More Logo Thievery

08.16.2011 : By Scott Lewis

16

A few months ago, in a post title Sincerest form or Thievery, I wrote about one of my logos being stolen by a lighting company in the United Kingdom. This morning, it was brought to my attention that several of my other logo designs, as well as hundreds of others by well-known designers including Prejean Creative, Jeff Fisher of Logo Motives and Rodney Davidson of DogStar Design were stolen by a Do-It-Yourself logo site called LogoGarden(dot)com.

UPDATE (Aug 19, 2011): After reading the following post, don’t just get mad, get involved. Find out how you can fight back in my latest post Stop LogoGarden’s Logo Theft

I am intentionally not hyperlinking that site because I don’t want to share any of my hard-earned PageRank with some thieving scumbags – but I digress.

LogoGarden is the creation of self-styled start-up guru John Williams. Williams was the founder of LogoYes(dot)com as well as the branding editor at Entrepreneur(dot)com. I’m glad to know Entrepreneur keeps such high-class company.

The two images below depict my logo designs in a side-by-side comparison with those stolen by Mr. Williams’s company. As is clearly shown, this is blatant and willful theft and not a case of similar designs being created by like-minded designers.

The first image below shows my design for Custom Catalog Service, Inc. created in 2000 while I was working as the Graphics Manager for the company. The logo on the right is the rip-off created by LogoGarden(dot)com for Hannah Robson, a tutor in the United Kingdom. I am sure that Ms. Robson is an unwitting victim of LogoGarden’s dishonesty and I am in no way accusing her of any wrong-doing.

Custom Catalog Service logo rip-off

The next image shows my design for DeepWeave, a technology consulting company. I created this logo around 2003. The design was even printed in the Best of LogoLounge series published by famed identity expert Bill Gardner. The logo on the right is the rip-off sold by Mr. Williams’s company, LogoGarden(dot)com.

DeepWeave logo rip-off

Additional Reading on this Topic:

Get in the Fight:

  • Call LogoGarden at 1-888-533-5646 and request that your intellectual property be removed from their database.
  • “Like” the LogoGarden page on Facebook and post examples of theft. This page is showing up in the top 5 spots on searches just after their home page. Negative publicity is a great weapon to discredit this company.
  • Submit a formal complaint with PayPal to have their ability to collect payment through the service cut off – Download PayPal Complaint Form
  • Submit a formal complaint with Rackspace, LogoGarden’s hosting company to force them to remove copyrighted material from their site or be shut down. – Rackspace Copyright Complaints
  • Intellectual Property theft is a federal crime in the United States. Submit a complaint the the Internet Crime Complaint Center via their online form

If you come across more examples of LogoGarden’s thieving ways, please send me a link through the contact page on this site.

Also, it seems that LogoGarden is not the first logo ripoff business. Here is a very entertaining (and infuriating) thread on Flickr about one of these low budget logo hack sites ripping off Dan Cederholm of Simple Bits.

UPDATE (Aug 17, 2011): I sent the following email to the contact email address on LogoGarden(dot)com:

To whom it may concern,

I’m not going to bother with niceties because I’m pretty sure you are aware that a large number of the logos you have in your library are, in fact, stolen. Many of them are stolen from nationally-known logo designers. You even have the Time-Warner logo in your library.

Two of the logos in your library are my designs. Please refer to the attached images to see the logos. I demand that you remove these logos from your library immediately.

The image of the book was designed for a company named Custom Catalog Service in the year 2000. The weave logo was designed in 2003 for DeepWeave Consulting, Inc. in 2003. I have extensive documentation and testimony to prove beyond any doubt that I created and own both of these logos.

If you fail to comply with this request, the next communication you receive from me will be through my attorney.

UPDATE (Aug 18, 2011): This afternoon I called LogoGarden to request that they take my logos off of their site. The woman who answered the phone said Mr. Williams is the person I need to speak to but he is on the phone. She said she would be happy to connect me to his voice mail. She dumped me into the company’s general voice mail and, of course, I have not heard back from them. I’m going to attempt to call them again. Tomorrow I will make good on my threat and contact my attorney.

