Goal logo

Goal logo

Designed by Elmwood for Goal.com.

“The job was simple: keep the symbol as clean as possible to retain the universal recognition. The less design, the better.”

Covered last month on the CR blog (and elsewhere), but still worth a shout.

Goal logo

Don’t tell Pitchworks.

Comments

Brilliant idea, except, yeah, it’s basically the exact same thing as Pitchworks. So… it looks more like theft than genius to me.

I’m not saying it was stolen, but that’s one hell of a coincidence.

Wow I agree with the person above it just looks like they just changed one thing by making the goal box a little chunkier and wider. At first I was thinking how brilliant of a logo. Then after visiting pitchworks not so much.

I think the logo is really effective with its simplicity and the fact that it would be recognizable in an international market. Unfortunately I have to agree with the others that this is almost a duplicate of the pitchworks logo.

Theft or not, research should have thrown this up before the design stage even started. This smacks of corner-cutting to me, not corner scoring.

Obviously, the logo looks like a fraud. Whether it actually is would be in the hands of judges, jury, and lawyers. I am curious though, when either of the parties would comment on the work, if ever.

I am joining the club – the design itself is brilliant. Well, let’s give the designers the benefit of the doubt: both designs are brilliant, but they stem from the exact same idea.

I don’t understand how they can produce this concept. It is brilliant, but it was already done. I am surprised Pitchworks hasn’t contacted them yet.

To Elmwood: Shame on you.

The Pitchworks logo was designed by myself/Truth in late 2011 and was registered as a trademark to protect it and also to facilitate the ® becoming a ball.

I am not suggesting it it plagiarism but it is very foolish to not do comprehensive searches for similar concepts before launching things to the media. It angers me that people will assume that we – Truth, copied Elmwood because they are the bigger agency and a higher media profile which they obviously milked.

Shame on this site for even showing the Elwood logo and not the Pitchworks logo instead, which proves my point!

I’m undecided how I feel here. But I’m going to play devil’s advocate just because.

I think Elmwood nailed the logo, while the Pitchworks logo is awkward and very jagged feeling with weird negative space. If I were a client purchasing between the two, it’s pretty clear where I’d write my check to. I’d say of Truth’s work, this is not among their finer pieces. It’s not a terrible design, but it’s certainly not as clean or nice as the Goal logo and it’s not up to par with the rest of Truth’s work. Concept yes, execution, no.

Which brings up an entire theoretical debate in which I will play devil’s advocate. Much of the design in the world is directly inspired/influenced/borrowed from other designs or parts of design. So if you see something that is OK, but you can make it great, shouldn’t you? From concept to integration in the materials and website, the Goal logo is very well implemented, even more so than Pitchworks.

If you put the two side-by-side without knowing anything and said “one of these copied the other” without fail you would select Pitchworks as copying the Elmwood design. I don’t think it has anything to do with the individual agency either, as much as how it looks integrated, printed, etc.

Now, ethically, this doesn’t make it “right” to steal a design, however unintentional it might be, but unless Pitchworks or Truth is going to push for it, and there is a REASONABLE argument to say that two people could legitimately come up with this separate from each other (which is completely possible seeing as its just a basic representation of a soccer goal and “ball” going into the right corner), then I see no reason not to use it. Pitchworks, if actually owning the RTM rights, would have the legal authority to force them to stop if the judges so chose.

As for its use in the printed materials, I’d say it comes a little closer to directly copying the Pitchworks placement of the logo, etc., which is probably where Pitchworks could make an argument that the “intent” of Goal and Elmwood was to copy the design.

This brings up an interesting issue in that “ethically” the Goal logo should probably not exist. But it has to be proven that it was stolen before Goal will take it down. Aesthetically, the Goal logo is superior, which may cause it to be “different” enough to win the case and end up just costing Pitchworks money.

@johnathan Kitchens,

I completely agree with your comment. This happens far too often where someone has to decide wether two similar logos or ideas happened by theft or coincidence. I think that if Elmwood (who by far made the better choice on final product) had seen the Pitchworks logo and used it as “inspiration” then it would have been common sense to anyone that it is too close to the Pitchworks to be safe.

Now if it was only a coincidence and they didn’t find that Pitchworks logo in all their research then they did a great job.

I think both companies are great in thier own right, the Walker Morris WM is my favorite by Elmwood just because of its typographical simplicity http://www.walkermorris.co.uk

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