The new Quark logo
Comments: 63
One of these logos is not like the other. Oh, wait: yes it is.
By now you’ve probably heard that Quark has a new logo. Of course, by now you’ve also probably forgotten what Quark is, but put that aside for a moment, quit out of InDesign, and take a look at their new logo.
Oops.
If I were Susan Friedman, senior vice president of strategic relations at Quark, and I had just said in a press release “Our new logo is one of the most articulate symbols of the new Quark, and I feel proud to have led the team that worked on it,” I’d have the designer (SicolaMartin, a division of Young & Rubicam Brands) on the phone right now to answer some tough questions.
When I’ve designed logos for products or companies, I’ve always made it a point to present documentation — precedents, sketches, Illustrator prototypes — that demonstrates the thinking that went into the design and its evolution. When I’ve commissioned logos, it’s part of the brief that the designer will present this documentation. Very little springs ex nihilo to the page in a lightning bolt of inspiration: indeed, the process of derivation and individuation is often the most interesting part.
It’s simply a form of cover-your-arse insurance, as well as being crucial to really understanding a design and its creation. It’s a form of artistic due diligence, and is as much a deliverable on a project as the finished artwork.
Now it may just be that the new Quark logo’s resemblance to the Scottish Arts Council’s logo is entirely coincidental. It’s impossible to have an opinion of that knowing what we know now, so this is not a post about that.
Consider it instead a little public service reminder for designers: you’re being paid as much for the quality of your thought as for the actual Illustrator file (or whatever) that you send along at the end of a project. Document your thinking well and present it clearly. You’ll look smarter and you’ll find your ideas are easier to sell.
[Thanks to Daring Fireball and Subtraction.]
Update: Judi Sohn has something interesting to add in the form of some personal experience.
•••
Posted to General Rants • 2005.09.11 (Sun) • 11:29
Comments
Posted by Finkregh 2005.09.11, 15:57
o-O!
now that’s lame….
Posted by Nida 2005.09.12, 00:48
Well, that’s painful - to say the least. I agree that documentation is an important part of any design creation. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were a coincidence. Both these logos are expected derivations of an “a” and a “q”. That would explain the larger negative space in the Quark logo.
Regardless, I would have expected a logo search from SicolaMartin. Or, a more unique logo.
Posted by bone 2005.09.12, 12:34
Documentation, yes, documentation would be interesting.
As in, a documentation of the chain of events from Quark choosing possible marks, to having the legal team run the checks, to clearance, to production, to unveiling, to WTF do we do now?
Someone (collective) along the way obviously dropped the ball. Blame the designer? Hardly. Research all you want, you may never run across the original. That is what legal searches are for, they have the access to the tools and supposedly that is why they get paid more per hour.
Also of note, not all agencies take responsibility of the legal search. Especially when an INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION LIKE QUARK is involved.
This is going to be good on Monday.
Posted by Mary Beth 2005.09.13, 13:11
whoa. Total failure in the legal dept.
I don’t think it’s all that stunning a logo design for quark although it’s lightyears better than all the stuff on their packaging at the moment.
I’m having an even harder time figuring out how the other logo fits into the organization. I mean, it really reads as a Q to me which is at least believable for quark, but scottish arts council? I wonder how long they’ve used it. OK, the cynical part of me hopes they make a LOT of money from it. Enough to supply themselves with logos for many many years to come.
Posted by Lutz, Germany 2005.09.13, 20:38
YES: oops!
BUT: isn’t it a shape, that misses graphic Self-sufficiency?
AND: both Colors and Typo are just trendy now…(logolounge.com spots the trends in 2003:labels and 2004:cave rings)
Lean back and wait for the next Plagiarism / RandomTrendyDesignDoubling or what you like to name it
There are worse examples of logos: Soccer Worldchampionchip in Germany 2006
Posted by stu 2005.09.13, 23:46
could be a fluke - sometimes you can’t research everything I suppose. it is a fashionable sort of a shape. mind you - graphic designers have been making use of all that rounded corner/pointy corner stuff for years. even safeways adopted it for signs in the UK ages ago. I’m sure it’s a genuine coincidence. well spotted though - thought it looked familiar.
