Logo Copycats – DSP 326

If you’ve ever looked at a collection of logos from various float centers, they can start to look a little similar. How do you avoid this when designing your own float center logo? Is it a big deal?

Graham and Ashkahn dish on logo design, the importance of simplicity, and a not so subtle reminder that the “don’t be an asshole” rule exists for a reason.

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Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Ashkahn: All right. Hey everybody.

Graham: Hi there.

Ashkahn: Welcome.

Graham: Hi.

Ashkahn: How are you today?

Graham: I’m doing good.

Ashkahn: Oh, great.

Graham: Yeah, and speaking for the audience, I think-

Ashkahn: I think they’re doing good.

Graham: I think they’re doing great.

Ashkahn: I think they doing good now, is what they would say. Like, doing good now.

Graham: Yeah, better now.

Ashkahn: Right.

Graham: That you guys are on. Am I right?

Ashkahn: Thanks. I appreciate that, all of you.

Graham: Nudging the person next to them.

Ashkahn: I picture everybody listening together in a giant room. Is that what you’re picturing?

Graham: I’m Graham.

Ashkahn: Oh, yeah. I’m Ashkahn. Is that how you say that? I’m Ashkahn.

Graham: You didn’t, no.

Ashkahn: No.

Graham: You just started talking-

Ashkahn: I did yesterday.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: All right.

Graham: Today’s question is-

Ashkahn: Yeah, what is it?

Graham: “I’m working on logo design for my new center, and I’m worried that it looks like a bunch of other float center logos, including yours. Is this a problem?”

Ashkahn: Well, yeah, there are a lot of logos that look-

Graham: And a lot of them look like ours, too. We’re gonna take them to court.

Ashkahn: Well, yeah, or ours look like other ones do. I’m not gonna go ahead and claim we are the first people to come up with …

Graham: A face floating?

Ashkahn: A face, I think that would …

Graham: That’s the old FTA logo even kind of looks like that.

Ashkahn: Yeah, there’s a lot of face, there’s a lot of-

Graham: There’s a lot of face.

Ashkahn: There’s a lot of kind of lotus flower.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: There’s a lot of sort of drop, water drop sort of thing is very common.

Graham: The-

Ashkahn: They’re all blue.

Graham: Some of the letters, or all of the letters kind of floating.

Ashkahn: Yeah, especially the O.

Graham: In something. Yeah, yeah, the O floating.

Ashkahn: The O floating, or something going on with the O.

Graham: It’s very centered and-

Ashkahn: The float conference is the same thing.

Graham: It just, it works really well.

Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s an O.

Graham: That sort of design, yeah.

Ashkahn: It’s a good letter.

Graham: Theta, like a theta kind of design.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: Like the float conference logo, for example. Which a lot of people ripped off.

Ashkahn: This episode is a warning that we’re coming after you.

Graham: So, design it like any other center’s logo except ours. Oh, Anicca, it looks like our logo but four times.

Ashkahn: Multiplied and bigger?

Graham: Or our logo looks like theirs, but one fourth of it.

Ashkahn: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it’s all just blues or green, mostly blue. It’s pretty much all blue.

Graham: Lots of blue.

Ashkahn: Lots of blue.

Graham: We realize this when you do all of the Helm customers or something like that for software and lay them out next to each other. Just like, oh, these all just kind of look like the same center.

Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s just a lot of similarity in the names, too. The word float is in almost all of them

Graham: 90%, yeah, yeah.

Ashkahn: Or REST, or, you know what I mean?

Graham: So, should you worry about it, I guess is the question, right?

Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s more perceptive to you and us than any of your customers.

Graham: Yeah, I kind of think that ship has sailed where anyone should be worried about float logos looking too similar. Don’t copy something exactly.

Ashkahn: Yeah, well, yeah.

Graham: Of course.

Ashkahn: That would be weird of you to do that. Why would you do that? But specifically, unless in your mind you’re immediately thinking that you’re about to open a nationwide franchise, I would be most concerned about the other float centers around you somewhere.

Graham: Yeah, yeah.

Ashkahn: Try to look a little distinguished from the places that literally in the same city as you, but no customer is gonna look up, is gonna know that your logo looks the same as some other float center’s logo in a different state thousands of miles away.

Graham: Especially although there are a lot of similar logos, and there are a lot of similar names, obviously don’t, if someone shares a name with you, you’re really close. Make sure you’re not doing both, because having almost the same name and almost the same logo as someone sounds a lot worse to me as well.

Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s just like, don’t be weird about it.

Graham: The no asshole rule is kind of in effect.

Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s like fashion. There’s a lot of similar trends in everybody’s winter coats, but if you sit down next to somebody and you’re wearing the exact same thing as them, they’re gonna look at you and be like, “What are you doing? Why are you dressed just like me?”

Graham: Especially if that’s their coat and they’ve been wearing that coat around for three years.

Ashkahn: But there are just a lot of similarities in the world.

Graham: Logo design itself is about breaking things down to their simplest elements. Good logo design is something that you can identify from a distance, it’s really simple. So, at some point, what do you associate with floating, right? You only have a list of maybe a dozen kind of simple things you associate with the act of floating, and then it’s all variations on that.

Or they just choose a different name, like Puma Flotation, and they have a picture of a puma. As an example.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: We’re looking at you, Puma Floats, really.

Graham: So, I don’t know. Being creative is good, but if it kind of is a face floating-

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: We’re gonna be the only ones coming after you. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

Ashkahn: Trying to be very unique is at odds with trying to probably have a good logo for your business. If you’re like, “I’m gonna make my logo red, and it’s gonna have fire in the background”, at that point, your customers are gonna be like, what? “I don’t understand. Why is this your logo?”

Graham: Ra, so, yeah. I guess that’s it.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: Don’t be a jerk, but don’t worry about it too much.

Ashkahn: Yeah, don’t worry about it, and just don’t be a weirdo and that’s it.

Graham: All right. If you have your own questions, go to float-

Ashkahn: I don’t know where else you’d find advice like this.

Graham: Yeah. If you want the down, we’ll give you the real-

Ashkahn: We’ll give it. We’re giving it to you fresh.

Graham: Honest, straightforward answers.

Ashkahn: All right. Go to our website.

Graham: To very complicated questions.

Ashkahn: It’s floattanksolutions.com-

Graham: /podcast.

Ashkahn: That’s it. That’s it. That’s the one.

Graham: Okay bye.

Ashkahn: Okay bye.

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