Phew, back in the land of the living. Must do better at keeping blog updated!

Anyway to get the ball back rolling, the latest wheeze by T-Mobile to protect their branding totally horrified me, and thought it was worth highlighting.

In the Netherlands, Deutsche Telekom (parent company for T-Mobile) has registered “magenta” at the European Brandoffice as a trademark- thereby aiming to prevent any other Dutch company from using this colour in any of their communications, logos or even their stationery.

Clearly the notion of a brand registering total ownership of a colour is utterly ludicrous, but unbelievably Deutsche Telekom have succeeded in making this a reality, and are allegedly starting to threatening to take legal action against other companies using the same colour.

The Free Magenta site has been set up by an Amsterdam design agency to galvanise the campaign to fight for magenta to be free for use by all - and it’s got some fascinating examples of the repercussions this could have, such as the Pink Panther in blue!

I really hope this decision gets revoked, as it’s a frankly ridiculous attempt at protecting brand identity - and the notion that a single business could own total exclusivity rights on a given colour is a hilarious - and terrifying - notion.

Free Magenta!

[ see Reclaim Magenta for more info ]