Brady Brim-DeForest
I am Brady Brim-DeForest. These are my thoughts.*

I am a serial entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel
investor & brand strategist.

I was founding CEO of Tubefilter.

I am Managing Director
of Marx&Trotsky.

I am co-founder of GoSustainable.

I am a member of the
Steering Group at DataPortability, and a
member of the board at
the Open Web Foundation.

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Dec
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Obama’s ‘O’ v. Azimut’s ‘Azimuth’: Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery, or is it just plain rude? In 2006, Mode, a Chicago design studio, approached Sol Sender to help them design the brand for Barack Obama’s run for U.S. President. Sol and the two designers on his team (Amanda Gentry and Andy Keene) managed to present eight concepts to the campaign in under two weeks. That’s some impressive output. The logo that was selected is, by all means, the strongest example of political branding-done-right that I can point to — it has practically obtained iconic status. A few days ago, I was trolling through Artemy Lebedev’s design portfolio (he runs Russian design house Art.Lebedev) and I happened across the corporate identity package they built out for Moscow based Azimut. I immediately noticed a striking similarity to something I had seen many times before: Obama’s ‘O.’ Does anyone else see more than just a passing resemblance here? Inspiration can come from the strangest of places, but are the similarities more than just coincidence? There are only so many good ideas (and shapes) floating around — most of us have to rehash and iterate on the same pool again and again and again — sometimes we just forget to disguise the evidence. Azimut: Russian radiocommunication manufacturer. Logo (left): 2005, Agency: Art. Lebedev Barack Obama: U.S. President-Elect. Logo (right): 2007, Agency: Sender When Good Logos Looks Alike There are plenty of other examples of logos that appear coicidentally alike – but when everything from color, down to the shape and weighting of elements is so eerily similar, I have a hard time being convinced that somewhere along the line a designer didn’t slip up and pull a little too heavily from a reference that they thought would never be uncovered. That’s precisely what happened in 1975 when NBC unveiled their new brand (thanks to LogoDesignLove for the image): Determining the truth in the case of Obama’s ‘O’ versus Azimut’s ‘Azimuth’ is most likely impossible — but personally, I’d really like to know.

Obama’s ‘O’ v. Azimut’s ‘Azimuth’: Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery, or is it just plain rude?

In 2006, Mode, a Chicago design studio, approached Sol Sender to help them design the brand for Barack Obama’s run for U.S. President. Sol and the two designers on his team (Amanda Gentry and Andy Keene) managed to present eight concepts to the campaign in under two weeks. That’s some impressive output. The logo that was selected is, by all means, the strongest example of political branding-done-right that I can point to — it has practically obtained iconic status.

A few days ago, I was trolling through Artemy Lebedev’s design portfolio (he runs Russian design house Art.Lebedev) and I happened across the corporate identity package they built out for Moscow based Azimut. I immediately noticed a striking similarity to something I had seen many times before: Obama’s ‘O.’ Does anyone else see more than just a passing resemblance here?

Inspiration can come from the strangest of places, but are the similarities more than just coincidence? There are only so many good ideas (and shapes) floating around — most of us have to rehash and iterate on the same pool again and again and again — sometimes we just forget to disguise the evidence.

Azimut: Russian radiocommunication manufacturer. Logo (left): 2005, Agency: Art. Lebedev

Barack Obama: U.S. President-Elect. Logo (right): 2007, Agency: Sender

When Good Logos Looks Alike

There are plenty of other examples of logos that appear coicidentally alike – but when everything from color, down to the shape and weighting of elements is so eerily similar, I have a hard time being convinced that somewhere along the line a designer didn’t slip up and pull a little too heavily from a reference that they thought would never be uncovered. That’s precisely what happened in 1975 when NBC unveiled their new brand (thanks to LogoDesignLove for the image):

Determining the truth in the case of Obama’s ‘O’ versus Azimut’s ‘Azimuth’ is most likely impossible — but personally, I’d really like to know.