Posted by Laura Herald 2005.09.14, 00:11
maybe they missed the scottish arts council
but howabout an artworkers agency?
Posted by Tony 2005.09.14, 16:54
Marybeth asked how long the Scottish Arts Council have used their logotype and mark for. We (Graven Images) designed the SAC identity in 2001. The SAC began using it early in 2002.
I disagree that the shape looks more like an upper-case Q - to me it’s always been a lower-case A … objectively speaking though, it’s a very basic shape and an obvious derivation from both letterforms - it’s equally interpretable as one or the other. Thankfully that’s not important as both marks are qualified by type beneath them.
The similarity seems to have been a little embarassing for Quark, and I know that it wasted a lot of the Scottish Arts Council’s time (they spent a couple of days fielding questions about the similarity when they should have been working). Ultimately though, Quark and the SAC operate in entirely different sectors of business, so the similarity causes no legal problems. Both are Trade Marks registered in their respective sectors.
Funny business though, this. I’ve been reading Antipixel for a good long time now, and I was pleasantly surprised to see something I worked on appear here - and all over the web, in fact!
Posted by ea barcelona 2005.09.14, 22:42
it enchants to me, but I have seen several very similar :)
Posted by TiggerToo 2005.09.14, 23:28
As one of the original people who pointed out this blatant copy (similar! give me a break) I have to say that just because they are in different sectors makes no difference in terms of design.
You can’t use someone else’s design, accidental or not, because one makes software and the other funds the arts. You can’t steal Nasa’s logo for a company designing toilets.
In our own news story we stated it was to SAC’s discredit that they did not protect their own mark more vigorously since they are charged with the protection of the arts for Scotland and if they show little inclination to follow this up then I fear for the arts.
Posted by William Hanley 2005.09.15, 01:04
I’ve instructed all of my employees to take Quark off of their computers.
Some say it looks like a “q”. Some say it looks like an “a”.
What is ironic is that those two letters frequently mean question and answers and I think that is what the world needs right now.
William Hanley CEO Data Tech Network Solutions theceoblog.blogspot.com
Posted by James Greenfield 2005.09.15, 07:13
Come on its such an obvious shape that no one can claim ownership to it. Documentation? Id say what the logo communicates is far more important than how you got to the actual form and in this case the new Quark logo is far more on the ball than the lotus flower they had, not that this is that amazing. Theres no right or wrong way to present a logo as long as you and the client feel its right for them and their company/organisation etc otherwise we’d have a book and follow the instructions.
Posted by Boris 2005.09.15, 08:18
TiggerToo needs to take a pill, IMHO.
There are billins of grains of sand on our little planet, all with microscopically minute differences. Yet all coexist peacefully. Ho wcan this be?
Ahhh, no lawyers in sand world.
It’s not a copy, it’s a coincidence. May it never happen to you. ;)
Posted by DDub 2005.09.16, 00:27
A few thoughts:
I don’t care how good a legal team there is, they can’t/won’t find everything!
There is likely nothing much of true originality left to create in the world.
Really, who was familiar with the Scottish Arts Council logo before this “controversy”?
Should Sicola really care about a handful of overly-critical and mostly spiteful bloggers on antipixel?
There are far more valid reasons to take Quark off your machine than it’s new logo!
Posted by Jason Michael 2005.09.16, 05:27
Check out Toronto’s new Tourism logo, almost IDENTICAL!
Posted by JM 2005.09.16, 05:29
Posted by TiggerToo 2005.09.16, 17:51
“There is likely nothing much of true originality left to create in the world.”
what a cheery thought!! (i’ll refrain from being sarcastic about this comment)
Millions of people were aware of the SAC’s logo since they are a major funding body in Scotland (a country of several million people). The Toronto Tourism logo is nothing like the Quark one and accidental or not the “copy” is still a TM infringement. Quark should do the decent thing and change it
Posted by woodrow 2005.09.21, 04:00
The links in that last comment that someone spent such time inputting are all porn and spam, as I would have realised if I’d read them instead of just clicking. Damn them.
