All J.C. Penney — sorry, JCPenney jcpenney jcp — wanted to do was shake up its image a little with a visual refresh in the first quarter, but one faction of the marketplace is now not looking too kindly on the retailer. Lighting design and branding firm Hudson + Broad is suing the U.S. retailer for $40 million over its new Fair and Square icon that was unveiled in January, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The New York-based store fixtures and lighting firm says in its suit that, as part of the store’s attempt to change its look, Penney had them create “large, square fixtures made with Plexiglas and LED lights that J.C. Penney is placing around its stores to mirror its new sharp-edged logo.” But then, the suit claims that the retailer is now “farming out production to other manufacturers.”Continue reading...

That little leprechaun mascot of the University of Notre Dame may seem cute, but he means business when it comes to his trademark. 

Chapman High School, located in a small town in northeastern Kansas, was destroyed in a 2008 tornado and re-opened earlier this year. Now it has to give up its Fighting Irish mascot because the Catholic University in Notre Dame, Indiana, thought the logo and mascot too closely resembled its own, according to the Kansas City Star. 

“Chapman school superintendent Lacee Sell said Notre Dame told school officials that the leprechaun is a federally registered trademark the district is not allowed to use,” the paper reports, and a school district attorney “suggested” that the high school not try to make a stand. So if you’ve got any ideas for a mascot and logo for Chapman, the school is having a contest now to find a new one.

The high school doesn’t need to give up the name “Fighting Irish,” the Star notes, which is good because the Irish theme has been part of Chapman for some time, with a four-leaf clover prominently displayed on its website, which coincidentally is chapmanirish.net. Still, "Fighting Irish" has an even longer history at UND.

“I think we’ll get something bigger and better, and it’ll be all ours,” said Betty Ryan, a teacher at Chapman, to the Star. “We’ll always be the Fighting Irish, whether we can say it or not.”

It’s not really clear who or what the students of Wisconsin’s Osseo-Fairchild will be rooting for when the next sports season gets rolling, but one thing one is very much known: They won’t be rooting for the Chieftains.

Further to our story last month, WQOW reports that the school district “is completing the process of permanently removing the ‘chieftain’ logo and nickname from the district.”

In July of last year, the district was given 365 days to get rid of the logo and mascot by the Department of Public Instruction.

As of July 17th, “any reference to the ‘chieftain’ logo or nickname is no longer allowed by the district," WQOW notes.

It looks like the bill that Republican state representative Mary Lazich was proposing that would have allowed schools to take until July of next to make the transition (in order to deal with any financial stress involved, of course) didn’t go anywhere.

The Notebook Company sells a variety of computers to consumers in South Africa, but Dell apparently isn’t interested in the company using its logo to sell its products.

According to South Africa’s ITweb, “Dell has insisted that all its logos be removed from notebook retailer The Notebook Company's Web sites. The retailer says it seems the situation will head to a trademark dispute between the companies.”

TNC’s Managing Director, Christopher Riley, does not see what the issue is.Continue reading...

Look, we know the economy is bad and times are tough and the future is unknown. And we know that a brand looks at itself, and down at the precious logo cradled in its arms, and wonders if it's doing everything it can, if it maybe isn't doing enough. After a while, we understand — the brand just feels like it has to do something. Anything.

But seriously, would brands all stop destroying the most recognizable elements of themselves. Please? Because it's starting to drive us nuts. Now we have to deal with what Comcast hath wrought with NBC Universal — sorry, NBCUniversal.Continue reading...

Another iconic brand is messing with its logo. To commemorate its 40th anniversary, Starbucks today unveiled what its PR team calls a "subtle but meaningful update." We'd call it a hot mess.Continue reading...

Viacom's Comedy Central network today revealed its new on-air branding coming in January. The new logo features a mark, resembling a loopy Chanel or copyright symbol, and an upside down "Central" — a severely mod contrast to its retro skyscrapered globe now being put out to pasture.

The U.S. channel (there are others) is adopting what it's calling the Comedy Mark as a graphic "stamp" (as the mildly NSFW video above shows) that will display clearly on an iPad — the same motivation that Gap had for trying to jettison its blue square logo. Comedy Central this week launched an iPhone and iPad app for The Daily Show, along with one for Tosh.O.

Reactions include "more high-end design magazine ... than channel that plays Ghostbusters 2 a lot on weekends," "a distant cousin to @ and ©," "still funny?" a "misadventure" and just plain "suck" — while Deadline.com ponders if the copyright logo it mimics is copyrighted. Fast Company, meanwhile, argues that critics are missing the joke.

Your thoughts? Join our debate!

Responding to the immediate public outcry on Facebook and Twitter after its new logo was quietly introduced on its website last week, Gap Inc. has announced on its Facebook page that it's scrapping the new logo and keeping its classic navy blue box version (with its traditional red version for its seasonal Holiday marketing) ... for the time being.

Although its website tonight still shows the old logo, Gap president Marka Hansen assured fans the new logo has been thrown out, and was an ill-conceived rollout (despite the creativity it unleashed, including two impromptu Gap logo contests, and a trio of tongue-in-cheek Twitter feeds in @gaplogo, @oldgaplogo and @newgaplogo).

Hansen's statement expressed regret at the anger the rebranded logo elicited in loyalists and design critics (pro or amateur), in what rapidly turned into one of the biggest marketing-triggered outcries in recent history.Continue reading...