quark's logo quandary

Published 3.24.2006 by a•pril | E-mail this post

the hurried evolution of the Quark logo...

For the second time in mere months, Quark has debuted a new logo. Seems the one unveiled in September of last year was met with scathing criticism and angry accusations of theft and/or of just not trying hard enough. In case you missed the brouhaha, allow me to visually bring you up to speed:

You be the judge (hmmm...). Quark claims it was a fluke, and a simple mistake. And while that may very well be true, I feel compelled to point out that it doesn't even really look like a q. It looks more like an a. But the colour is very nice, and I was impressed when I read what Lester Haines at theregister.co.uk had to report on it:

"In support of the launch of Quark’s new brand identity, Pantone Inc., the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, has dubbed PANTONE 368 as “Quark Green.”
According to Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, renowned color psychologist, and author of five books on color, “PANTONE 368 was the perfect choice for an innovative company such as Quark. This yellow green, a symbol of growth, is invigorating and revitalizing, and breathes new life into a brand, in addition to drawing attention to it. By embracing this color for its new logo, Quark is giving its customers the connotation of the continuing growth of ideas and concepts, and that it is on the edge of new technologies.”

That's kinda cool, I guess. And Quark seems to have done their best to try and quickly make everything all better with this latest offering.

So, do I like it? I'm not altogether sure, but I think I do. At least this one more accurately resembles a Q. It doesn't really matter all that much to me anyhow, to tell you the truth. I switched to InDesign a year ago.

Dare to compare: Quark vs. InDesign
For more on this quirky controversy: Sometimes a Logo is Just a Logo