A piece from a 1969 design panel discussion in Communication Arts on “branding” and similarities throughout design:
John Peter: Has Push Pin ever gotten involved in corporate identification?
Seymour Chwast: Some, not very much. I designed a trademark for a small film company about a month ago. Two weeks later I opened Print Magazine and I saw that Lou Klein had designed a trademark, exactly the same mark. And it sort of scared me to see this thing.
George Tscherny: Nobody has pronounced trademarks dead, but I think they really are… it’s a little bit like a mother of a friend of mine who used to say: ‘They don’t write any more good songs because all the good tunes have been used up.’
Seymour Chwast: Aren’t there still a few abstract symbols? Can’t you do a sun that no one’s ever done?
Arnold Saks: I’ll bet you, you do what would be the most incredible sun in the world, and you’ll do a trademark search and sure enough the damn thing’s going to turn up.