Apparently these logos are known all over the world and with people having knowledge of a logo’s fame; they sometimes use this to their advantage. A logo that is already known is easier to market rather than starting from scratch. Some sellers may even just change the logo slightly to avoid a copyright issue, but other just steal the idea anyway to sell more of their own products. Is it ok for people to do this without giving necessary credit to the original designer? Or, are they already offering credit by displaying the logo everywhere? I found these photos interesting and wanted to share how logos can gain so much popularity globally that they are used even for imitation to try to sell a product.

Although these may be comical, they clearly show how a brand identity transcends the global market. It doesn’t matter how developed or sound a nation’s economy is at the time, a famous logo can still sell a product. It comes down to popularity once again when the whole idea is selling and people know that familiarity sells because people can trust what they are buying, or at least think they can. That’s what branding is all about.

First lets take a look at the Pepsi logo. With a new CEO and branding image, Pepsi has certainly shaken things up. Watch out for the fizz. There has undoubtedly been a lot of change around Pepsi.

Speaking of change, Obama’s logo which was released after the Pepsi logo appears to be very similar. Is it possible that our president-elect is guilty of logo theft? Not exactly the best example to be setting in the beginning of your presidency. Here are the logos side by side.

YES WE CAN see similarities. Clearly the shape of logo is the same, but also take a closer look at the color scheme. It may help if I flip the image around.

As you can see the two logos are very close to reversed images. The circles are almost identically broken up into three similar color divisions. Now I don’t know for sure, but I would say either Obama loves Pepsi more than the average citizen, or he was trying to secure the Pepsi drinker vote. Maybe McCain would have had more luck if he had based his logo off of the Coca Cola logo.

It appears that there is an issue mounting between the logo of two popular x-treme sport moguls. Quicksilver, one of the world’s most recognizable surfing and skateboarding companies is concerned with the likeness of the X-Games logo to their own Gen X graphic. From what I can gather Quicksilver had the “X” in question first.

Lets take a look…

Well, they both have an X. I’m not necessarily sure exactly how similar they are however. Clearly the X-games logo incorporates some more dynamic features than Quicksilver’s. With the globe, red lining, and inner X, I personally don’t see all too much similarity.

The only real similarity I spot is the blocky boring outer edges of the X. I am not a lawyer however, and I don’t technically know all the rules. From a logo enthusiast’s point of view however, I see a big difference.

Here is the original Obama logo. I have never touched on the design itself, but I have to admit I like it. Red, white and blue, a little cliché, but I can understand why. The design is incredibly simple but maintains a certain appealing feel. With the movement formed stripes and multiple shading gradients, the overall image gives off a dynamic feel.

Even though the design is great, anything you endorse can and will be used against you in the world of politics. With such as simple design containing such a large amount of white space, Obama has left himself open to many anti-Obama enthusiasts. These amateur creatives who have taken this opportunity to insult the presidential hopeful.

The “O” shape of the logo offers an open space in the middle of the design that provides for images to be inserted. This was embraced by http://www.logobama.com which offers the public the ability to customize the candidate’s brand. While the intentions of this website may have been to raise awareness and capital for Obama, they have led to some “interesting” designs.

While I don’t necessarily agree with the views of the following Obama logos, I do support amateur designers expressing themselves. Kudos to logobama.com for offering the logo community such a fun and useful tool. Looks like the Joe Six Packs have demonstrated their cleverness again, with these designs. I guess they have the same amount of design experience, as Obama and Palin have foreign policy experience.

In this age of mash ups, memes, and remixes and viral marketing we have come a far way the simple lapel pin. Anyone and everyone can alter a candidates image. What effect does this have ultimately on design and politics. Now with this technology, amateurs have the ability to turn one candidates marketing into their own. Take the McCain logo below for example.

In addition to the Obama circular logo, there have been several other renditions. Of anti-Obama logos and slogans. Here are a couple more controversial examples, including Rosie the Riveter adding her two cents.

Now if only the average voter spent the same time reading about the issues, as they do remixing and mashing up logos, there might be a better informed electorate. Do you think substance is sacrificed for novelty? Would we be better off without all of these transparent attempts to make a Presidential election “fun” “interesting” and more palatable to the youth vote?

As we have stated in our ‘About Us’ web page, “Logo Blog is dedicated to giving you unbiased, reliable and independent user based reviews and advice about Logos, and Logo Design Companies.” On a similar note, we talk about the latest happenings, industry trends and culture, skills, and many more issues related to logos, design, image branding and etc, promoting excellence in logo design in general.