Posted by drum n bass 2005.09.24, 00:04
lame logo
Posted by zoogies 2005.09.24, 10:13
What also caught my eye was QuarkXPress and QuarkVista.
Quark Vista was before Windows Vista, of course, and XPress doesn’t mean “experience” and is a highly ubiquitous saying, but nevertheless, I just thought it was interesting.
Posted by First Week 2005.09.25, 09:33
the Q and the A look similar but sheesh! how many logo designers for Quark - I mean that must be really a herd gig to land, huh? How many of them do you suppose went to Scotland, happened upon the arts Council Building and thought, “Hey that (smallcase) A looks like a Q - It would be smashing as logo for Quark!
It amazes me that any company or organization would use small case letters as their logo anyway, but what are you gonna do?
Posted by clemens 2005.10.05, 12:19
The same thing happened to NBC several decades ago. They spent literally millions doing research to create a new logo, a type of sylized ‘N’ - and after they released it with much hoopla discovered it was identical to the logo for Nebraska Public TV which had been developed for about $10 worth of art supplies. Much embarassment. Can’t remember how it was resolved.
ps: it looks like a small ‘a’ to me.
Posted by -= 2005.10.12, 21:40
Posted by Durf 2005.10.19, 17:06
Aaaaand yet another one.
Posted by PAN 2005.11.01, 01:57
There’s more “coincidences” http://www.designers-network.com/board.php http://www.akademiks.com/web/ http://www.sterlingbrands.com/
Posted by qlic 2005.11.05, 06:50
I personally like the logo and I think they needed a change.
Posted by marc dávid saller 2005.12.20, 19:04
hi! this logo seems to be very comon in company logos, and when i found another one, i had to think of your article.
in general, i think your design and other things on this site are very cool…
bye,
dávid
Posted by jenn.suz.hoy 2005.12.21, 04:58
what’s funny is the logo looks more like a tape measure than anything. i saw the “Q” in it for Quark, and now that i’ve read other’s responses, i see the “a” for Scottish Arts Council, but first and foremost it looked to me like the base of a tape measure.
not that that’s particularly relevant when the issue is they’re too-similar-to-both-exist, but there it is all the same.
Posted by Stewart 2005.12.27, 05:16
And what about their moto? I think it’s of great importance as well.
Posted by Dianalily 2005.12.31, 09:36
A similar logo is in use down under - and it’s design-related.
It’s not a bad logo for Quark. Unfortunately, it’s a popular shape. Unless Quark wants the popular shape to translate into easy to use and ubiquitous? Boggles the mind.
Just came across your blog today. Really like the photos! Cheers - d.
Posted by Randy Dunbar 2006.01.05, 03:42
Another sample using Avant Garde in the logo is
http://www.alconemarketing.co.uk/
It’s ridiculous. It required nothing. Its a typeface called PopGod by Rian Hughes and it hasn’t been altered in the slightest. Some Madison Avenue firm was paid thousands to come up with his rip-off. Poor Quark. I am reminded of something David Carson once said in lecture, “design is a cancer, it feeds off itself.”
Posted by John 2006.01.06, 15:17
could be a fluke - sometimes you cant research everything I suppose. it is a fashionable sort of a shape. mind you - graphic designers have been making use of all that rounded corner/pointy corner stuff for years. even safeways adopted it for signs in the UK ages ago. Im sure its a genuine coincidence. well spotted though - thought it looked familiar.
Posted by wilson 2006.01.08, 10:18
as a designer…i can see how through osmosis of ideas in the universe that something so simple as a stylized Q can be done by many people simultaneously almost identically. The Q used in all instances is not a far reach from an already existant hybrid Typeface in many houses. In other words, its not the designers vision that is at stake, but the general condition of what the publics` knowledge of what smart design ought to be. Also, the cookie factory manufacteres of design schools existing and pumping them out at the lowest common denominator dictates why so much of so many looks alike.
uniqueness and originality, is not always what is wanted by the client. both sides ought to have done their homework.
