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Modern-Day Logos That Look Awfully Similar to Older Logos From Different Companies
Alibaba Marketing VP says "Nothing is original, especially in design"
AliExpress, which is something like China's counterpart to Amazon, has been accused of hosting design pirates before. It's unclear if this is related, but Spencer Chen (AliExpress parent company Alibaba's VP of Marketing and Business Development) Tweeted this earlier this week:
Those are reportedly images from a 1989 book called Trademarks & Symbols of the World: The Alphabet in Design, and their original creators, dates and clients are printed right beneath them. Let's put them side-by-side with their modern-day, er, "equivalents:"
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Enter a caption (optional)So, what do you think? "Parallel thinking" or shameless cribbing? The Medium and Flipboard logos seem pretty innocent to me, but I have a hard time looking at the AirBNB and Beats logos.
That being said, as an industrial designer who's solely worked on three-dimensional products, I've never designed a logo in my life. Graphic designers and art directors among you, is it reasonable to believe that the latter logos were created without ever having seen the black-and-white images?
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The simplicity of each of these logos (both modern and past) leads me to believe it would be VERY possible to never see the originals and still come up with the modern logos. It's a process of sketching and refining, just like any other creative discipline. Anything can come about with that kind of process. I've made many logos that I had no clue looked similar to other logos out there. Usually it's because it's in some industry or corner of society that I do not frequently see.
Is this the new wave in design thinking? Create a "logo" from the first letter of a company's name? Seems like the easy way out. What about a graphic that represents the brand, rather than an illustrated letter?
I fail to see how this would be a "new wave..." Monogram logos go back...well...I don't even know how long, but certainly more than a handful of centuries.
The airbnb logo is an "A"?!!!? I didn't see that. That one is obviously stolen, what's the chance that?
what's the chance that someone else created an incredibly basic, simple shape that resembles an 'A' twice in the past 40 years?? uhh, I'm going to go with...very very very likely.
I always thought the Airbnb logo was supposed to represent a paper airplane, or a very stylized A or heart.
Did you look at the side-by-sides? The originals top out at 1981, so not really "new wave" necessarily.
haha. Good point Thom. I guess this isn't really a new idea in graphic identification. And I agree, if it checks off all the boxes then maybe it is the right answer (a la the beats logo). I just prefer a little more abstract thinking in my designs.
Actually, the logo pictures are from a different book called "Logo modernism" from TASCHEN released in 2015. Pic attached as proof.
I have this book! It's beautiful and ridiculous.
Just noticed a good-sized ad agency has an A that is silly-similar the the A below the Azuma - arn.com. Part of the game now I guess as things old become new again.
http://www.blog.skdesignz.com/2016/06/when-company-logos-seem-to-have.html
More of the same kind.
It seems to be a trend, here is another sample of the ripoff effect. Sometimes it makes no sense to believe it was an unconscious delivery, but it can happen.
Funny story: after spending months creating a perfect logo for a client (bmf in New Orleans)... and building their website, promo, etc... The client sued me because they said the logo looked too much like the British Motorcycle Federation's logo (also bmf). Of course I had never seen the other logo (both were lowercase san-serif red letters that touched), but regardless of the truth (they didn't like my partner who was my "bad-cop"), certain people are just litigious idiots. My motto now - tell this story to every new client and gauge their reaction. (Hi Rain! Long time!)
I agree that this might be seen as an unfortunate coincidence, but in the client's defense, it is a designer's responsibility to do that research. My first big client for graphic design and branding (logo, web, print) was convinced by my proposal that exposed the company's previous design for using two copyrighted images in their two logo designs.
really? "In the clients defense"? Do you personally know this client or know the amount of research that was done to create their logo? So upsetting when even designers can't get behind other designers. But I guess we live in a world where you can sue anyone and it's guilty until proven innocent. SHAMEFUL. Serious designers work very hard to create the best and most unique work for their clients. Why is this even in question?
Ed nailed it. And even if, as Karol pointed out with his photo, that an old logo appeared in a 2015 book, that assumes a designer can rifle through every source before settling on an idea. Even if a designer were to check their ideas against the Patent and Trademark Office database, there's no guarantee that every image is in the database. There are only so many ways to skin a cat. And when you design a logo, you come across visual pathways that just seem natural or obvious. The AirBnB logo is the most arguably egregious, but even then, when you work with a capital A, you're going to figure out how to make the crossbar or the suggestion of a cross bar. Maybe it's a twig, maybe it's not there at all, maybe it's a dot. You want to do something that gives an A its essential A-ness. A little loop was probably one of hundreds of A sketches. It's overall roundness suggests comfort (read: pillow), something you're going for when you are deciding where to put your head at night.
Yes, I do think it is possible that these new logos were created without reference to the old ones. As a designer I have created many things which I thought originated with me. Then someone finds something from 30 years ago...
The Azuma Drive-in/AirBnB logo appears to be a standard office paperclip bent out of shape. Two people playing with a paperclip reach a very similar design? Feasible.
Placing a letter inside a circle? How many have done this with various letters of the alphabet? Plenty. Duplication quite feasible without intention to steal a graphic design.
On the beats logo, I wonder if the typeface used came first and that's where their logo comes from or if the logo was developed and then a custom typeface based on it. It seems the logo grew out of the typeface (http://www.dafont.com/abeatbykai.font?text=beats+by+dr.+dre), therefore negating the idea that it is a copy.
My bad; original Beats alphabet designed in 1925, Herbert Bayer, Universal Alphabet
Possible? Definitely, in a chimpanzees and typewriters sort of way. Likely? Open for debate... one would have to ask the designers themselves.