These two companies couldn’t be farther apart in the industries they’re in, so perhaps whichever logo designer did them thought the two different clients would never see each other.

Now I must say that we’re all influenced by other designs, we cannot help it with the media we have before us. Between the internet, magazines and newspapers, TV, books, and all the existing companies with logos already trademarked, it’s a challenge to come up with an original logo design. But when I see two logos and they look like one was traced from the other, I know somebody copied the other, or was produced by the same designer.

What makes matters worse is the other website is an embarrassing health related type of site, and their icon is trademarked, so my client was horrified and now needs a new logo! When he approached the logo designer, the person just said, “Oh, really? Okay, would you like us to design a new logo for you?” I think that designer will not be surprised when he has to appear in court.

I felt I had to write about this because it made me wonder how an “artist,” a true “designer” would copy or use the same exact logo for two different clients. It makes me think that perhaps the company that produced the logos was more of a business and not a real artist, proud of their original designs, because a true artist would never copy their own work or someone else’s.

I know what you’re thinking, in web design we see templates for websites and blogs which are using this system and it works somewhat. You know, I’ll always try to convince my clients to go for an original design, even when it’s a blog. But branding a company, creating a logo/icon is very different and must always be original. This client not only had to remove it from their site, but will need to redesign their business cards, stationery and whatever marketing materials they’d created.

Here’s a link to another blog which talks more about this and shows a few examples similar to this case:
http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2005/09/logo-originality