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Posted by online man 2006.02.03, 07:52
It seems unfinished for me…
Posted by David Peters 2006.02.09, 13:54
Ha! I emailed Susan Friedman about this back in September when the new Quark logo was just released and I even provided her a link to the Scottish Arts Council so she can have a peek for herself. Her comments to me were along the lines of it being “purely coincidental” and that she “felt comfortable” with Quark’s new revision as it stood. What’s really a coincidence is that the colors are so similar. They look like they had their hands in the same box of crayons. Hmmm
Posted by Jef Tombeur 2006.03.17, 17:54
Well, they have changed it again. Similar green color (and indeed same white), but a round logotype now…
Posted by Paco 2006.03.22, 03:59
Too bad a good designer in a large, well staffed (legally) corporation didn’t have the proper back-up. As designers we are constantly observing the world around us. Influences intentional or not, are unavoidable. How many times have you done a logo study, sketched out thumbnails and even done tight comps only to run across the (subliminal) muse for your design later. This has always happened and will continue even more so in this modern, open and extremely communicative world we dwell in. This designer was somewhat failed by his support staff as proven by the simple amount of research done on this blog. Where was the research staff at Y&L. They are the ones I would like to hear from. Thats why they get paid the big bucks aint it? Designers need to also do some research as well, so I can’t completely clear that responsibility. Anyway, too bad. Nice clean logo compaired to the turd they had. Adaptable for most applications (Packaging to promo items, large or small, process color, custom color or solid black, it would have worked. The new one looks like an old Sony/Ericsson monstrosity from 2000 or XBox. BTW: I haven’t touched quark since InDesign came out. No regrets… not looking back!
Posted by erik spiekermann 2006.03.22, 16:17
What everybody in the many discussions around is missing is the fact that one doesn’t always need a logo. When you’re called Quark, you have an unusual name, short enough, well-known if not exactly well-respected in the business. Who says you need to abbreviate that into a Q? Why not customize that name into something unique? And then design a unique style around that to make the packaging, website et al stand out? We recognize Adobe products from their splash screens, packaging, advertising, because they have a style of their own. The motif invented for CS1 has been developed into a visual language which extended into CS2 and will extend into CS3 and beyond. One doesn’t need the Adobe A logo to recognize the brand. Whoever has been involved in the Quark branding exercise followed a 1960s concept: you need a logo! That is total rubbish. All good and successful brands may have used a logo to establish themselves, but they only survived because they developed a visual language of their own that eventually made the actual logo redundant. You would always recognized MercedesBenz, Starbucks, Nike, Audi and other brands by their personality, their imagery, their typography, their style. I’ve always strive to make a brand succeed without their logo having to be visible everywhere. (and i was responsible for Audi, as MetaDesign SF —the company i founded — is responsible for Adobe)
Posted by ryan 2006.03.23, 09:14
Personally the logo is inappropriate for BOTH. I’ve seen this shape on many audio keyboards as well as audio software. It looks like a “knob”. It would work better for an audio equipment manufacturer (KORG, et all) or an audio software maker (Sonic Foundry, et all).
Posted by Matthew Dimmett 2006.03.25, 05:46
not so similar, but close…
Posted by jimbaround 2006.04.27, 06:08
So then there is the new new quark logo. Who are they trying to con this time? it is almost identical to the SonyEricsson logo.
The only difference is the SE logo has the swoosh connected and the other has the Q disconnected.
These guys are really not imaginative at all.
Posted by Paul the writer 2006.09.08, 19:46
Don’t expect much out of Quark. …And yes, I, too, don’t believe Ms.Friedman in her statement that it was purely “coincidental.” Pressed further, she, like others there, (jurgen kurz) can become reactive and illogical.
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