Clients are often disappointed when designers fail to deliver the smart and witty logo design of their dreams... but the designer is not always at fault.

The above sample logo for a nonexistent company named “Killed Productions” has figured in many lists of the “coolest logos” around the internet, and for good reason. It’s smart, it’s short and it’s stylish, and you probably want a logo just like this one. Except, the name of your company is not “Killed Productions”, but, say… “Trevinson Technological Solutions”.

Can you see why that might be a bit of a problem?

As a child of the 1980s, there are few logos of that era more recognizable to me than that of the Ghostbusters franchise. Sadly, the logo’s creator, Michael C. Gross, has died at the age of 70 after a battle with cancer.

Gross, a graphic designer and movie producer, in fact admitted that the Ghostbusters logo – the iconic image of the white ghost inside a red ‘no’ symbol – wasn’t his original idea, but he is remembered as the man who developed the concept and made it famous.

As featured on the LogoBee blog just a couple of months ago, the designer of the logo for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games came under fire recently for allegedly plagiarising his design from the Théâtre de Liège in Belgium.

The artist Kenjiro Sano has vehemently denied that the logo was copied, saying he’d never even been to Belgium, let alone seen the logo before. Yet – under pressure from public opinion, and the threat of legal action by the Théâtre de Liège’s logo designer Olivier Debie – the International Olympics Committee (IOC) has taken the decision to withdraw Sano’s design.

So what will the logo be now?

In a controversial move, the IOC has announced a public competition.

Don’t worry, this article is safe for work!

To the surprise of many, it was recently revealed that men’s ‘entertainment’ magazine Playboy is going ‘non nude’. Starting with the March 2016 issue, Playboy will no longer feature naked women in its magazines or website.

The reason? According to a Playboy chief executive, nudity is “just passé” these days. ‘Proper’ porn is so widely available on the internet it seems there is just no need for the ‘lite’ brand of titillation Playboy offers. Furthermore, it’s incompatible with today’s social media-hungry consumers: because nudity is banned on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, Playboy can’t avail itself of the clicks and likes that other magazines thrive on for publicity.

Legal disputes over logo usage are fairly commonplace – but what do you do when the company suing you for breach of trademark is a criminal organization?

Reports in the Australian media this week told of an impending court case brought against a “hipster” fashion retailer by an Australian chapter of legendary biker gang The Hells Angels.

This week, Dallas Fort Worth airport launched a new logo – the first major redesign of its branding for 14 years.

DFW has grown from a small domestic airport to an international travel hub with millions of passengers passing through each year – the ninth busiest airport in the world. “We needed to evolve our brand to be more modern, memorable, unique and – critically – global,” said airport chief executive Sean Donohue, during the launch event.

In an effort to keep up with the changing and varied needs of travelers, Best Western is the latest hotel chain to undergo a facelift.

No longer to be known as Best Western International, the chain will now be called ‘Best Western Hotels & Resorts’, reflecting the variety of property types on offer around the world – and some new ones.

The old Best Western logo

Any custom logo design company worth its salt will tell you that the key to creating a successful logo is good communication with the customer. In order to provide the client with a variety of logos to choose from, it is very important for a designer to understand said client’s preferences. The only way to accomplish this is to ask the right questions, such as…

1.       What is the name of your company? This one is obvious enough. Often, the name of the company will play a major role in deciding what will be represented on the logo – sometimes, the name itself is the logo. Even if that is not the case, the name of the company is incorporated into the logo more often than not. Even the simple question of whether the company’s name is long or short plays a major role in deciding the type of logo to be created.

2.       Which words in the company name do you want to emphasize? If the company name consists of multiple words, the client may not wish to give equal billing to all of them, especially since that might make an unnecessarily bloated logo. Some words will be made to stand out while others will be given minimal priority.

Though the news was somewhat overshadowed by Google’s new logo launch this week, another big corporation has decided to go for a rebrand.

To mark its $4.4 billion acquisition by AOL, Verizon recently engaged design consultancy Pentegram to come up with a new logo for the telecommunications giant.

I recently wrote about Alphabet, the new holding company that now owns Google and some of its subsidiaries. With this major change in structure, you could have predicted that Google itself would soon undergo a rebrand.

It happened.

As I opened up my internet browser on Monday, I noticed that the Google logo on my search engine home page looked a little different. At first I assumed it was a Doodle, another creative play on the original design to commemorate some significant event or another. I soon realized however, this is Google’s new look.

The big news in the business world this month was that Google has a new owner: a holding company called Alphabet. What does this mean for the world’s favourite search engine?

Well, not much really.

Users of the company’s services won't notice any difference at all. Alphabet, which is owned by Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, is simply a chance to reorganize assets and mitigate risk on the stock market.

In my mind, the Mini has always been a fun car – quirky, full of personality and always iconic. Think The Italian Job, Austin Powers’ “GR8 SHAG” model, and even Mr Bean’s classic beige number.

Though perhaps not a brand you’d immediately recognize on The Logo Quiz, Logitech is a computer peripherals company that has been around for over 35 years. Sat quietly sat in the backseat of its glitzier competitors, Logitech has been churning out useful, if not scintillatingly exciting devices since 1981.

Their products may not be as sexy as an Apple Watch – well, as sexy as an Apple anything, really – but that didn’t matter because everyone needs a mouse. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Logitech, we might all still be using the cursor keys to move around our screens.

The issue of plagiarism in logo design is one we frequently denounce. But could it be that sometimes the public may be slightly too hasty in accusing a logo creator of plagiarism?

In the UK room temperature “real ale” has been the drink of choice for bearded old men for centuries. However, in light of the huge craft beer revolution across the pond, it’s now bearded younger men (and women, though less bearded) – of the hipster variety – who can’t get enough of the chilled versions of this traditional beer.