We wont discuss how this interview with Jon Engle came to be in our possession, but we will say this, it’s one hell of a read. If you don’t know who Jon Engle is, then you can read about him here, and here and a million other places. To summarize what those links are saying, Jon Engle used to be a popular designer, until it was uncovered that he was a fake, a thief, nothing more than a plagiarist, a design scammer. He had used stock art off of StockArt.com and claimed it at his own in logo design work, and that wasn’t even the bad part.
When StockArt.com found out they billed Jon Engle for $18,000. We say ‘billed’ it was more along the lines of ’sued’ but there’s not much of a difference because once Jon realized he was in it neck deep, he panicked, and what did he do? He goes and claims StockArt.com designers stole HIS work, and converted it into stock art…??? Ok now a lot of people bought it, and hundreds, no no, thousands of people online backed Jon up, they even setup a huge fund collection site to help him fight these so called bad guys, guess what? He was scamming everyone. He scammed StockArt, he scammed his friends, and everyone that believed him and those that donated to help him.
To quote something Jon Engle said on his site about this issue before he was caught and outed as a scammer, a lier, and a thief, before his sites were taken down, before he was banned from dozens of sites around the web and had his logo design showcases pulled down, before he became ‘that guy who lived a lie’;
I was first contacted by a stock art site in July of last year. They hit me with a bill for a whopping $18,000! I had an account with the site. Years ago I purchased an illustration of a chef’s hat for a client’s project. So, I thought this was some accounting mistake. Nope. This was a bill for new images. Very familiar images. They were images from several of my logos; 65 of them in fact. That breaks down to about $275 per image. They actually wanted me to pay them $275 for each one of MY images!
Once the sticker shock wore off the obvious question came to mind. Where the hell did they get these from? It seems as if most or all of them were lifted from my LogoPond showcase. They especially seemed to favor the ones that made it to the gallery.
My theory is that someone copied my artwork, separated them from any typography and then posted them for sale on the stock site. Someone working for the site either saw my LP showcase or was alerted to the similarities. They then prepared the bill and sent it to me. The good thing is that the bill gives me a record of every single image they took from me. That helps me gather dates, sketches, emails, etc to help me prove my case. The bad thing is that despite my explanations and proof, they will not let this go.
Now that you know the general story behind this fake designer, he had the nerves to go through with this interview only days before the house came down on this scammers head, enjoy the read!
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Interview Questions – Jon Engle of Relevant Studio
So let’s get started, in 5 words describe the designer in you to all our readers.
Guy trying to be creative.
Do you have any design rituals you practice every morning or before you start working? Some sort of warm up? You know, something weird perhaps?
If I ever saw ‘morning’ it would be a miracle. I typically start work around noon and finish around midnight. I drag myself out of bed, have a shower, grab some lunch and crank up iTunes. I like to start the day with a little Rolling Stones and go from there.
I always check and reply to my emails, take a look through Twitter to see if I missed anything and then get right to it.
How would you rate yourself as a designer on a scale of one to five, five being a holy designer among all designers?
I have my hits, I have my misses. I’d like to think of myself as a 3.5. A little cocky, but with room for improvement. Any designer who rates himself a 5 is full of it. Most of us, myself included, are much harder on ourselves than any client ever will be.
What’s your worst habit as a designer, and in your opinion, what’s your best?
My worst habit is taking too long with a design. I tend to be a perfectionist with my work. That nitpicking can sometimes cause me to forget a deadline. I’m doing much better now, but that’s been a source of frustration for me in the past. No doubt a source of frustration for a couple clients as well.
My best habit, ironically, is the same thing. I try to pay attention to details and present the best product I can. As long as I’m able to find a balance between paying attention to the design and paying attention to the deadline, then I end up with happy clients.
If you could have created any logo in the world that’s in use today, which would it be and why?
The FedEx logo. It’s brilliantly simple and simply brilliant. Lindon Leader hit on something great with that one. I had never noticed the arrow between the E and the X until my design teacher pointed out on my first day in class. I was able to see something new in a logo I thought I knew so well. To this day when I see a FedEx truck roll by I will proceed to tell random people on the street, “Hey, do you see that arrow?” I’m sure it’s annoying.
