Amarillo, Texas settles logo dispute with Dubai Real Estate company.

Poor Amarillo. Their first ever logo turned out to be a direct rip off of a Dubai real estate company. (Be sure to check out the image above to compare the differences. I mean similarities, HAR HAR HAR.)

Emaar Real Estate sent a letter to Amarillo, just in time to throw water on its 100th anniversary celebration and first ever logo unveiling, saying this:

“To avoid legal liability please ensure that you immediately ... cease using the logo of Emaar and ... withdraw all items bearing said logo.

If only they had pre-emptively sued The Beastie Boys Emaar Real Estate, they would have so many people on their side, right?! I used to think that special kind of elitist hubris was reserved for Silicon Valley Big Tech types and Stanford "Engineers." But now there's this:

Amarillo City Attorney Marcus Norris then tried to get the company to allow the city to use the similar-looking logo. He argued the designs were different enough, including the colors — Amarillo's had three colors, while Emaar's was gray...

Amin said the company's registered trademark was tri-colored, just as the city's was, and sent Norris an image of Emaar's logo, according to the emails. The company filed for a U.S. trademark on its logo design in 2006, according to the U.S. Patent Office website.

The city eventually backed down. Last week, Norris emailed Amin to say Amarillo had decided to abandon its logo, while maintaining its design only resembled Emaar's.

Jiminy Christmas. Do you people understand you can pay a small amount of money to find out if logos are similar or infringing? Every ad agency I've ever worked for has done this.

One spot I did for a sports drink years ago featured fake junk food brands in a vending machine-- these fake brands (with logos designed by my art director) were vetted to ensure there was no infringement. Are you seriously trying to tell me Amarillo didn't know this? If so, how on earth are they governing a city?

And then, get this-- they have the nerve to hide behind this bullshit.

Amarillo Mayor Paul Harpole said Tuesday that while the city could "technically and legally" use the logo, city council members decided to move forward. He said the city's logo was "innocently created."

Ridiculous. Absolutely, hanging out with Rob Ford, smoking crack ridiculous.

More importantly, can I just say, Amarillo, you spent more than 12K for some 'designer' to make you look like fools. Way to go.

But hold up, it's okay everyone. Now that they've spent that much money for an infringing logo, they've decided to crowdsource a new one-- presumably for free.

The city, which has had an official seal but never a logo, is working with the newspaper to come up with a new design. The paper has gotten about 600 submissions for ideas from residents, Harpole said. That number will get winnowed down by the public in online voting through the paper's website. A revote online will narrow the choices to 10, he said.
"A little faux pas in that (first attempt) but now we're having fun correcting it," Harpole said. "The city will have the power to decide it."

A little faux pas? Fuck. You.

I will not be visiting Amarillo, Texas any time soon. The hell with these people.