Sep 11
News from our Denver Quark friends
2005 at 02.13 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Quark is trying desperate to regain lost ground to Adobe by making much noise about the upcoming Quark 7. Rumor has it that the entire company is going through a change from the top.
One change will not go unnoticed and that’s Quarks brand new identity. They probably changed it to make a clean start and to forget all the bad legacy ;-)
Too bad it is a bit similar (to put it mildly) to the The Scottish Arts Council logo. My relationship with Quark has been rocky so one thing I know for sure is that it will take more then a new look to get in my good books again. Those Denver boys and girls seem to attract misfortune. Still it is a nice looking logo but it should be a no go!
15served
1
wheheWHAHAHAHAHA.
omg did anyone did some research there? i would be so embarassed as a designfirm. hell. i can see it in the newspaper: former art-director searching for work…any work will do…plz.
2
Yeah, it’s a nice clean logo, Jon Hicks happened to post it in his sidenotes as well, so I’ve seen it before. The interesting thing will be whether Quark try to plough ahead with the new logo regardless of the bad publicity it has given them among designers, that would be a bad idea considering designers are their primary consumer.
The Scottish Arts Council have a nice website too even though they have chosen tables for layout.
3
I guess the Scottish Art Council’s logo refers to the A, and Quarks logo to the Q, but really, the logo is far too bland for Quark. It just doesn’t work for me at all - and the green ain’t helpin’.
Oh well, somebody’ll get yelled at quite a lot for this :D
4
this just goes to show, doesn´t it. Quark do seem a bit clueless overall.
I share the same experiences with you with troubles of upgrading Quark, etc, etc. And I nearly lost a client due to missing a deadline because of this. I avoid Quark like suströmming (fermented herring). :)
btw, I enjoy your blog and work!!
5
Also, take a look at the new logo for the rebranding of Toronto. Eerily similiar.
http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/unlimited/
6
It also looks very like Midas productions.
http://www.midasproductions.ie/
7
Another one ;) http://www.artworkers.org
8
LOL
It is of course a very basic logo in its shape. Because of this simplicity, many designers could end up with this without knowing. Besides the annual logo books, how do you find out how original you are, on the internet? I mean, finding this sort of images with Googles & Yahoos is not that easy, right?
So, I’m wondering how you other designers check out the originality of your designs?
Especially with logos, research is so vital.
... never liked Xpress, though :-)
9
i think SAC has a very good case for a “cease and desist order”. Hope they don’t let Q off on this one
PS It may be simple, but aslo a direct clone.
10
I was called to attention on this one by a coworker because it look similar to a logo I designed for an IPTV show out of Canada. http://www.openalpha.tv
Different, but similar. Oh well.
11
I suppose the new logo stands for Q. Underneath is the Quark name, another Q. OK, no problem here. But then there’s the Quark Xpress product, guess what ? Another Q.
I don’t know, but to me, some consistency, some returning fonts, some returning forms, ... wouldn’t that be a good idea ?!
12
http://www.alcone.co.uk/
13
found another one:
Gravis
14
They should have put a line through the circle, at the bottom, on an angle to differentiate it somehow from the Scottish Arts Council, and make it more “Q"arkish. It’s amazing to me they were able to get it trademarked. Usually there is a whole legal process behind trademarks, where they go through the Patent & Trademark Office in our country, to ensure that a new logo does not infringe on someone else’s design or identity, and only then is it approved. I don’t know if the Scottish Arts Council is aware of it, but it would be interesting to see what they had to say.
15
“QX” together would look really stunning if they melted into each other.