Change Is Good?
by , (31 comments)
Because of reasons I, ahem, really would rather not get into, we still use Quark here in our office. This means I get to not only be the outsider among the authors of this blog -- as if I probably wasn't anyway! -- but I also get promotional emails from Quark, usually wanting more money for some dubious update or something.
I received just such an email this morning, and just as I was setting down my donut and my Generic StoreBrand cola to hit "delete", I noticed this email was different. It was all lime-greeny. And, wait, the logo was different! A ha, in fact, the email was a memo showing off their new logo and branding system! I held off on the delete key, and took another bite of the donut.
As I looked at it, I glanced down at the donut I was eating, and thought man, if this donut was lime green, it would look a lot like that new logo.
Seriously though, you know, usually I make fun of stuff here, but I actually don't mind this new treatment. The logo itself, actually, is bold enough that it has potential to be a pretty strong symbol for them. I certainly like it better than what they were using previously.
The email read:
Change is good
I would like to take this opportunity to present you with an exciting change at Quark. As you can see from this e-mail message, we’ve re-designed our logo and corporate identity to reflect our evolution over the past couple of years.
You’ll see our new look in e-mail messages, on Quark.com, and on everything we do.
As I’m sure you have noticed recently, our logo and corporate identity are not the only things that have changed at Quark. We have grown into a company that listens and responds, and we’re happy to show off our new look to compliment our new outlook.
I'm just gonna let the comments take the discussion from here. What do the readers think? Old Quark logo with flowers better, or new Quark logo with lime greenness?
Is change good in this case?
Comments (31)
Bennett said:
And again … Quark is way late and unoriginal. This time it is their logo. Sterling Brands anyone?
Posted on September 9, 2005
Tom said:
Whoa, that is uncanny! Thanks for pointing out the, ahem, similarity between the two, BH. I wasn’t aware of Sterling Brands logo when I wrote this post. Curses, my lack of homework!
That might stop short of a rip-off, but its close enough that they should have known better. For shame.
Posted on September 9, 2005
Adrian said:
I love the line “We have grown into a company that listens and responds.” It’s a little late for listening and responding after everybody dumped them for InDesign. At least they recognize that they had a problem…
The lime green circle and black sans serif type give me flashbacks of working with the Nelnet logo: www.nelnet.net
Posted on September 9, 2005
Thomas said:
To me the logo-ed “Q” looks like a lower case sans-serif “a” … bleh … I’m wondering if it will last as long as the Flower over the dimenuative “QUARK” or be around as long as the Adobe Jensen-esk “QUARK” with the rounded rectangle.
I’d journaled about this same letter earlier on in the day and found some querky problems with their website (in both Safari and Firefox) and noticed that they have no less than 15 colors (including rollover changes) amidst the myriad of pages. I’m wondering more and more if we’re not witnessing some identitiy crisis going on before our eyes.
While I do like the use of bold colors, a less corporate/more artistic look, and a willingness on their part to show they’re trying to win back customers by “changing”, I wonder how far and deep this new attitude will go. I doubt I’ll give up my InDesign for Quark anytime soon.
Posted on September 9, 2005
Bennett said:
Tom, Yeah, it’s not exactly a rip-off, but it is pretty embarrassing for Quark. Especially since Sterling is in our industry and a high-profile company.
Just in case it wasn’t enough to have a similar logo to some”one” in a related industry, check out PhotoObjects. Their symbol is even green.
Posted on September 9, 2005
Kyle said:
I left Quark back at version 4, and haven’t looked back since. I hear versions 5 and 6 weren’t that bad. Either way, I’ve fallen in love with InDesign. Yes, there are some features that I think Adobe should add, but I don’t think software is ever perfect (except for maybe iTunes (and even it keeps being updated with new things to stay “fresh”)). The similarities between Quark’s new logo and the other two Bennett mentioned are quite surprising. I wonder how many logos I’ve created that look like other logos.
Posted on September 9, 2005
JonSel said:
I’m surprised that nothing turned up in their trademark searches. It stands to reason that since the form is so close to something purely geometric that someone would have hit upon the same solution.
