The best advise I’ve received on logo design was from my seasoned Graphic Design business partner: the easiest and fastest way to avoid doppelgängers and lookalike logos is… SUBJECT IT TO THE BLACK & WHITE TEST!!
A powerful tool to test logo designs, and see how yours stack up against whatever’s out there. Because a good logo shold be able to communicate the same message as effectively in black and white, as it does in its original color.
As demonstrated with the logos on this page, seeing the world in black and white can open your eyes to a different reality. Some logos are too close to comfort, and similarities often cannot be avoided. Colors can have a significant impact, as they are an inseparable part of brand identity. PS: You can see the original colored logos below.
Pittsburgh, PA-based ATI (Allegheny Technologies Inc.) Metal Co.; CBK (Commercial Bank of Kuwait).
Some logos are simpler than others, designed using a combination of simple basic forms to communicate their brand identities. Sometimes the simplest of ideas create the greatest impact.
The art of capturing an entire company’s ideas, ethos, knowledge and the future in one logo and corporate identity is an integral part of visual branding. Of course there’s more to branding than meets the eye!
Most of today’s organizations are well-versed in this most fundamental of branding-building exercises. Some are still struggling to design an identity that best represents their values and positive traits, while others come up with eerily similar-looking designs, albeit representing vastly different organizations, across a multitude of industries and countries.
I consider myself as a visual creature, and the past few years i’ve been on a personal mission to identify suspiciously similar looking Logos and Corporate Identities. Allow me to add a footnote, however, as I’ve learned from past experience; the opinions on the similarities are subjective, representing my views. And my sole intention is simply to demonstrate that we are all inspired by the same things. Now more than ever, thanks to the internet.
To date I’ve come across myriad doppelgängers, look-alikes, wannabes, copies, or plain plagiarism. Sheer coincidence? Or copycats?
Realistically of course, I’m not discounting the simple fact that some may have been inspired by the same ideas. Nevertheless, it’s an ever changing, ever amassing encyclopedia of visual identity that’s just a click away. Here’s a look at some.
There’s an old French proverb: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” first coined by French columnist and novelist Alphonse Karr (1808-1890), which loosely translates to: “The more we change, the more we stay the same.”
Before the internet, we all operated in virtual seclusion and isolation, as individuals in our world. Collaboration only occurred in Multinational Corporations that operated across different countries and cultures. In the business world, ideas and innovation spread in limitation, only to organizations that had the resources and means to communicate
Fast forward to the Internet and Social Media era, connecting the human race like never before in history, like a labyrinth of busy bees.
Facebook, Twitter, Linked-IN, Groupon, Instagram, Pinterest, Path and Crowdsourcing are becoming a common part of our vocabulary and lifestyle… through which mediums we are connected through our work, and the objects that inspire us.
And for all of you digital natives (those born after 1980s when internet and digital revolution was in full swing) out there, I’m sure life without it is simply unfathomable.
It turns out that being a true original is increasingly difficult, if not virtually impossible.
IDEAS INSPIRING INNOVATION 