An amazingly expensive logo addition!!

I know that logo design, if done correctly can be a time consuming and expensive project but whoever was responsible for producing the logo for the NHS at 60 must have been on a different planet.

Take a look at the above two logos, the one on the left is the original, well known logo for our NHS service, the one on the right was commissioned by the Department of Health to raise awareness and celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHS. Right, how much do you think us as taxpayers paid for the simple addition of the number 60?

£100?, £200? nope, would you believe me if I said the bill for adding two digits to the original NHS logo cost £12,000. Yes, you read that right £12,000. It apparently took two designers ten days to complete and although I don’t know the full story i’m sure that the design company involved must have been laughing all the way to the bank when the bill was actually paid.

I know the government are also to blame here as they shouldn’t be wasting taxpayers money like this but I also believe as designers we should be charging honest prices and not ripping off clients whoever they are. One thing that really annoys me about this is that the design companies that are winning these government design tenders are not only ripping them off but also the taxpayer as we are the ones who are picking up the bill at the end of the day.

Some more examples of excessive charging for government logo design:

£21,090

to update the HomeBuy identity, the logo was changed from a yellow-and-blue to a pink-and-purple.



£153,522

for the FERA (The Food and Environment Research Agency) logo.



£30,000

to slightly change the UK Border Agency logo.

Source: telegraph.co.uk