The Case of Round C, Round R and Numbness



If anyone has ever worked in the field of marketing and advertising, it is no stranger to the symbols round C (©), round R (®), and Numbness (™), although they are just small but very important symbols. important for a brand. But there are some "experts" in product design or brand identity system design for customers who ask about the meaning of the three symbols C round ( © ), R round ( ® ), Numb ( ™ ), they answered: the meaning is the same!

My friend and I both work in the field of Marketing, and have accumulated quite a bit of experience. I work in the sales department and my friend is assigned to work on brand development. My company is developing some new products and so needs to hire some other design "experts", ten logo samples are approved in the final round, and I am also one of the few judges who "have" "artistic eyes" before submitting to the boss for approval.

After looking around for a while, discussing all sorts of things about colors, I suddenly saw a strange thing: the symbols next to each logo were different, one was a rounded C (©), the other was an R. round ( ® ) , the other is Numbness ( ™ ) , seeing that, I tried to ask my colleagues what it was. There were 4 people in the room, but besides me, all 3 of them were affirmed “It is the same!” and the person who affirmed it most eloquently was none other than my friend. Sweating because of that strange thing, even though I don't read many books, these words are hard to forget. Well, knowledge comes later, work comes first, so I had to temporarily put aside my question to continue choosing a satisfactory logo design and presenting it to my boss.

The next morning, the 3 most satisfactory logo designs were shown to the boss. The boss was very satisfied, said the artist could draw them, then suddenly called us back and asked quietly: "I'm not very good at symbols, but the shape is round." What is that symbol next to it, I don't know much. And all three people shouted in unison, "Yes, they are all the same!" At this point, I couldn't be more surprised, why did the people in charge of the brand and logo say those words? After a few minutes of pondering, I had to speak up to find a way to "re-teach them". boss".

(NIKE logo has a small R above)

Derived from the interpretation of symbols, © is the symbol for Copyrighted, meaning copyright, this is a set of all rights for use and ownership of a product, service or a certain ideas, all organizations and individuals are strictly prohibited from using a product, service or idea without the consent of the owner (The management agency will protect all this legal interest)

Literally, Copyrighted means "the right to copy exactly" without omitting any detail of a product, service or idea (this meaning is very popular with pirated goods businesses). In a broader sense, Copyrighted does not only include physical products, it can include intangible products, artistic copyrights, television programs, industrial designs... and some forms of expression. other. Basically, it is like a right that allows the holder of this right to copy, distribute and use an original intellectual product.

™ is a symbol of Trademark (brand), there are countless documents about this part, you probably know it all, but I also have to clarify that sometimes in some other countries, people Also use SM (Service Mark) for service products. In some legal environments, an unregistered trademark may also have a TM or SM attached by a business

® is Registered which means registered -> that is, the symbol implies that the brand has been registered for protection with a certain legal agency, so in these cases, if the brand has been registered, it can be used. Using this notation is the most appropriate.

Up to now, the person who was surprised was not me, but my 3 colleagues and even my boss, the entire Logo design was sent back to experts to redesign.

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