I never really noticed it, because I’m a human being that has a functional brain and knows how to read things before I press buttons, but apparently, there are actually people out there who get tripped up by the similarities between the PayPal logo and the Pandora logo, and now PayPal is suing Pandora for trademark infringement.
Consumerist accuses PayPal of going a little too far in dragging Pandora’s reputation onto the ground, to which they’re not entirely wrong, but I think you also kind of have to think of if you were PayPal; another well-known entity out there has basically lifted your identity and colors, and dumb people are confusing someone else with you. That’d piss me off too, and make me say some unpleasant things publicly, if it helps expedite a resolution.
Ultimately, PayPal’s redesign came first, so in my opinion, they have the high ground in this debate. And I think they do have some ground to stand on, because sure, Pandora is only one P versus two, but it also doesn’t help that the blue gradient within the Pandora P is basically mixed out of the two solid blue swatches that make up both of PayPal’s P’s.
It really makes me more wonder what the conversation was like at Pandora HQ, especially if:
When looking to revamp its logo, PayPal says Pandora considered more than 1,000 options
They actually looked at more than a thousand options, which is probably bullshit, because just how many fucking ways can you look at the letter P and not just want to be done after 20?
I’m assuming some spineless suit with a VP title in their name grew tired of looking at the letter P after 32 options, and while taking a break to piss because seeing the letter P so much made him feel like he should pee, he whipped out his phone at the urinal because people can’t not fucking look at their phones no matter where they are including at urinals, and decided to buy something he didn’t need. When checking out, he chose to pay with PayPal, was redirected to PayPal, and was immediately engulfed with revelation at what Pandora’s new logo should be: a rip-off of PayPal’s. And then he busts out of the bathroom, back into the conference room, puts his phone on the center of the table and points at it exclaiming that this is their new logo. The Yes Men all fist pump and applaud the ingenious and groundbreaking art direction, and somewhere out there a graphic designer slits their wrists, but Pandora has a new logo, entirely at the expense of PayPal’s own boring sterile identity.
Whatever though, in the end, none of this really matters. PayPal isn’t going anywhere soon, and Pandora has more of a risk of getting usurped by other streaming music platforms like Spotify. I don’t really understand why major staple companies of countless people bother changing identities at seeming frivolously, and I don’t know why Pandora thought they could rebrand in a manner that’s evidently way too close to another company’s identity. But doing what I do for a living, shit like this does intrigue me, and if I had to pick a side in who is right versus who is wrong, I’d have to go with PayPal. They simply locked their shit down first, and anyone who does anything close to it afterwards, is copying them.
