Did Subway Copy Pomegranate's Design?
February 27, 2010 by Nate Winter
Forget five-dollar footlongs for a second. Here's the deal: Subway may have copied some Pomegranate creative and passed it off as its own work. They say "Imitation is the sincerest for of flattery," but we're not feeling all that flattered by the situation. So we're calling it out.
In October 2009, Pomegranate designed this YouTube brand channel page. Then on February 3rd, 2010, there was this new campaign for Subway. Notice any similarities in the graphics?
Pomegranate’s design has layers of blue crowd silhouettes and a city skyline against a sun-ray sky background. Subway’s design features a single layer of black crowd silhouettes against a more subtle red sun-ray background.
There are certainly differences, so Subway didn’t copy our design directly or exactly. To have done so could be cause for legal action. But they very well could have seen the page we designed, liked our design concept and then recreated it themselves. There’s no way to prove that’s what happened, but it’s a suspicious similarity.
This type of borrowing is quite commonplace in the design industry, so it’s not all that alarming. In fact, this borrowing has value in the design community and in other areas of creativity because it establishes a trend. And what’s the value of a trend? It functions as a category that allows people to group things together. It provides a context for understanding new ideas. After seeing something once, it might not be understood. But when seen as part of a group or trend, it becomes legitimate and meaningful.
Let’s look at a few examples. Within the design community, you may have noticed the trend of “flourishes” as I like to call them (see below). This was a design trend that hit three or four years ago and, as far as I can tell, has now run its course. But for about a year, it felt like I saw it everywhere-- billboards, direct mail, websites, TV ads, you name it.
Idea borrowing happens in fashion too. New seasonal fashion trends don’t come from just one fashion house-- they’re produced by a number of them. Then the trend gets picked up by the fashion media and becomes an “approved” look that the trend-setters will be wearing. This past fall and winter, Chicago saw the onset of women’s above-the-knee leather boots. I wouldn’t say these boots were commonplace, but everywhere I went, I saw a few women wearing them. If only one brand had offered these boots, I doubt they would've been so popular.
And music-- oh, where to begin? How about the vocal effect called autotune? I first encountered this sound in 1998 when Cher’s hit song “Believe,” and Kid Rock’s “Only God Knows Why” got regular radio play. And today, to say this vocal effect is popular in hip-hop and R&B is a hyperbolic understatement.
But the point is that the first time we encounter new ideas, it’s sometimes difficult to know what to make of them.
What’s with all those swirly lines?
Does that woman realize her boots are way too big?
Why does Cher sound like a robot?
But as these trends gained critical mass through imitation, we learned to accept them and appreciate them. And that’s important because the larger trend allows us to appreciate the originator, who may have been misunderstood and unappreciated when he or she began the trend.
So with any luck, Subway was just the first imitator. Hopefully a few other big marketers will adopt crowd silhouettes and sun-ray backgrounds, and this design technique will become a trend. And then everyone will look back and realize Pomegranate started it all.
What do you think? Did Subway copy us, or is it just a coincidence? Have you seen this look anywhere else?
