When similar logos overlap sectors, however tenuously, that's often when lawyers get involved
When it comes to visual metaphors, however smart, there's always a chance someone else will have thought of it – albeit with a different meaning in mind. Elpreya began trading in 1999, the same year Starbucks opened its first South Korean store. Both brands featured the brand name wrapped around a green circle, and a female character in the centre, white on a black background. And more crucially, they both sold coffee.Starbucks claimed copyright infringement, but the Korean Intellectual Property Tribunal disagreed, arguing that the marks were too dissimilar to be confused.
Monograms are common in the world of fashion logos, so it's no surprise that two big-hitting high-fashion brands have found some common ground when it comes to interlocking similarly shaped characters together. Such is the case with the logo for Beats by Dre, which fits a lowercase 'b' in the Bauhaus typeface inside a circle, to resemble headphones. Is it strikingly similar to Anton Stankowski's 1971 identity for the city of Stadt Brühl? Well, yes, but it seems like an unlikely source of inspiration to say the least.