Comments on: Quark's Logo — It Could Happen To You

by: CEO

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 21:39:48 +0000

Don’t like us? Piss off to indesign.
FYI: We don’t like you either.

Quark

by: Quark VS InDesign - » Quark’s Logo 2006—Something Is In Motion

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:32:11 +0000

[…] The 2005 model, while strong and stylish in its simplicity, met with derision and accusations of plagiarism. As the creative community instantly pointed out, that version bore a strong resemblance to a handful of existing logos, and, but for its color, was identical to the logo of the Scottish Arts Council, who used the circular glyph with the bottom-right point to represent a lowercase a where Quark’s used the same glyph for a capital Q. The similarities, however, were accidental; Quark’s branding agency, SicolaMartin, had missed the marks of the Scottish Arts Council, the Designers Network, Alcone, and others during their trademark research. Despite Quark’s own justification for the confusion, as well as objective explanations of how such a situation may occur from independent media Quark VS InDesign.com and Creativepro.com, the September 2005 Quark logo missed the mark with designers. The September 2005 Quark logo. […]

by: Pariah S. Burke

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 00:33:12 +0000

Thanks, Ray.

I had seen that logo actually, just after publishing this story. Quark is in hot enough water, so I thought it best not to throw another log on the fire.

Someone said to me yesterday about the logo issue: “Quark is spinning in its grave… Oh, wait. Quark hasn’t been officially pronounced dead yet.”

I wish them the best, really. As I’ve always said, QuarkXPress is a great product. Set aside the competitor, set aside the actions of Quark, Inc., and it’s not at all difficult to appreciate the power and utility of XPress.

I was really hoping Quark’s rebranding would go down in the win column. Now I only hope they will be forthright about the matter, find a new branding agency (two strikes so far for SicolaMartin, do they need three?), and get the company back on track.

by: Pariah S. Burke

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 00:19:24 +0000

Thanks, Gurpreet.

I think the main value of this discussion of Quark’s logo is in the fact that it provides a lesson to would be logo designers and brand developers. SicolaMartin committed a huge blunder to which anyone might succumb if laziness or ignorance prevails over experience and attention to detail.

Personally, I think Quark’s rebranding effort was valiant and due—I applaud them for such a bold move. Quark isn’t really at fault with the logo fiasco. Quark is only guilty of trusting its branding agency—which is what any client of such an agency should do.

With all the negative press about—and by—Quark lately, the lacklustre response to XPress 7, and Quark’s internal difficulties (I can’t elaborate), Quark really needed a win on the rebranding. It’s unfortunate and almost sad that what should have been a very positive event for Quark turned out to be a fiasco.

I hope they can salvage this debacle some how.

by: Gurpreet

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 06:56:18 +0000

I dont think this is that big an issue, to make so much ho hulla over it. What we ought to expect from quark is that they provide us with a good layout design software. So why we waste time discusing their logo and all that useless stuff(unless we are dropouts, passing our time). So to my mind healthy competition b/w Xpress and InDesign is what we should look out for, rather than the logos…..

Regards

by: Ray Frenden

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 20:54:26 +0000

Here’s another awfully close logo to add to the heap:

http://photoobjects.net/en/

Priceless!

by: Ben

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 19:13:12 +0000

Of course the re-branding took a bad first step when the logo was a missing graphic in both the e-mail announcement on the web site the first day. Wish I’d kept that screen capture…

by: Foreword

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 19:15:11 +0000

Designorati

PORTLAND, Ore. — 22 Sept., 2005 — Designorati.com, the first blog network exclusively for creative professionals, by creative professionals, and driven by passion, officially debuted today. Beginning with nine Topics ranging from Graphic Design and…

by: Designorati : Something We Should Learn from Quark’s Logo Controversy

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 12:36:07 +0000

[…] Behind every story there is a moral. The moral behind Quark’s logo-look-alike story is: “It can happen to you, too”. The recent events are just an example of what can occur when trademarks and intellectual property laws are not understood. Pariah S. Burke makes a very good point of this in Quark VS InDesign, where he says: “ Anyone who deals with intellectual property—which is to say, anyone who designs anything, not just logos—must understand the basic principles of intellectual property law, including how trademarks work. Gene’s article on CreativePro.com is an overview, an introduction, where any designer should begin. ” […]