Are they brand inspired twins? Or just plain old identity knock-offs? Hard to tell. If you were an identity/logo designer in the early 90s, and working in the Silicon Valley – tech customers had 2 requests:
- we want a swoosh
- we LOVE purple & teal
As a designer, I’d be hesitant to say that I didn’t fulfill this request on multiple occasions. Many designers browse award winning annuals for inspiration. But honestly, I’d have to say that when working with similar themes, subjects or brand typography, similarities happen. You be the judge. Some of these logos have been updated since these versions.
Logo Twins Examples
It is hard to believe that, in some of these cases, someone specifically asked for a logo that is similar to their twin. In other cases, it seems that great minds think alike (or that there is nothing new under the sun).
Every time I see twin logos it amazes me at how often it happens and sometimes it’s even blatant.
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Great finds! I always wondered what was niggling my brain about the Columbia and Sun logos.
Here are some additional suggestions:
CNN and CN (Canadian National Railways). CN predated CNN by almost 20 years.
CNN logo: http://hairbroadway.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/cnn-logo2.jpg
CN logo:
http://www.business.ualberta.ca/wcer/CN%20logo.bmp
Amtrak’s old logo and the post-apartheid South African flag
Amtrak:
http://homepage.mac.com/lpetrich/www/transit/Amtrak_Logo.gif
SA Flag:
http://www.nationalflaggen.de/shop/catalog/images/suedafrika.gif
The Canadian cookie company Biscuits Leclerc also once had a logo almost identical to the Belfast and Food & Drink Devon logos above, but they changed it a couple of years ago, and there are no examples of the old one online.
I forgot one very important set of lookalike logos. They caused a small political scandal in Montreal in the late 80′s.
If I remember right, the City of Montreal paid over half-a-million bucks to design a new corporate-style municipal logo. It wasn’t well-loved even from the start, a reception which got much colder when people began to notice its suspicious similarity to the logo of Lassonde Industries, a major Canadian fruit-juice producer. Surprise! The same design firm did both logos.
Original 80′s version of Montreal logo:
http://www.cemr.ca/images/logo_ville_mtl.gif
Slight re-design from early 2000′s
http://www.cemr.ca/images/logo_ville_mtl.gif
Lassonde Industries Inc. logo
http://www.humeng.ca/newsletter/images/lassonde_logo.jpg
Sorry, I duplicated myself above.
THIS is the original Montreal logo from the 80′s. Just the wordmark part changed, really.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/56/132190561_98fce0facb.jpg?v=0
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