City of Amarillo logo ripoff

[Haakon]

Caught this article on a logo design FB page I subscribe to..

http://www.logodesignlove.com/city-of-amarillo-logo

Basically the city "designs" a logo inhouse, instead of using an actual graphic designer.

City Commissioner Ellen Robertson Green said she saw several logos that were submitted and gave her input. The city, she said, did individual interviews with people and commissioned focus groups to gather suggestions on what items might look best in a logo. City officials later said they had created one in house.Green said the city will study the matter and see how to proceed.
“We certainly need to look into it and see what we do from here,” she said. “I still like the logo. I think at the end of the day I’m glad that I’m not in the Philippines right now. There’s a lot worse problems than a logo problem.”

http://amarillo.com/news/2013-11-11/city-defends-controversial-new-logo

 

[Pat Whatley]

...and when somebody locally uses the "stolen" logo to print t-shirts the city will be all over them about violating their copyright.

 

[Salmoneye]

Boy, the tag line sure reads well at that size. Ugh. And did you see the fonts? It's representative of the city as a whole, I will give them that.

 

[SightLine]

"its just a fluke accident"

:ROFLMAO: lol, that is no fluke or accident by any means someone simply took the EMAAR logo, added a cute gradient, changed the blue and added their own text! Some of the cities comments are just funny.

"is similar to one used by a Dubai company" - similar???

"in-house we designed a logo" - really, I mean REALLY???

"the design was an original one the city developed" - just, wow

 

[Joe Diaz]

Now they are in talks with the company in Dubai? For what? They messed up. They have a copy. Even if they do get the go ahead to use the logo as is, why would you want to? Apologize, then start over and design something new. No brainer.

 

[MikePro]

"But in regards to spending $30k to rip-off a logo, I would just like to say .... *points finger* WHAT'S THAT?!?" *runs away*

 

[Marlene]

well that explains the tagline on the new Burlington city logo

 

[Mosh]

Similar, but not the same....

 

[TyrantDesigner]

Amarillo has made me sad when I read of this the other day ... they allocated $30k inhouse to produce this logo and end up copying someone else's work. I have half a mind to send them mockups on logos with my rates to fix their **** up.

 

[TXFB.INS]

WOW, just WOW!!!!!!!!!

 

[Gino]

As anal as any municipality is about paperwork, filing for permits for this, this and that..... it shouldn't be too hard to find out who is responsible for this mess and get their money back and then take action against such an imbecile. In any other court, that person would be run through the wringer for that kinda stoopid sh!t.

 

[Locals Find!]

Sad to say but they could have come on here posed as sign shop, designer etc.. thrown out some ideas. Had it completely tweaked into a logo for less than 10% of their budget and, most people on here would have been falling all over themselves to help.

Alternatively, for about half that budget they could have hired some of the talent on here to do the whole thing for them.

 

[HulkSmash]

Sad to say but they could have come on here posed as sign shop, designer etc.. thrown out some ideas. Had it completely tweaked into a logo for less than 10% of their budget and, most people on here would have been falling all over themselves to help.

Alternatively, for about half that budget they could have hired some of the talent on here to do the whole thing for them.

um

 

[The Vector Doctor]

Wow. When you superimpose the logos on top of one another, they are EXACTLY the same shapes. Only color and text was changed. How do you not think that will come back and bite you? You might get away with it for someone local or small but a city logo?

Sadly it will continue to happen. Everyone thinks if you find it on the internet it is clipart or fair game to use

Heck even the giant software company called Microsoft is encouraging you to use whatever you find online as "clipart"

Previiously, when you logged into their clipart site, all clipart available to use was already MS licensed. Now they just tell you to go look online for your "art"

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/ ... bottom options

They encourage you to use Bing to find your artwork

 

[Marlene]

clicked on the mircosoft link and did an image clip art search and this could people into some real trouble

 

[Haakon]

These might be some of the logos that didn't make the cut.

 

[HDvinyl]

These might be some of the logos that didn't make the cut.

 

[Marlene]

These might be some of the logos that didn't make the cut.​

 

[Mosh]

iMarillo? Love it!

[video=youtube;k9uLKLhm0Eg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9uLKLhm0Eg[/video]

 

[Haakon]

So what do we think the outcome of this will be in the end?

One of you local guys should make a fictious logo (and webpage) for a realty company with this very design, and place it around the city. And see what happens first. If you get a reaction from the city for copying "their" logo, or if they make a new one themselves.

 

[jfiscus]

To me, the funniest part is that it all probably came about by a simple Google search for "Amar logo", "amarillo logo" or "emar logo" and Google took them to "Emaar Logo" as a result.... and that's where the poop started.