Strike Two: DataPortability Workgroup Logo Challenged, Again

In my opinion there were better options presented in the contest. just my 2¢

Seriously though. They should have picked a good logo in the first place. This one is awful. No creativity at all.

video contest and tim fletcher - yes, well, the point was it was determined by user voting.

I’m a French guy and I know Zoaza as they just made a huge ad campaign for their launch, but I had never seen this logo. And on their website it’s hidden around the “o” letter in the name.

What a shame for DataPortability… I voted for this logo !

Ah, I didn’t know that. It’s still crap though. Power to the people!

We’re actually experimenting with a new source of fuel over at DataPortability – we’re turning C&D’s into electricity.

On a more serious note, however, we are more committed and focused than ever on moving the data portability conversation forward. We are making significant forward progress on our technical blueprints, and have even started to see job postings requiring candidates to have knowledge of “data portability and the techniques and issues involved.” The last couple of months have seen an unprecedented outpouring of support – and more importantly, participation and engagement from the community.

A logo is a logo is a logo. The real work is going on now, and has been for the last six months. Luckily for us, no one can force us to cease and desist from working on this very important issue.

User voting can be easily manipulated.

Now they could just add a nice dot into the circle.

OK. First. Whoever picked this design should be put in visual design purgatory.

I have a friend who did a ton of killer designs and not one of them made the cut.

Go look at these high end designs and tell me they are all not killer stuff for data portability.

Start the rebellion and rally for one of these designs.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24037307@N05

Rodney, the designs were shortlisted by a panel of judges (http://wiki.dataportability.org/x/iAwR), and then the public voted to select the winner out of a pool of 15 finalists.

So is signing your name like Zorro over your printed name a French thing?

Does DataPortability have to pay anything to the lawyer for being contacted because of this infringement?

No, DataPortability doesn’t have to pay anyone. The letter is a fairly standard Cease and Desist notice.

when will it end?

Thanks Brady.

Blog post: Data Portability Drops the Ball on Branding. Even have some alternate designs I found.

Fundamentally flawed was the concept of letting the “wisdom of the crowds” do what is best left to a branding & design professional who has looked at thousands of logos.

http://facereviews.com/2008/04.....-branding/

Cheers!
Rodney Rumford

Do you guys really need a logo like that? What’s wrong with going by just your name in some clever font? To this day it’s worked pretty fine for some minor guys like, say, Microsoft…

Then you could always take the second runner up… but that means that either 1st place on the competition has to return his/hers iphone… so maybe upgrading the 2nd place and so on might be a better answer? I dunno!

the left logo looks like an “o”. The other logo looks like a “Q”. Still they are not the same, even though they can be mixed up. SQ! What’s the difference between LQQK and LOOK? Quite and Ouite….

Kudos to DP for coming up with a creative, fun, and cheap ad campaign. As long as they continue to infringe on other logos, they get great press for free. Now, if we could just get them to use a tweak’ed version of the RIAA logo, they’d be able to tie up all those pesky lawyers for a few months.

These dataportability guys are just plain incompetent.

@8 - sorry, but none of those do it for me.

Well, surprise but no surprise, again..

Mightbe a blessing in disguise for DP (re unintentional publicity)..

Two seemingly no-brainer solutions: a) do another contest, b) use the one that received the 2nd highest vote of the contest.. :p

And, too bad, we’ll take the DP badge off our site…

This pic pretty much sums it up. Too funny.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/2.....453577891/

Wow, the DataPortability people can’t get logos right. They should just give up.

btw, the Vivendi logo looks a lot like the DataPortability one. Vivendi was right to defend their logo.

That’s what they get for picking one of the crappiest logos in the entry pool. There were at least a few dozen that were better than that one.

That’s what they get for having a logo contest in the first place. Find a well established competent designer and pay him to make an original one. It’s not that difficult!

I’d be happy to help on that front.Although, I’d think that the free publicity alone was worth far more, after all, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Also, as a designer, I am pretty much against “crowd sourcing” design projects in general, but if you decide to go that route never ever let an audience decide. For consumer items its probably fine (as they are the ultimate purchasers, think Threadless) but really have no clue from the business perspective and objective of a brand mark.

another contest. the winner(s) needs to forfeit their prize(s) and start again!

http://www.agriculturaemaquina.....ogo_ai.gif

Is this also grounds for a cease and desist? Maybe Auto Industrial S.A. should do it to Vivendi to see if they enjoy it.

They look very similar, i think they should change the logo

@21: That’s exactly what I was thinking before I saw the photo you posted.

This is getting ridiculous… can’t somebody help them HIRE A PROFESSIONAL to brand the project?? There are enough big boys on the consortium that we ought to see some more professional stuff.

A.) that logo was garbage. I don’t care if it was “voted on” and “created by” the community… “the community” is not a trademark investigator nor is it a professional graphic designer. STOP LETTING A FLICKER GROUP BRAND YOUR COMPANY!!!!!! It’s unprofessional…

B.) The Data Portability project needs to be replaced. period the end. Chris has proven unable to lead such an important consortium. Fire him. The blog for the initiative is sitting on a default Tumbler account… that’s pretty cold sauce. They can’t even get something like a Logo figured out without causing legal problems… this is ridiculous!! Obviously the decisions that are made or allowed to be made by the people running this group are not of the quality that the industry needs for such an important movement.

I am very afraid of the future of this initiative in the hands of unorganized leadership. (Facebook and the like are LOVING THIS by the way… they don’t want to see users catch on and start caring about REAL data portability… and if the workgroup keeps making asses of themselves they will NEVER be taken seriously…. )

“video contest and tim fletcher - yes, well, the point was it was determined by user voting.”

