Start Up Britain promoting US crowd sourcing site 99 Designs for Logos, WTF!!

[Stationery Direct]

Just noticed this new initiative StartUp Britain: a living market-place for the wide range of enterprise support available on the web. launched today promoting US based crowd sourcing site 99 Designs as the place to go for logo design, any thoughts on this?

 

[Eagle]

Thoughts? I'm incandescent with rage! Been tweeting about this all day: UKBL Business Forum (UKBusinessLabs) on Twitter

:icon_mad:

 

[Stationery Direct]

Isn't it a government backed scheme?

 

[Eagle]

Yes, they're actively promoting 99designs.com

Boycott? Not half!

 

[dedwardp]

You'd have thought the government would want to be encouraging the use of UK business, surely?

 

[Eagle]

Please tweet this travesty and get the message out there. :icon_cheers:

 

[Ian Bonner]

Absolute disgrace. But are we really surprised?

 

[Minuteman Press]

Astonishing. WTF?

 

[Eagle]

Please don't just sit there - take action. Tweet, email, write!

 

[Minuteman Press]

Agreed. Sent in my email 2 mins ago.

 

[Ian Bonner]

I've emailed them for someone to complain to.

 

[CYoung]

Is this a joke? How can the government bang on about helping the private sector recover, then throw this out to a US company when thousands of people are gonna use this. Not to mention the fact it's the website in question....plus they advise on these:


<<removed>>

Saving money has a place but this is free advertising for these companies giving a total disadvantage to designers like Mark - surely the government has to be impartial on these things?

Where do I complain?

 

[dedwardp]

Is this a joke? How can the government bang on about helping the private sector recover, then throw this out to a US company when thousands of people are gonna use this. Not to mention the fact it's the website in question....plus they advise on these:

<<removed>>

Saving money has a place but this is free advertising for these companies giving a total disadvantage to designers like Mark - surely the government has to be impartial on these things?

Where do I complain?

Well... is it free advertising, or have they paid a fair sum to the government to do this?

That wouldn't make it right, of course, but it isn't necessarily free advertising.

 

[CYoung]

True, but like you say, the other possibility is that they paid to do it which I think would be worse than getting there free of charge lol.

 

[Eagle]

The fact is; this aspect of the site (and perhaps many others?) is ill-conceived at best, extremely damaging to UK business at worst. We at UK Business Labs might have supported it but for this... PR disaster.

 

[SparkCreative]

Email sent, Twitter rant posted. Appalling.

 

[dot design]

I thought I'd calmed down but I can feel it bubbling to the surface again. Yesterday I ranted all day about this, anyone wishing to see swear words and lots of moaning see my twitter stream.

This is pretty much my view on it all..

It's disgraceful and extremely disappointing to see StartUp'BRITAIN' supporting a US based design site that uses designers from all over the world in a largely unpaid competition format. Rather than supporting British designers!

Other than that the content seems unimaginative and it seems like many large corps offering / advertising very small discounts to startups, eg: 10% off.

Very disappointing. :icon_cursing: :icon_cursing:

 

[Stationery Direct]

Other than that the content seems unimaginative and it seems like many large corps offering / advertising very small discounts to startups, eg: 10% off.

Yeah and with a little searching around startups would probably get a much better deal elsewhere anyway.

 

[linziloop]

I too was furious when i read this news, it's ridiculous that the government are clearly not supporting UK business, in a time when they would say our economy needs rescuing, why not keep the money in the UK?!

 

[dot design]

I couldn't hold back anymore > Start Up Britain letting down British Designers? | Dot Design