No matter how clever or seemingly original your logo idea is, the chances are someone has come up with something very similar.

We’re surrounded by the same influences, the same shapes, forms, patterns. With hundreds of thousands of designers working on similar projects around the world, it’s obvious that ideas will, from time to time, look almost identical.

Here’s a tiny selection of what designers are up against.

Carrier and Ford.

Sumpter & Gonzalez and Stylegala.

National Film Board (recently updated) and Virtual Global Taskforce.

Scottish Arts Council and Artworkers.

NBC and Nebraska ETV Network.

One Spa, Manulife One and Penzeys One Magazine.

SimpleBits and LogoMaid (LogoMaid link directs to a Flickr thread with a fascinating commentary).

pseudoroom design and Cyberathlete Professional League.

Ubuntu and Human Rights First.

Graphic Design Blog and Peter GI.

Star Sports and maltastar.com.

Sun Microsystems and Columbia Sportswear.

Applied Materials and Planned Parenthood.

searchmash and smashLAB.

Wayback Machine and Google Blogoscoped.

Beats by Dre and Anton Stankowski’s 1971 Stadt Bruhl logo.

Not to mention the BigFix and Priority Parking logos.

British Paints and Pagan Osbourne.

LA Lakers and LA Clippers.

Belfast City and South Hams Food and Drink.

Blackburn Market and Barrow.

Heart Radio.

Sinar Mas and Airbus.

In the words of Mike Davidson, “tell yourself at every step in the design process that someone has undoubtedly already thought of this and what can you do to really set it apart. In design, and particularly logo design, the pessimistic axiom that ‘everything has already been done’ is becoming more and more true, and it is only the virtuous designer who can continue to stand out in a sea of sameness.”

Update:

Some companies take things too far: Logo Garden ripoffs.