How many times, or how often do you surf the net for design inspiration, and what are some of the sites you visit?
I love to see what other designers are doing, but I feel like I’m already inspired by so many things that I don’t need to borrow inspiration from other people’s work. If we’re all inspiring each other, eventually our work will look the same. That’s just boring.
I like to visit LogoPond.com, Logofi.com, IncSpring.com and a few others. I’ll usually browse through several times per day to see new logos and comments.
What’s the most hilarious incident that made you crack up while working for a client?
A local pastor wanted a billboard to advertise the launch of his new church. The tagline was “Jesus Building People”. His idea was to have me draw a picture of Jesus actually building a person. With a hammer.
He even had a sketch prepared for me. It had a little stick figure man knealing on the ground, hands folded in prayer. Stick figure Jesus stood behind the man wearing a tool belt and holding a hammer mid-swing.
As you can imagine, the drawing would have looked more like attempted murder than the deeply spiritual concept the pastor had in mind. I tried my best to explain, but couldn’t get through to him.
I turned down the job, but he eventually found someone to do exactly what he wanted. The billboard was pasted all over the county. He even had brochures and flyers made up. It looked just as ridiculously horrifying as I had imagined. I wish I’d taken a picture.
Who was your worst client to date, and why? spill the beans, we wont tell!
We all have clients that are hard to work with once in awhile. I thought the worst clients were the one’s that didn’t pay. After I’d been designing for a couple years I learned that some client’s projects aren’t worth any amount of money.
I was hired to design a poster and billboard for a local group’s charitable event. They were going to offer free oil changes and tune-ups for single mothers on Mother’s Day. I chose a beautiful photo of a young mother holding her baby for the ad. I presented the idea to the ‘gentleman’ in charge. He took exception the fact that the photo featured a black woman. I quit on the spot.
In the design industry, who’s the one designer you respect the most, other than me of course, and who do you disregard as a designer, or dislike?
The designer I respect the most is Mike Erickson of Logomotive.net. He is without a doubt the logo master. I don’t think too many people would disagree with me on this. I’ve been an admirer of his logos for years. Every time I see his genius on display it makes me want to become a better designer myself.
Mike also helped with my new logo, and by helped I mean he did everything while I drooled all over my keyboard in astonishment. I love my new logo, in case you couldn’t tell.
Beyond that, he’s also a good friend. I always enjoy our phone calls and IM chats.
Who do I disregard as a designer? Sneaky question, but I can’t allow myself to fall into the trap of singling anyone out. I dislike any designer who takes someone else’s hard work. It’s never a good feeling to see one of your logos being used by some unscrupulous ‘artist’ trying to make a quick buck. If you have time to steal, you have time to design. If you don’t have the ability to design for yourself, I hear McDonald’s* is hiring. Get a decent, honest job, please.
*Nothing against McDonald’s or McDonald’s employees. I love your sausage biscuits.
How do you market yourself differently than everyone else?
I don’t do anything differently than most. I have a website, (www.relevantstudio.com) I post my work to the various galleries. I’ve recently started blogging (www.jonengle.com) , although I wouldn’t say that side of my online persona has fully matured yet. I have some great ideas for blog posts, but gotta get them out of my head and onto the screen.
I’d remind people not to forget traditional methods of marketing. Always carry business cards. Pick up the phone once in awhile. Network with people and remember the occasional shameless plug (see above). You know, the basics.
That concludes the interview, what can we say? Some of the answers there just confuse us, some of the answers anger us, but that’s not important, this had to be published, more people should be made aware of scammers online, they come in all shapes and sizes.
This of course is not to say all freelance designers are bad, on the contrary, there are so many talented designers online, such as Mike Erickson , David Airey, Raja Sandhu, Graham Smith and many more.
Just be careful where you get stock art from, and be careful who you hire, do a search and check up on them, ask for contact info, get everything in writing, make sure the designers email you full rights, official emails from their site address, things you can show in court in case you ever land in sticky situation.
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