It’s too bad they couldn’t have found a better ‘Q’ for the wordmark though… The one they chose looks squashed.
Posted on September 9, 2005
Adrian said:
Check out the technoroati logo as well: www.technorati.com
Posted on September 9, 2005
Jake said:
Wow! Couldn’t they come up with something a little more original? I think it’s disturbing that Technorati and Photoobjects look that close to the same thing. Even around the same color! Geeze, you would think a company hurting that bad would have wanted something that was a bit more original and eye-catching. This one just doesn’t do it for me.
Posted on September 10, 2005
Eric said:
Also kinda looks like this one
Posted on September 10, 2005
Pete Lounsbury said:
that’s nothing. check out this one-
http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/default.aspx
poor, poor quark.
Posted on September 10, 2005
Chris Rugen said:
Miss Tiffany on the Typophile forums pointed out this travesty. It’s identical to the Scottish Arts Council’s logo.
Posted on September 10, 2005
vibranium said:
ouch! You can (try to) gloss over the others…but that scottish arts one, ooo-fa. Reminds me of the logoworks rips:
http://www.baddesignkills.com/logoworks/
Posted on September 10, 2005
Tobias Brauer said:
Great site folks! I’m gonna keep on reading in the future. It’s good to find some fellow graphic designers into blogging. I also put a link to your site up on mine.
Blog on! (that’s like “rock on” but just a touch geekier)
Tobias Brauer Ramblings of a Graphic Design Professor
Posted on September 11, 2005
Greg Pin said:
90 degree counterclockwise and you have http://www.dereksworld.com/
Posted on September 12, 2005
Jason Grube said:
“Quark green” looks a lot like H&R block green and both use black san serif fonts. Mmm…nothing like a trendy color choice.
Posted on September 13, 2005
Joe Beach said:
As someone who teaches both Quark and Indesign, this doesn’t surprise me. Quark had the market cornered a few years back, then showed their disdane for customers by never really upgrading the product, and providing what could generously be described as mediocre customeer service. No wonder the industry standard has changed.
Posted on September 13, 2005
Chris said:
the similarities continue…
www.artworkers.org
Posted on September 13, 2005
Chad Huff said:
To everyone that is comparing the new trademarked Quark logo to another logo, I must ask you to show me one “original logo concept.” As a logo designer, I have been through very similar acquisations and it is ridiculous to acuse Quark and the designers skilled enough to come up with such a clean solution of being unoriginal. But then again, perhaps everyone else in the design community always has original ideas? So why don’t we spend our time accusing these other brands like Sterling Brands of not having an original logo since the Scottish Arts Council may have has a similar mark? Spend a little time learning how a logo is more than the mark and how the type, mark and color all work together to become a new original identity. Lastly, I do not work for Quark but I do know the agency that created the new ID so perhaps I am a little biased since this wasn’t a “shock” that Quark has a new ID. Just ease up on the silly comparisons that won’t be an issue in a year or two. When you see that green Q, you will think Quark.
Posted on September 14, 2005
Adrian said:
On Graphic Design Forum you can vote on what you think Quark should do: a. Dump new logo and default to old logo. b. Keep new logo until a replacement created. c. Bite the bullet and keep the new log.
Posted on September 14, 2005
Tom said:
A ha! Apparently the Scottish Arts Council — one of the first similarly looking logos we identified — is, um, not too happy that Quark now has a clone of their logo…
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=12611
An excerpt:
A Quark UK spokesman told Macworld: “At the end of the day, the logo is a ‘q’ - and there’s a limited number of possible logo designs you can achieve with a single character.”
But a spokesperson for SAC described the similarities between the two logos as “indeed uncanny”, adding: “We are very proud of our logo which the design company first presented to us on 7 February 2001”.
Quark’s spokesman stressed that privately-held company Quark conducted: “Extensive checks to discover any similar existing logos”, and added, “we evidently didn’t find them all.”
This may not be enough for the Scots.
“Our logo was intensively researched, and then trademarked and launched in 2002,” the SAC spokesperson explained.
Scottish artists - and now also Quark - may be interested to learn that the SAC logo was designed by one of Scotland’s leading international design companies, Graven Images.
