With the onset of technology and the easier access to people on the net, I am amazed at how many of the 'grafix' forums offer free design services just because they happen to have people with the time and the software. In a nutshell, most of these 'signature' designers, without the relevant training, are producing company logos and web banners for people who request them, free of charge or on spec via competitions.

Does this have a noticeable effect on the design industry?

Here is a copy of a letter that can be downloaded from www.creativelatitude.com where they bring up some interesting points regarding online logo design competitions. I would be interested to hear people's viewpoints regarding this.

The ukdesignernetwork was launched a couple of years ago as a forum for designers to network on and it became quite a buzzing little community... though, not with as many designers as I had initially intended, lots of fantastic friends jumped in to make it a happening place for which I was grateful for at the time. Eventually, since the site had lost direction and the domain name didn't reflect what the site had become - I relaunched my community at Ice Cream 4 Yor Soul where all my friends are still happily playing.

I have changed the ukdesignernetwork into to a resource area for designers. I have 2 years worth of bookmarked links collected to wonderful sites that are beneficial to any designer on the lookout for resources (see 'links' on the navigation panel). Hopefully, this site will become recognised as one-stop spot to find anything design-related.

There are plenty of design forums out there, for which I have added links to – the forum here, is for those who are eager to become part of a general designer networking community to join me.

Please jump right in and make friends.