Eye Bee M by Paul Rand

9 years after completing the IBM logo re-design in 1972, Paul Rand designed this poster for IBM in 1981. The poster illustrates the letters of the IBM logo as an eye, bee and M. A design that has resonated strongly within the design community for a long time now. The simplicity and execution of Paul Rand’s designs have earned him a spot as one of the greatest designers of all time and like all works of his, they are held up on a pedestal by most designers, including myself.

His work has been admired to the point of duplication, but can designing like one of the greatest be a tribute or a ripoff?

The logo in question is Lenscrafters eye heart LC. The only source for the logo I can point out is Cutwater, a design agency out of San Francisco. First created the “What do you love” campaign, now their portfolio showcases multiple print ads depicting the eye heart LC logo on the faces of people.

Logo design for Lenscrafters current advertising campaign.

Eye heart LC takes the design layout of 3 separate elements from the Eye bee M logo and it’s concept of “I love __” from the I Heart NY logo, one of the most iconic logomarks of all time by Milton Glaser.

I love NY logo by Milton Glaser in 1977.

The most copied design aspect is obviously the eye. I have placed both eyes side by side with identical widths to determine how much of the eye has actually been copied.

A comparison of the IBM eye to Lenscrafters eye love LC.

To my surprise, the eye is a mirrored image of the IBM eye. The only difference is a 1/16″ bigger pupil on the Lenscrafters eye. When comparing the eyebrow to the eyelashes, the height is also identical. This leads me to believe that this is no tribute or even a simplified version of an eye, but a ripoff of Rand’s work. The poster was designed almost 3 decades ago, most people wont remember it and I’m sure that’s what the designers of the eye heart LC campaign thought.