 

  • Pingback: The perils of do-it-yourself logo makers | The Logo Factor Design Blog

  • http://www.creativebeard.com Chris Taylor

    Here's a thought, what if we set up a "watch-dog" website that specifically pertains to this LogoGarden deal? We can use social media to bring attention to it and get a round-about count of how many logos/designers have been ripped off. It can serve as a platform to share comparisons/comments all in the same place. Ultimately we can update it with the legal outcomes of the effected parties and share it with our clients and the online community. We need to scare like minded plunderers away from similar ideas, but more importantly we need businesses to understand the risk they take with using sites like this. After all, the only way to make these unethical morons go away is to educate and convince "the market" not to use them. I have never seen this many stolen identities in one place and I really hope this will be the flagship that helps brings down this awful plague . . . I know that's some extreme optimism, but if we abandon that then they've already won and have stolen our profession away from us along with our logos.

    Any volunteers / nominations to spearhead something like this? I am willing to help in whatever way I can.

  • Scott Lewis

    Chris, I was thinking of that exact thing this morning on the way to work. My idea was to get all the designers who have been ripped off to submit a side-by-side comparison of their work and the stolen logon LogoGarden.com

  • http://www.creativebeard.com Chris Taylor

    Currently the LogoGarden facebook wall is a good place to amass it, but that will undoubtedly be taken down soon. Something needs to be established with more permanence, that will expose not only the copyright infringement, but the outcome of the legal actions taken against LogoGarden. Even if it's something along the lines of "Cease and Desist Order issued, client out x-amount of dollars." it would at least prove to the public that the risk of using such a site is not worth it. It would also be nice to include advice to designers for what to do in such an instance like this (i.e. how to issue a Cease and Desist, how to legally go after the culprit, how to spread the word, etc.).

    Personally I hear about stolen logos every day, but I've never heard the outcome of any legal actions.

    • Scott Lewis

      As much as I hate these DIY logo sites, I believe they have a right to do business and clients have a right to use them. My issue is solely with the theft. A lot of the logos on that site are by really well-known designers who are among the best in the industry (Jeff Fischer, Rodney Davidson, Von Glitschka, etc.). I suspect the site will come down before this is all said and done. I would like to contribute to discrediting John Williams, the self-proclaimed startup guru who owns the site. I also hope that he is personally held responsible for his illegal actions.

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  • Chris

    OK so here is the next step you can take.

    https://cms.paypal.com/cms_content/US/en_US/files/ua/infringementreport.pdf

    Fill this out, fax or email it to the address in the form and PayPal will start the process to kill his ability to collect money.

    • Scott Lewis

      Damn, Chris. That's an awesome tip. Thanks for digging that up and sharing it.

  • Pingback: Stop LogoGarden’s Logo Theft « Iconify.it, LLC

  • http://www.creativebeard.com Chris Taylor

    Hey thanks Chris! I'm going to spread that around if you don't mind.

  • http://ecommercemechanics.com Chris

    PLEASE spread it. I was the youngest of a large family, I tend to go at people sideways.

    If I come up with any other ways to hit the guy I'll let you know. I'm posting my tips everywhere I can, but I know I am missing some.

    FYI, I notice he has a bastardized version of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons logo. I turned that one in to their infringement staff. I also found two rejected identities from when I had my logo designed. Look up "monkey" on his site. The monkey face in the gear and the monkey on the wrench were almost used by me. The artist has already sent take down notices and filed legal action.

    The only other thing I can think of to hit him on, and I have no way of knowing, is if he is using pirated software. Getting Adobe to slap him around would be sweet.

    • http://iconify.it Scott Lewis

      Chris, on a completely unrelated note, I love the wrench & magnifying glass icon on your site. Is that your logo or just an icon? Nice stuff.

      • Chris

        Thanks! It is part of our identity. Gardner Design created it. Ty Wilkens was the artist. I've been very happy with the marks.

        • http://iconify.it Scott Lewis

          Man, I love Gardner Designs's work. Truly one of the best logo design firms in the business. I get the "Damn, I wish I had designed that" feeling every time I look at their work.

          • Chris

            I've worked with Bill for something like 20+ years. If you noticed the Coleman For Kids stuff on my site, they did that too.

  • Pingback: Letter from a Thief: LogoGarden’s Response to Selling Your Logos « The Squall Line

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