Quark Inc. rebrands itself, again

News Type: Event — Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:24 AM EST

business, design, publishing, adobe, quark

Software firm Quark Inc., maker of the publishing application QuarkXPress, recently introduced a new corporate identity package this past September in hopes of appealing to graphic designers and publishers worldwide. The redesign included a revamped Web site, a new logo, as well as a tie-in with ink company Pantone resulting in the re-designation of the ink color PANTONE 368 as "Quark Green."

Recently, Quark began losing market ground to industry giant Adobe's new InDesign application, which many argue to be more feature-rich and easier to use than Quark's offering. Issues of unoriginality rose up after Quark publicly introduced its re-branding efforts, including many observations that Quark's new logo was similar to that of the Scottish Arts Council, a public organization that handles the funding of art events and projects throughout Scotland.

As news of Quark's re-branding spread throughout the graphic design and publishing community, the company received large amounts of feedback regarding the new logo. On March 6th, 2006, Quark Inc. announced that they had again redesigned their logo, this time utilizing their own in-house design team to do the redesign. Time will tell whether this logo is able to carry Quark through a difficult period of competition with Adobe's InDesign, however initial comments from the community indicate that this, too, may end up a failure.