Facebook's Calibra logo looks suspiciously like the Current logo

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Facebook's new cryptocurrency, Libra, has come under fire from several angles. First of all, there's the concept itself – a bank and currency owned by Facebook. Then there's the logo for Libra, which many felt had seriously missed a trick by not featuring a pair of scales like its starsign namesake, and then, there's the logo for Libra's digital wallet, Calibra, which looks rather like the logo for the bank Current.

Current, which calls itself 'the bank for modern life' posted a cutting tweet last week of its logo next to Calibra's, with the comment: "This is what happens when you only have 1 crayon left." 

Perhaps the designers could have benefited from reading our guide to logo design.

It's hard to deny that the logos are similar. The Current logo features a tilde in a circle, and the Calibra logo features, well... a tilde in a circle. There are, of course, differences including that the Current logo's circle is a gradient, while Calibra's logo is monochrome, hence the 'one crayon left' comment. 

So was this an honest mistake? 

That's where the plot thickens. Current's logo was designed by San Francisco design firm, Character. And Stuart Sopp, CEO of Current, told CNBC that Character also created the logo for Facebook's Calibra. The co-founder of Character also posted on LinkedIn about working on a secret crypto project with Facebook – the post has since been deleted.

“We put six months of hard work into this with that design firm, which they basically reused for Facebook without changing much,” Sopp told CNBC. “Facebook is a big company that should have done their due diligence on this.”

According to CNBC, Current has asked a law firm, Goodwin Procter, to determine if it has a trademark or patent infringement case. 

Will this copyright case have much impact on the social media giant and its plans for financial domination? We can't help but doubt it. Although one Twitter user has proposed an alternative logo, just in case Facebook is looking:

Read more:

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• What's up with the new Facebook app logo?
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