Need some questions answered about graphics and logos please and thank-you

1st I would like to say I am new here and I am not the best writer as far as punctuation and sentence structure, I have noticed on other sites people get rude if your posts are long or are not in the best structure I will apologize for this as I am not the greatest at this.

My post is kind of long but it is the only way to ask the question where you can understand what I am asking and how I came to these questions. I will thank anyone for their input on this.
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I am a complete noob to the whole idea of graphics and logos and etc.

Me and my brother about a year ago decided to start a business, but before we did I wanted to make sure we had all of our ducks in a row so to speak so. I wanted everything designed first (logo- graphics-info sheets-brochure-flyer-postcard-business card, business plan graphics and chart designs plus our publication we were going to be doing in our business) then after all that pay for a website.

So we knew nothing about Adobe products and we purchased the software and then after about a month we gave up it was way to hard to understand or learn, not alone we did not have enough time to learn it because we had regular jobs. So we sold the software for 50% of what we paid for it since it was now used software and thus we lost money on that so we decided to hire a graphics designer.

For the past year and over $ 7, 000.00 later with loans and maxing out 2 credit cards to pay this designer we just learned that everything the professional graphics company made us and we paid for to create is completely worthless.

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We had a friend of ours come to our city last week he was on vacation and he looked at everything we paid for and said " wow it looks really nice but what if you need to change a phone number or you decide to use this somewhere else or want to change something or even add something to the original design you can't" so we just basically found out he gave us all of our designs in pdf, jpg and 1 file format we didn't even know how to open it until our friend showed us was a epss file there was no reason for that my friend said.



So now we had to put our business on hold and we are basically back to square one and we have to save up even more money to re create everything already again. As far as the designer he disappeared off the face of the earth, we went to his house and his office and he has moved and we cannot get a hold of him by email nor anyone to contact him.

We also learned another bad lesson our bank and PayPal both said to us that their is no way to fight the year's worth of charges against their account due to it is virtual property and they cannot even file a ticket because of this. So we learned that even though a designer says guaranteed by PayPal or by your bank it is false. We learned the hard way this.

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Again sorry for the long post, but here is my questions below:


I am wondering (because my friend said it cannot be done) but everything this guy created for us even though it is in PDF format, jpg, or even the one file we have from the individual in epss format is there anyway to take these files and someone that knows graphic design to be able to open them up? As far as like my friend said you don't know what exact colors he used or fonts he used or how they even put the whole thing together we have no clue.
The reason I say put it together is because we paid $300.00 for one part of our logo from a logo website and it was automatically a vector logo and then when we hired the graphics company he made the rest of it and added to the original logo does that make sense what I am asking?

2nd question:
If there is no way but to start over from scratch and do this whole thing over again when we hire a graphics company or person in the future is there an actual way to guarantee we won't be taken advantage of? PayPal, Visa and our bank said there is no way since it is a service and it is virtual property there is no guaranties on that stuff.

3rd question:
When we do in fact hire someone and pay them what types of files should they give us? I now know of vector and then there is jpg, also ai is that all?

4th question:
This one is hard to figure out but say it is not a design it is both a design and a document, what I mean is like half of it is typed out and half of it has graphics (brochure, our sales sheets etc.) we received all of these in PDF format but as our friend said you can't change anything, so how do you pay someone to create these type of documents and then make sure I am still able to change when things need to be changed? If it is PDF you can't change it then what do I do?

LAST QUESTION:

If I wanted to do a logo contest (I saw on this forum) I read on that part of the forum where some posters were saying "if you make it guaranteed you will get more people to participate in the logo contest" How do I make it guaranteed? Is there somewhere on here before I post a contest I can pre pay the contest amount so people can see it is guaranteed? Sorry for the long post and I hope someone can help me and answer these questions as starting a business is supposed to be fun but it has completely turned out to be nothing but a nightmare . Thank you all who answer this in advance. Tracey

 

Hello, the pdf's files can be opened on illustrator witch is a vectorial program used to make logos and other marketing material.

when I do a logo design or a brochure whatever of that kind I usually provide the AI file (adobe ilustrator) a pdf and an eps.

this way whatever I gave you can be changed by you or anyone who knows how to do it.

so the best thing is that the designer provides the source files witch would be psd ir asi depending on the project.


and that's it.


other thing, I'm not fan of contest, good designers don't tend to get into contest since that is lose money and time and you usually end up with an odd result since the designers don't give their best on that or they do their best but it is not that much great work.

pm me if you would like info regarding my services.

 

Well from what I just read then I am screwed . I have to start all over from scratch because I only received pdf's a total of 41 pdf's. 5 to 7 jpg's and 1 eps file. so none of those other file types. So to make sure I got this right the next time I hire a designer and they need to do it in adobe pdf I need to ask for each item they make a pdf file and a ai file and a eps file as well. Thank you for your help.

 

Honestly, if you got visual copies of everything it wouldn't be too difficult or costly to get a redesign done in the correct format

 

he say that because he work for freelance.com witch is a site with a bunch of desperate and non experts who do mediocre job and charge nothing for it.

 

This thread helps me understand also since I am a noob too! Would I have to buy a program to ope eps or ai files?

 

There are freeware programs, that I just Googled that can open and view eps files ai files is Adobe illustrator so that is a paid program but I just googled that too and seems their is programs that will open that file type to. You can go to adobe and get a free 30 day trial, if you are a student you can buy adobe for less than the non student version. Any version of Adobe though is not cheap but it is for the graphics designer working professional.