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Britney Spears’ New Product Stealing from mondonation and Charities
Britney Spears’s new fragrance, Britney Spears Believe will be out on counters in October, but is available for Pre-order online. The brand for this new fragrance is a complete rip of mondonation’s brand…
Somewhere there is a design team who should be fired.
Last year I stumbled across a very interesting company coming out of Vancouver, Canada. mondonation had a simple, clever and meaningful idea that allowed people to customize a personal mantra onto a t-shirt. A statement of something they believed in… Some were heartfelt messages “I believe everyday people can make a difference every day” and some that are just fun or silly “I believe the hokey pokey is what it’s all about.”
The kicker about mondonation is that it was set-up to support lots of international charities, by donating part of the profits from each shirt sale. I had a chance to speak to Ward Bingham the founder of the company last year about what they were doing and how my disaster relief agency, www.HODR.org could find support from what he was doing. We since have joined up as a partner charity and I’ve been a huge fan and supporter of the project ever since.
mondonation has reached thousands of people with their “I believeâ€? t-shirts. All you have to do is watch some of the YouTube videos to get an idea of how many people they’ve reached. This one video has been viewed almost 700,000 times.
Damaging a Wonderful & Positive Brand
mondonation created a powerful message and opportunity with their i believe t-shirts and thousands of people have purchased their shirts and supported the many charities working with them. I am one of those people. I personally own a few shirts and have referred my friends and family to buy them too… but I don’t think I want to become a walking billboard for Britney Spears new product… and if something isn’t done about her fragrance logo… that is exactly what my shirts will become.
Elizabeth Arden the company behind this new fragrance should be ashamed of themselves for putting out a blatant copy of another companies logo and for potentially damaging the wonderful brand mondonation has built around the i believe design. They should be coughing up some serious cash for this blunder, but the sad part about this, is that even paying a settlement doesn’t repair damage to the brand. I hope they pull the fragrance ASAP, compensate mondonation and the i believe shirts can continue on being a supportive and successful project.
Tell Elizabeth Arden to Shut Believe Perfume Down
Use their web form, or any of the contact information below to let Elizabeth Arden know that they stole the work of another company and are potentially damaging this other companies brand.
Elizabeth Arden Consumer Affairs
309 South Street
New Providence, NJ 07974
Phone: (800) 326-7337
E-mail: consumer@elizabetharden.com
*Send a copy of your emails to Ward Bingham (ward@mondonation.com) at mondonation to let him know he has your support.
mondonation Quick Facts:
mondonation’s business model and positive campaign which gives proceeds from each shirt sale to charities launched six months prior to the product red campaign.
mondonation became an incorporated company April 12, 2005
mondonation logo and “believe� logo designed by jeff Harrison, july 2005.
mondonation website launched march 21, 2006 - designed by burnkit and fuse interactive
First shirt sale November 2005
Over 10,000 shirts have been sold and exist in over 100 countries worldwide.
Belief Disclosure: The author of this post believes in fresh powder.
144 Comments
Adnan said on August 21, 2007
Man that’s completely ridiculous. Kudos Darius for this great find. Just as you thought Britney’s image couldn’t get any lower…
Amber Yount said on August 21, 2007
Why hasn’t the original designer done anything about this? As a designer myself, I would be all over Britney Spear’s Team for blatantly ripping my logo, and a HUGE lawsuit would entail. Think of all the money she’s going to make.
steve said on August 21, 2007
That is out of order!
c flegal said on August 21, 2007
Shame on EA for not properly doing their research! The designers of the new Britney “believe” logo need to be dealt with accordingly for stealing mondonation’s well established logo. I hope mondonation takes you to the cleaners!
Also a big question mark goes to why you would want such a tarnished personality to be spearheading any product?? And using an old photo to boot! Very funny.
Anthony Ruk said on August 21, 2007
I have to say - that I’m sorry - and I may not be aware of how ‘big’ the mondonation logo is, as I live in the UK;
but…
the neither of the logo’s are exactly hugely individual pieces of creative work (sorry!) and to be fair the word ‘believe’ with the ‘i’ highlighted in a different colour is hardly a giant individualistic leap in terms of graphic design.
So; by some coincidence; maybe by pure chance the colours happened to be the same? (Saying that the mondonation logo seems to come in a variety of colours - mostly cyan; again I could be wrong!)
I think it’s very easy to criticise as blatant copying; but in all seriousness it just appears to be an unfortunate mishap!
Travis said on August 21, 2007
Anthony,
Being a creative, I’ll admit that after surrounding yourself with other’s work while brainstorming, your output can easily be influenced.
There’s no question in my mind that whoever is behind the Britney Spears logo came across the mondonation one at some point in their creative journey.
Whether they consciously or sub-consciously copied it, it’s still wrong.
Conceptually, it works with mondonation because their message is “I believe”. Britney’s perfume is just “Believe”.
