Someone sent us an email the other day.
Sorry, make that someone tried to send us an email. But they didn’t actually do that. They submitted a comment. We doubt the author intended to share their questionable grammar and phone number with the entire Internet.
The comment, as submitted:
Our logo has changed and your site has it incorrect, which makes me want to barf! If you don’t remove our logo I will send this to our attorney for Cease and Assist documents. please contact me immeditely for dispute. [PHONE NUMBER REDACTED]
[NAME REDACTED]
The only clues as to which logo this person was referring were the email and website address from the comment form. Our stellar detective skills determined it was this logo from the Barfy By Design Volume I megapost:
Be Stylish. Be You. BeAAAAARRRRRFFFFFFFF.
Now, we have a lot of things to wonder about. We wonder if it’s worth explaining to someone who fancies themselves an armchair lawyer what Fair Use is and how it applies to this site. We have to wonder what the heck a Cease and Assist is, and if, perhaps, it’s actually something helpful. We have to wonder what kind of “dispute” we would receive if we called.
We wonder if Envi as a word is something the poor public will continue to be bombarded with, or if these few businesses are the only offenders.
We have to wonder if the author (or their “designer”) made the green Earth image sourced from NASA on their own, or if they used one of these many instances of it available online.
We wonder if paying money to get legal documents drawn up is a better use of their resources than paying an actual capital G capital D Graphic Designer to give the business they’re obviously so passionate about a decent identity.
And we have to wonder why anyone would change up their tagline but keep the same terrible logo:
Second verse, same as the first.
“Great Design with Green in Mind” — It puts green on my mind alright. Though I feel it’s now taunting aesthetically sensitive people with the “Great Design” part of the slogan. The E is slightly less offensive but the entire thing is still a big ball of garbage AND the company still has a ridiculously clichéd name, which is what the original themed post was all about.
Well there you have it, the first of what I’m sure will be many editions of our new armchair lawyer series “Cease and Assist”. We’ll end with a friendly reminder: if your logo finds itself on Your Logo Makes Me Barf, take a breath. Think hard about why it ended up on our site. You just might learn a thing or two about your business or design skills.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Ahhh, the old Put-That-Fire-Out-Or-I’ll-Dump-Gasoline-On-Myself-And-Run-Toward-It Cease and Assist strategy. I must have missed that day in law school.
Wah, you cease and assisted ALL the comments from that post, huh?
What now?
Since when have you been going by the name of “immeditely” and have you called for dispute?
I think his email answered the question of “why does your logo suck?”