I was browsing Tyler Cruz’s blog yesterday (regular reader) and came across his new logo.. (here).
It seems everyone who’s anyone is changing their image these days.. in the past couple of months, JohnChow, Shoemoney and Problogger have all dipped into their pockets and paid for new designs and identity.
Tyler has mentioned several times before he wanted to update his blog design, i remember him saying that like a year ago 
Anyway, his new logo certainly looks the part..
Very professional, custom made… a solid investment. He’s gotten in to a bit of a mess though over it..
He got the logo for $250, but tried to sell the services of the logo designers for $500, pocketing around $150 for acting as a ‘sales rep’. The brown envelope deal was spotted by John Cow who became the whistle-blower…
Whilst Tyler is no doubt angry, potential clients are no doubt grateful to John Cow who might well have saved them $250 per logo. At the end of the day, the reason services/sales are so successful online is because they cut out the middle man.
By taking middle men into internet services, you raise prices, which in turn means only the wealthy can survive… without the little guys like me and you investing our pennies, we’d have another dot com collapse. That is of course an OTT, pessimistic view of things, blown out of all porportions, but it’s a little example as to what we don’t need on the net.
The best solution would have been for an affiliate system. Prices at $500, with a 20% cut per referral. If the service is good enough (which it is, in this case), then you’ll have no problem getting referrals and generating business. So this is an example of how not to do referrals