Remember the fiasco a couple of years ago when Quark introduced their new logo and some designers noticed that it was similar to the logo for the Scottish Arts Council? (Quark immediately withdrew that logo, which was designed by Sicola Martin, and commissioned the übertalented Matt Bargell to design the one they use today.)

Well, it seems that this episode has become a lesson at some universities about how copyright affects logo design. Check out this report by Vera Maxakova, a Web design student at the University of Texas at Dallas. She presents a clear explanation of what happened, as well as its impact on the design community.

She also shows examples of a dozen other logos that use a similar shape.

I hope her professor gives her an “A”.

Jay Nelson

Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.