In September 2005, trumpets blared and banners waved as Quark unveiled a new logo. That fanfare quickly trailed off into a sputtering silence as critics across the world blasted the logo for its similarity to many others. Some detractors accused Quark of ripping off the logo; others said it was not theft, but lazy design.
Quark denied copying any other logo and defended the design, but no company in the graphic arts industry could ignore that kind of bad publicity. Today it announced a replacement logo:
Glen Turpin, the company’s director of corporate communications, says that “Quark listened to the feedback we received from the design community in relation to our re-branding initiative in September and decided to create a new logo that is both an evolution of our visual identity and a strong representation of the new Quark… Changing the mark to avoid any perception of similarity enables us to further define our unique identity.”
I asked Turpin about the process behind the revamped logo. “Our internal creative team designed the new logo,” he replied, “and we received feedback from a variety of outside consultants throughout the design process. Then we undertook all the appropriate business, legal, and creative analysis in review of our new logo.”
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This article was last modified on January 3, 2023
This article was first published on March 16, 2006
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