“The Graven Images director with whom we worked is Janice Kirkpatrick, who is a well-respected figure in the design world,” the SAC spokesperson stressed.
The Quark spokesman said his company does have some options left: “The logo in question is only one iteration, there are four or five versions of the logo we can use,” he explained.
The new logo aims to represent Quark - which users often complained was a remote and distant company to deal with - in its new light, as a customer-focused and approachable company.
“We’re really happy with the new design and we are all really positive about the changes within the company”, the spokesman explained.
Posted on September 14, 2005
p.berkbigler said:
Chad, I’m afraid I just can’t accept the argument that this string is about Quark simply choosing an unoriginal logo concept / execution - the overwhelming majority of the marks that have been pointed to throughout this thread are not simply similar to one another, they’re downright identical.
Frankly, this post sort of expands into the larger question of: how are all of these other entities getting away with sharing the same essential logo? (Agreed, there are color changes, flipped versions of the same form, and different typographic complements throughout these options - but the base form is totally the same…)
Quark is very likely going to take the first bullet on this issue, but I’d actually hope that SAC or whoever ends up being the very initial originator of this mark takes all of the involved parties to task - I know it’s pretty challenging to check every nook, cranny, and web site to make sure you’re not “borrowing” a logo without knowing it, but an essential task whenever you are creating anything intended to be an isolated identity.
Also frankly, I highly doubt the new “Q” is going to survive the current scrutiny, let alone feeling that Quark is going to last very much longer as a company - all of the annoyance, frustration, and indignance that many of the authors here are expressing paints a clear picture of how brushed off many designers have felt by Quark and their customer dealings.
I sincerely hope the “Q” issue is the one that finally rings the final bell for them.
Posted on September 14, 2005
JonSel said:
The Quark spokesman said his company does have some options left: “The logo in question is only one iteration, there are four or five versions of the logo we can use,” he explained.
I’m curious to see these other iterations. Dramatically different iterations would seem to be a bad tactic in visual branding, but I’ll reserve judgement until I see something.
Posted on September 15, 2005
Bennett said:
Maybe we shouldn’t look at the similarities as a bad thing. Maybe this is the first step in “branding” the entire creative community. Why don’t we just take it to the next step. Any company/organization that is part of the visual creative world, should incorporate this squared off circle into their identity.
Here is my proposal for Be A Design Group’s new symbol.
Posted on September 15, 2005
Alex said:
In response to p.berkbigler’s comment: “how are all of these other entities getting away with sharing the same essential logo?” I’d have to say for one thing not every company has their logo trademarked. Secondly those who design logos are create out of their life experience. I’d imagine we all have floating in our subconscious logos and designs that we couldn’t pin down even if we wanted to. How often have you designed a mark then thought “geez, I know I’ve seen that before”.
This whole discussion has left me to wonder what would happen if I were to cast before the world of designers the logos I have designed. I wonder how many similar logos would turn up. Is there any resource for us as designers to check this out for ourselves other than just surfing the net?
Posted on September 15, 2005
Adrian said:
Ha! Love the new logo, bennett. You crack me up.
Posted on September 15, 2005
Kyle said:
Bennett—that’s great! :O
Posted on September 22, 2005
Steve, web designer said:
I like the new logo more then the previous one but the color is crazy! This green is as much annoying as tons of their promotional e-mails))
Posted on October 26, 2005
John said:
Well, developing logo is a really hard job. We had 2 web designers developing logo for our company, and a lot of concepts till we were satisfied. I agree with those who think the new Quark logo is better tan the old one, however, if I was a decision maker at Quark, I would consider something else.
Posted on November 21, 2005
Bennett said:
Just in case you missed it, Quark introduced another new logo. They actually listened this time. They must be really desperate. Looking at the logo on their homepage, unlike last time, no glaring similarities between other logos comes to mind. I am kind of curious as to what the little white speck in the top left bevel is. It looks like a glitch to me.
Posted on March 20, 2006
Mike Miller said:
Just don’t go to Monster.com if you don’t want to see similarities.
Posted on March 21, 2006