banners and other mock ups. Though as with how the logo design works, the
designs are also generic templates with minimally editable elements on it. Despite it, the easily
accessible side services that completes an entire branding package need is really convenient
for its users.

In conclusion, Placeit is a conveniently curated and laid out app for easy branding making
needs. Though the lack of flexibility outside of changing the actual text displayed on the
template and color schemes seem to generate generic looking designs, the vast choice of
designs and categories at least ensure that a template or two will meet the user’s aesthetic
tastes and/or needs. The somewhat pricey, at least in context of Filipino cost of living, is a bit of
a turn off for users that aim to be cheap by opting for online generators instead of actually
consulting graphic artists. And if a client wants a unique design that incorporates their
branding’s identity fully, a generator can never achieve such artistry, at least not this generator.
A well trained artist’s eye and mind, with good understanding of the brand and communication
with the client is not easily replacea