The LogoBlog team never intended to offend anyone, and we would like to offer profound apologies if our views came out too strong. However, this should not change the fact that we still maintain our stance on this topic. Let’s have an objective look.

One of the readers stated:

Design exists as derivatives “of”. There is no design which is completely unique, since we humans base our understanding based on shared experiences- ways of perceiving “something”, meaning that the “something” already exists. There are cases where designers just plain’ol copy and that is wrong. Besides the first example, which “could” have been copied, the other two are not.

AGREED! As humans we take inspiration from objects, instances and experiences that are already present and yes design can not be absolutely unique. HOWEVER, considering it is a designer’s job to make use of his creative talent and produce a concept which is fresh and different, originality is therefore a key ingredient to becoming a successful graphic designer.

As for the first example (the Quark logo and the Scottish Arts Council logo), it can be rightfully said that Quark did copy the logo and changed it later. Clearly the copied logo was different from Quark’s original logo, yet it was not radically differing from many other logos that use the circle with a square design element.


As shown above, each of the displayed logo bears an uncanny resemblance to the Quark logo and one in particular as mentioned previously: the Scottish Arts Council logo is too close to comfort. These logos indicate that there was absolutely no originality in Quark’s logo design and it is unfortunate that the logo mark for a brand closely associated with designing itself was a copied logo.

Moreover, as pointed out by one of our readers, the following logos belong to two very different companies and again may not be absolutely the same, but are way too similar. Thus it can be said that the designer of one of these logos did copy certain elements from the other logo.

Not to forget the disastrous and very notorious logo copyrights violation for the new fragrance by Britney Spears, introduced by the cosmetics giant Elizabeth Arden. It was not only a logo design ethics violation but also a shameful act as the original logo belonged to a charity organization.

Now an attempt to label these designs as instances of logo theft might be ethical for some and inappropriate for others. The subject is open for debate, objectively though!

Taking inspiration from other designs is one thing, however producing concepts that are too similar to that of the original design is unfortunate for the company that holds the original design as a trademark and is equally disgraceful for the brand that adopts the copied logo. Copying logo designs comes under plagiarism which is regarded as a serious crime.

On other note, as wrongly identified by one of the readers, the logo examples were merely displayed as visual examples to support the text, and were not intended to be used for business or commercial purposes. Hence by posting logos to support a claim, we are not breaching any copyrights, neither committing any form of logo theft.

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This unfortunate practice of logo theft has not been a recent trend; in fact logo theft has been taking place for quite some time now. Lately, the logo theft trouble bubbled up between Quark, a leading design software program manufacturer, and the Scottish Arts Council.

Quark’s new logo bears a striking resemblance to the logo of the Scottish Arts Council. It is the worst type of logo theft; however quark fortunately rectified its mistake and has adopted a new identity mark.

Another example of logo theft includes, Applied Materials and Planned Parenthood having nearly similar logos.

The difference here is merely three lines against two, a mirror image and the layering of the lines. The lines in Applied Materials logo acquire 3-D layering where as the Planned Parenthood logo has a 2-D layering. Obviously, the resemblance here is no coincidence. This sort of logo theft is immoral and palpably illegal.

An additional instance for logo theft is Sun Microsystems vs. Columbia Sportswear. The clear dissimilarity here is that the U shapes are filled up in the Columbia logo. From a distance or even at low resolution, both look alike.

The designer of the Sun Microsystems logo must have come across many logos in his/her life. However when asked to design something for a client, s/he has created an identity mark which is certainly not considered original.

Looking at the logos for Laszlo and Etelos, it is obvious even to an untrained eye that ogo theft has been done here as well. The shading of the logo for Laszlo has been changed and the elements within the Laszlo logo are slightly different, but nevertheless both identity marks look alike and hence it is certain that logo theft has taken place.

It is almost never the error of the firm itself that it is displaying a copied logo. The fault lies at the graphic designer’s end, who intentionally or unintentionally commits logo theft. Logo thefts should be stopped, and designers should strive to come up with their own alluring ideas to create new, intelligent and original logos. Logo theft is an act of copyright violation and a disrespect of another designer’s hard work, ideas and creativity.

Note: Read the sequel to this article here – Logo Theft Part 2 – Copy, Alter, Replicate…Intelligently though!

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