Comments on: Um, Pardon Me, But You Seem to Have Borrowed the Amazon Logo

By: emoticon

emoticon — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:07:04 +0000

astound needs to hire less lazy marketing.

i just got a package from amazon today – saw logo on box and was like this looks familiar, then passed by my astound stuff – it’s almost as cheap as their crappy cable service.

but nowhere as bad as their ad campaign where they impose the astound-smile onto people (who are usually not smiling) – now i associate feelings of deception and powerlessness with astound.

i too am in the sf bay area – anyone else seen these crappy ads? or better, anyone know where the astound building is and a bag of rocks (preferably sporting amazon logos)?

By: Harry McCracken

Harry McCracken — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:21:48 +0000

In the case of the Amazon logo, I think they do indeed mean to have it read as both a smile and an arrow. With Astound, the smile appears to just be a smile…

By: Randy

Randy — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:51:08 +0000

Strangely I saw the smile as also looking sort of like a spear from sort of aboriginal tribesman… I didn’t see the a-z, go figure. Maybe they were going for the triple entendre

By: Dave Mackey

Dave Mackey — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:44:49 +0000

Like the time Fred Flintstone invented a glue that had been on the market for many years, it’s not the first time someone else came up with someone else’s clever logo. You probably remember the flap when NBC “borrowed” its abstract “N” logo from Nebraska Public Television. There was quite a settlement involved, IIRC. This was some 30 years ago.

But there’s one that Technologizer fans will appreciate. Comcast similarly “borrowed” its current logo – and I was working for them at the time of the launch – from one that was being used at the time by a chain of transmission shops, Cottman. Both companies, which are coincidentally based in Philadelphia, had their first letter “C” haloed by a crescent-shaped “C”. I’m surprised Cottman never took legal action.

Cottman has since changed their logo – it relocated that same big crescent “C” to the middle, slanted it, and changed the typeface of the company name. Comcast’s logo remains the same.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:04:27 +0000

I think the “smile” in amazons logo is supposed to signify that they have everything from A to Z hence the arrow. But yes, they do appear to be similar in nature.