[MatthewPhillips]

The $50 icons are done by offshoaring companies. They make their money by turning over designs very quickly, not paying their designers very much, and reusing designs over and over (with small modifications). None of the designs are built from scratch. Most are dreadfully ugly; this is the most attractive Elance icon I've ever seen, and I don't think it's gorgeous by any stretch.

If you want a geniunely good designed icon just go to dribbble, be willing to spend $500+ and you'll get something unique.

[paulyan]

as a young startup, it's important to balance between attractiveness and expense, Dribbble is too expensive for me...

[digitalengineer]

Dribble is too expensive for just about any startup ;-) I did my own design (but thats sort of my job). It's no App but the logo involves a camera as well. Doing something/anything with a camera is difficult as everything has been done. Here's my take (upper left): http://royaltyfreemodels.nl/

[paulyan]

hmm, upper left has no camera, i think...

[Peroni]

Then your argument about hiring the right talent is moot. You went with what you could afford and were fortunate with the result however paying $50 for a logo on eLance isn't great advice for other startups.

[paulyan]

I would still suggest trying. If you're not satisfied with what's offered, you can reject it, it does no harm. And Elancer has many options to try.

But if without trying, devs will never be able to make an satisfying icon (at least for me). We cannot stay there waiting for Apples to sentence the app's death.

[digitalengineer]

The danger in "trying" is you'll get something lots of other people might also have (with perhaps a little tweaking). Twitter did this as well back in the day and ended up realy regretting it. You can not protect your corporate identity if it's based upon unorigional work.

[paulyan]

Thanks @digitalengineer for this meaningful discussion. Yes we absolutely should build up our own design team. Blindly keep trying woundn't work either.

It's still the art of balancing. Trying various ways in the beginning, and at some time point, we should tight up all kinds of resources and build up our own for key resources. Design is resources with key value.

Compared with criticism about copycat or intentional confusion, I like your constructive suggestion. We're a young startup and Padgram is our baby. We might not be doing well but we've tried the best. And we're sharing what we learned.

[digitalengineer]

You're on HN so I'd say your doing quite well! Keep it up, just keep improving. Heck, just look at twitter now! Theyhad a shutterstock design as well. All in good time...

[89a]

Get what you pay for.

Considering a good designer will control every interaction between users and your product then $500 is a bargain (I personally wouldn't have touched this project for that much).

[paulyan]

If going into interaction details, i would prefer to work face to face as communication would become a problem. And in-house designer would be more than $500, i guess...