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Parody website launched after Alberta’s energy war room runs into logo issues

Click to play video: 'Canadian Energy Centre faces controversy over its logo'
Canadian Energy Centre faces controversy over its logo
WATCH: (Dec. 29, 2019) The Canadian Energy Centre – otherwise known as Alberta’s energy war room – is facing controversy over its logo, which is virtually the same as another company’s logo. As Tomasia DaSilva reports, some are calling it an "amateur move." – Dec 19, 2019

A Vancouver-based graphic design company has launched a parody website, poking fun at recent logo issues that Alberta’s energy war room has run into.

Goat Creative launched the Energy War Room Logo Generator, after problems with the Canadian Energy Centre’s logo began making the rounds on social media.

The parody generator picks a logo at random — most from already recognizable companies like Honda, Disney, Shell, Twitter and John Deere — and offers a tongue-in-cheek explanation for each.

A screenshot from the Energy War Room Logo Generator. https://energywarroomlogogenerator.com/

“Most people have been pretty positive about it,” said Terence Sawtell, the founder of Goat Creative. “It’s kind of a laugh. I don’t think it really mattered what way you leaned politically.”

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Sawtell said he and his team put together the parody site as a quick project before the Christmas holidays after concerns about the CEC logo began circulating online.

“Obviously, in the design world, it did its rounds,” he said. “[We thought], ‘Let’s just make a funny generator and poke fun at it.'”

The CEC initially changed its logo after its first design was found to be identical to one being used by a U.S. software company.

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At the time, the CEC said its logo was created by Calgary-based marketing agency Lead & Anchor. CEO Tom Olsen said the CEC was “making the necessary corrections to our visual identity.”

However, once the company’s new logo was launched, some noticed the new symbol also had a resemblance to another company’s logo.

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Wallace Lynch, the CEO of AIK Technologies Inc., confirmed to Global News on Monday that concerns around the current CEC logo and its similarities to his company’s logo had been passed on to AIK’s legal team.

Sawtell said that the parody site is meant to highlight the importance of hiring a diligent graphic design team.

“The thing about design and logos, especially an icon… it is tough,” he said. “You definitely have to do a lot of research.

“It wasn’t really a political thing,” he added. “It was more of — this is typical in our world in design.

“We are doing it more as a play on [that] you should really hire a good, qualified designer to do this work.”
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The CEC did not respond to interview requests from Global News on Monday.

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