This may not concern the two of you who read this blog, but it’s a worthy cause, so I thought I’d use my measly Google page rank of 4/10 and send some link love to a fellow designer and the other blogs picking up the story. Digg has it too, if you care.
Dan Cederholm is a designer of websites, logos, icons, etc. In December, he re-branded his site with a new logo. A few days ago, he found this blatant rip-off for sale on the LogoMaid website. According to their website, LogoMaid is
an amazing collection of 3600 pre-designed logos from! as low as $19!
Predesigned is right, folks. Now, I’ve been involved in some pretty lengthy discussions on branding, design, inspiration, copyright, intellectual property, etc. Where is the line drawn? It’s actually rather gray. However, this one is a pretty blatant rip by LogoMaid.
To add fuel to the fire, Paul Viluda of Vilords media and proprietor of LogoMaid, shares that the logo in question was designed for a client in “October, I believe” and unused, and subsequently being posted for sale on LogoMaid’s website. He therefore suggests that he is “strongly considering a lawsuit against simplebits not only because of the logo, but also the fact that you are harming our goodwill.” Goodwill aside, all metadata and timestamps surrounding anything remotely involving the LogoMaid logo come AFTER Dan’s re-brand post of December 4, 2006, not to mention his first preview of the logo on November 17, 2006. Oh, and did I mention that Mr. Viluda has created multiple Flickr accounts to attempt to back up his original Vilords user?
As if that weren’t enough, it didn’t take long for a few sleuthing users to find other suggested rips. Not surprisingly, the first is only a screenshot, as the logo has been removed from LogoMaid’s catalog (after being moved around from unique to non-unique categories). The short list (some more blatant than others):
- Original:
LogoMaid’s copy:
- Original:
LogoMaid’s copy:
- Original:
LogoMaid’s copy:
- Original:
LogoMaid’s copy:
4 replies on “LogoMaid Steals Logos”
The last one seems to be in the free logo section as sample.
You know the trouble is that the more you browse the site, the more ripped off designs you’re going to find… They’ve probably violated a lot of copyrights.
Matheo> I’m a graphic designer myself and can’t see any other violations. 2 of the 4 logos posted above seems to be removed. The magnet doesn’t seem to be any kind of copyright violation to me. Regarding the last logo, see templatemonster.com/logo-set/6983.html .. not sure if the inspiration didn’t come from there…or if they didn’t use the same designer. Now are you sure to think Godbit logo is the original. You know what….I don’t think so.
@Roger: You’re right, the magnet is a stretch. However, I believe it deserves attention in context. As for the Godbit logo, Nathan discusses the inspiration for his logo in this post. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt over TemplateMonster and LogoMaid any day of the week.