Sheesh…. I didn’t know that either…

Just goes to show - there are SOME things that are best NOT left to the school of fish.

I’d like to see all the people who voted for this one donate some $ to fund DP’s legal costs of defending their mistake (which was a very poor choice to begin with).

Crowd sourcing has its merits — but overall business strategies (like choice of logo) may not be among them.

Matt,

I’d have to disagree with you regarding the lack of professionalism in the DP design contest. Logos — regardless of design — aren’t pleasing to every eye, and DP’s new design is no exception (and I’m not taking any sides here just because it’s based on one of my original submissions: http://ronaldlewis.com/2008/04.....submission).

There were many professional logos submitted. Logos that were on par with any design agency.

i’m actually pretty glad this happened… cause that logo was garbage.

also, where was the vote count for the logo contest published?

I find it interesting that Tech Crunch just covers the “logo issues” but when a group of people actually gets together to talk about the issues including folks showing up from big companies (like MSFT and Google) some how this doesn’t merit coverage. Just before Web 2.0 expo we had a 2 day event (in collaboration with the DP community) that moved the whole field forward see the report here - http://www.identitywoman.net/?p=759. We have another event coming up in 3 weeks the 2nd Data Sharing Summit on May 15th (the first was back in September before DP ever existed) http://www.datasharingsummit.com. This will follow the 6th Internet Identity Workshop a community that has been meeting and dealing with the technical and social issues around making data movement for people under their control actually work for about 3 years now - http://iiw.idcommons.net/index.php/Iiw2008a.

Like Steve, I would like to see the vote count for the top 15. Weren’t there supposed to be runners-up? It would be nice to see the second and third place finishers. The public voted, so why can’t the public see what they voted for. Publish the breakdown of the top 15 logo finalists.

First off, I’m not sure why there seem to be so many design experts commenting that this logo is so bad. It may not be uber creative or Web 2.0-ee (which isn’t always a good thing), but as for sound and enduring logo design this one is a go (although, FWIW, it’s not the one I voted for either :-p ). What’s more interesting to me here as a designer is how, with so many different companies out there in this day and age, it’s darn near impossible to come up with something completely original. “There is nothing new under the sun.” Further, doesn’t part of copyright law allow for similar or nearly identical names and icons if the companies are in different industries, or was I led to believe this in error? Peer sharing and data portability aren’t the same thing in my mind . . .

Straw polls make bad choices. Simple. Unfortunately so do CEOs, Marketing Directors and (shock horror) professional designers. As far as subjective design choices, everyone’s an expert, and anyone who disagrees with anything anyone says is clearly an idiot for failing to recognise their authority on such matters. Most people who are saying this logo is crap have no understanding of what makes a good logo, the majority of people who call themselves logo designers have little understanding of what makes a good logo, and will change their mind about what is good every time a new fad blows into town.

(oh yeah, and the logo’s crap btw)

@ceejayoz - those are better than the one they chose though, “wisdom” of the crowds or not.

I guess Screen Gems can then in turn sue Vivendi for copyright infringement.

Take a look at Screen Gems logo. And this is especially an issue as Screen Gems and Vivendi are both in the Entertainment business.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Gems

those logos definately look simillar when scaled down to 16X16

Respectfully to the nay sayers that the DP winner logo was crap, does Target’s sound like a winner.. of the Fortune 500 logos… and how about the CBS one (which was described as — as relevant today “as the day [in 1951] it was introduced.” (p.16 of FORTUNE magazine, May 5, 2008 issue, page titled Company Logo Smackdown).

PS. the bold and the quote were theirs, not mine

@40 -

p.16’s black and white scan — http://www.underconsideration......ckdown.pdf

This is why user voting isn’t always the right answer.

Meh logoz….its based on the two-dimensional lattice of a lorenz attractor with your hands wanting each end…but the lorenz attractor just won’t let you…haha.

http://infohost.nmt.edu/~travd.....rnette.jpg

@41 -

obviously some FORTUNE edition has that page content as p.44

JEEZ… just use DPW, in arial bold, each letter a different color.

Problem solved

What’s unfortunate for the Data Portability Group here is the attention they are receiving for the previous infringement. I wouldn’t be surprised if lawyers all over are just salivating to see what logo pops out next so they can send out their own chest-thumping C&D.

A lot of the lawyer tactics are alpha-male oriented. DP has submitted once already, and so, everyone else is going to pile on. Sad, but true.

I worked at a company who was well-known for being a lawsuit-target. Once we had that smell on us, you wouldn’t believe the ridiculous stuff that was sent to our lawyers. Even when we were in the legal right, they would back down. And that just made people want to threaten us more.

Which is why there are people who make their living out there research trademarks and logos prior to a company adopting them.

*sigh*

Hope DP finds one soon.

DDDDDDD…………..
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DD…….ppppDDDpppp…..
DD…….pp….DDD…ppp…..
DDDDDPPDDD…….ppp..
DDDDDppppppppppp
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Dude… when in doubt, ASCII!!!

Hey Chris - the infringement is a blessing in disguise. It’s not that the logo is terrible, it’s just a mediocre symbol for the initiative. No strength, no meaning, doesn’t elicit emotion. Nothing. All the defense for the logo I’ve heard from any of the DP guys on this thread is “it was chosen by a group of voters”. Thats like trying to make a gourmet meal from whatever happens to be in the fridge. Or letting Digg users choose the most interesting story of the year. What you’d end up with is a mayo & peanut butter sandwich and the feces elevator video being the top dugg story.

boy am i glad to hear this, the logo sux, i mean seriously, really really sux.. now is the chance to get a better one.

I like Rodney’s friend’s logos. The suitcase with the user icon bust, number 11.

Isn’t the reason why the vote count was never published because the vote was bogus to begin with?