barely average . blog

A journal mostly about advertising, design and typography.

Anyone Else Find These Too Similar?

May 17th, 2007 | Category: Design & Work

To be honest, when I looked at the new Sitemeter logo, I immediately thought it was a knock-off of the Cisco logo. Upon looking at them side-by-side, they’re different enough for me to not make strange faces and wonder aloud, “Why?”

From what I recall about the history of the Cisco logo, the new one is meant to be an update of their original logo which was a depiction of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. At least, that’s what I remember reading.

The Sitemeter logo bears relevance to its statistics and chart roots, so it fits fine, but it does look a little generic because of the (too large) Myriad type that’s become all to common. I must admit, though, that it’s an improvement over that Rubik’s Cube lookalike thingey they had before.

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8 Comments so far

  1. Tara May 17th, 2007 1:05 pm

    The sitemeter logo also looks a bit like a logo I have seen on TV over in the UK More 4 Whenever I see it - the More 4 logo it reminds me of a rude hand gesture (maybe that’s just me ;) )

  2. Randa Clay May 17th, 2007 5:31 pm

    I don’t think they’re too similar at all. I do agree that they could have made a better font choice though.

  3. LaurenMarie May 17th, 2007 10:54 pm

    I didn’t even know about the Golden Gate Bridge image that Cisco was going for, but that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw it (making it RED would’ve been even more of a clue!). The Sitemeter logo looks more like an equalizer readout to me. I understand that it’s supposed to be a graph, but only because of the company name. I definitely agree with the blah use of typography with their logo. Haha, Tara, I agree with your rude hand gesture assessment of the More 4 logo.

  4. Ahsan R. Shami May 20th, 2007 9:09 pm

    Hi Tara,

    All I could see was the finger when I went over to the More 4 site!

    ————

    Hi Randa,

    Thanks for posting. Even if they left Myriad alone and just reduced the size of the text, they’d be better off.

    ————

    LaurenMarie,

    I guess the designer did his job well, if you saw the bridge without knowing the intent of the logo! :-)

    The logo before the current one is on the left:

    There’s a pretty good interview with the designer at Speak Up. Definitely worth a read.

  5. Just how original is your logo design? : David Airey :: Creative Design :: July 17th, 2007 5:05 am

    […] Ahsan at the Barely Average Blog is wondering about two logos being very similar (sitemeter and cisco). […]

  6. basit September 4th, 2007 8:23 pm

    I don’t think they’re too similar at all. I do agree that they could have made a better font choice though.

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