Eric said on August 21, 2007
Looks to me like a simple process
1. Draw blank on logo ideas
2. Search google images for “believe logo”
3. Find mondonation logo
4. Say to self “that looks nice, they’ll never know”
5. Create it with a slightly different font
6. Throw in Britney’s name (and TM of course)
7. Brute force market and make it your own
Cheap shot from a huge conglomerate. Time to hire a new art department. These types of mistakes are inexcusable in the professional world, especially in the enormo-corporation arena.
Personal opinion of course. It’s just too coincidental to be an honest “mistake”. If some guy named Darius figured it out, you can bet their art department has this in a file as well.
Satish said on August 21, 2007
I have to agree with Eric on this one - it’s easy enough (though not likely unconsciously) to do a search like that and “borrow” certain design attributes. This seems to be that very tale, or something awfully similar to it.
I’m glad there’s some attention coming to this, and hope EA will do the right thing here and that their design team will get some serious heat for the blunder.
Artisinal » Likelihood of Nausea said on August 21, 2007
[…] Britney Spears’ New Product Stealing from mondonation and Charities (via: Young Go Getter) […]
Catt said on August 21, 2007
If you notice, only the “Britney Spears” part is technically trademarked. They are totally trying to get away with ripping people off because they didn’t even try to trademark it.
Platinum said on August 21, 2007
You might be idiots. Instead of lambasting the company that did this, did you ever think that it might have been *gasp* allowed? Maybe they didn’t steal it, maybe they are going to give to some of the same charities, maybe the creator of mondonation let them do this. Did anyone think of that, or are you all too quick to throw accusations?
Jug said on August 21, 2007
Anthony,
The similarity is not merely in the highlighting of the ‘i’, but also the colors used and typeface similarity.
Eric said on August 21, 2007
Platinum,
Why bother altering the font at all if you’re TRYING to make a correlation between the two?
Thought of but quickly dismissed - as are you.
Maldoror said on August 21, 2007
What a load of BS (Britney’s initials, NATCH!) I can’t stand this biyotch, and would love to put a dent in her bank account. After all, she’s only going to buy ugly hair extensions, cheetohs and Crest Whitening Strips for her kids with all that moolah of hers!
And as a Graphic Artist, I can ASSURE you that BS has infringed on the original logo of Mondonation. It may not look that amazing to YOU, but it’s still a copyrighted work of art.
Here’s a copy of the letter I sent to Elizabeth Arden:
“Stop Britney Spears from releasing her rip-off perfume called, “I Believe/Believe”. I can’t BELIEVE you people are duped into BELIEVING that anyone wants ANYTHING to do with this trainwreck called Britney. You’re going to lose money. You’ve already lost integrity and BELIEVABILITY. I’m telling my friends about this situation. As someone who’s always bought your fragrances, I shall CEASE until this travesty is aborted.”
Simply copy and paste, and send this if you want to complain.
Form to fill out to complain:
http://corporate.elizabetharden.com/consumer_affairs.php
Address of Elizabeth Arden:
EA Consumer Affairs
309 South Street
New Providence, NJ 07974

Phone: (800) 326-7337
E-mail: consumer@elizabetharden.com
Help stop other artists from being ripped off.
Mal
Debauchery said on August 21, 2007
Stop complaining you fairy…
let them both use it!
It’s not the end of the world!
You know it makes sense!
Matt said on August 21, 2007
I’ve used the contact form to express my disdain. Hopefully others will do the same. Mondation had a great concept - how gross to have it stolen (intentionally or not) by a multinational corporation.
Colley said on August 21, 2007
These are on me:
Inspire (with a pine green i surrounded by aubergine text)
Redeemer (hooloovoo blue me surrounded by Japanese pink text)
It’s hardly “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “Death of a Salesman”, is it? If anything, the publicity generated and/or settlements paid to mondonation will only serve to further their cause.
The sound of a single “invisible hand” clapping….:D
Frank said on August 21, 2007
I’m a graphic artist and it just looks like a co-incidence to me. Any 12 year old could, and probably would, come up pulling the “i” in believe to create the logo. And checking mondonations website shows that this isn’t their logo at all. It’s their name set in type. Who cares?
Darius said on August 21, 2007
@Platinum
I know the founder of mondonation. I spoke with him before posting this article. It was not allowed.
Eric said on August 21, 2007
PWNED!
Xondar said on August 21, 2007
Someone should inform the media about this. Today’s modern American media, the kind that loves to lap up stuff about Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton, would love a story about Brittney shamelessly stealing from a charity.
j said on August 21, 2007
“Today’s modern American media, the kind that loves to lap up stuff about Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton, would love a story about Brittney shamelessly stealing from a charity.”
you think spears designed this logo herself, or something? most likely not. she probably saw it for 20 minutes, if at all.
Stephen said on August 21, 2007
It looks like a coincidence to me. I think they came up with the slogan “I Believe,” and from there using the I in Believe in a contrasting color is one of the ideas a designer would come up with.
The colors are opposite in the color wheel, one of the common ways to pick colors.
Of course, we all love our conspiracy theories. And there’s no fun in picking up the phone and asking when a ranting blog post will do.
Matthew Clapp said on August 21, 2007
Thanks for putting this together. Imagine if mondonation had infringed on an Elizabeth Arden logo? Hmmm … l