Pitts Insurance Stole
a Logo That Partin Design Group Created in 1998!
In 1998, Prime Personnel Resources hired Partin Design Group to design a logo for their new business that provides temporary and permanent job placement services. I worked with Randy Perkins and Lorrie Andrews, and the final logo featured a logo mark with two P's with interlocking “arms” and a properly proportioned dot that created a “head” for each figure. The concept was built around the partnership between Prime Personal Resources and their business clients - working together to find the right people for each job.
This logo has been constantly and consistently used in the Alamance County market by Prime Personnel Resources since that time, appearing in print ads, marketing materials and business collateral, signage, website and more.
In June 2023, I received a direct mail piece from Pitts Insurance (Jerry Edward "Eddie" Pitts Jr. / Kim Pitts) that stopped me in my tracks – not because it was so well done but because the logo on the mailer was a blatant rip-off of my work from 25 years earlier, the theft of a logo mark that is used even today by Prime Personnel Resources in Burlington.
The similarities are not hard to detect:
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The same (or nearly identical) font is used. PPR’s logo uses Charlemagne Bold, with its distinctive weight, serifs, gaps, etc.
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The same connection: the TOP of the first P goes OVER the adjoining letter and the BOTTOM of that P goes UNDER the adjoining letter.
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The dot/head is the exact same size
On June 19, 2023, I sent an email to Pitts Insurance, letting them know that the logo they are using is an far too similar to the one I designed for Prime Personnel Resources, that it is very close to a copyright violation and that they should develop their own unique logo to avoid confusion in the marketplace.
My email was ignored.
In the fall of 2023, Pitts Insurance began running ads in the Alamance News (print and online).
On October 4, 2023, I sent Pitts Insurance another email letting them know that I did not appreciate their copying my work in the same market and telling them to get their own unique logo. Again, my email was ignored.
In early 2024, Randy Perkins hired an attorney to send Pitts Insurance a cease and desist letter, advising them to stop using the logo which appropriates the design of Prime Personnel Resources.
Weeks later, we received a response from Pitts Insurance's attorney, claiming they have not hurt anyone and that they would not stop using the logo! With their response, they included a trademark registration, which had been file on October 6, 2023 ... yes, two days after my email. (Clearly Pitts Insurance knew they were treading on thin ice, otherwise, why take that step at that point in time?!!)
Let's be clear - copyright exists from the moment something is created in tangible form. You do not have to trademark a logo. In fact, I've never gone through that process in the 33 years I've been in business and have never had a problem. (I HAVE copyright protected two logo designs that were rejected by clients whom I did not trust and felt they would attempt to use them down the road when I was out of the picture!)
While it's entirely possible that someone, somewhere, uses a logo that looks like Prime Personnel Resources logo, it's not a problem when they are in a distant market. The PROBLEM here is that Pitts Insurance is literally in the SAME TOWN as the people they are stealing from! When I showed one person the two logos, they immediately saw the similarities, but said, "I just figured Prime Personnel Resources had opened a new division offering insurance."
So, despite Pitts Insurance assertion that it is "not counterproductive" to the interests of Prime Personnel Resources and "causes no service confusion in the marketplace," it actually DOES.
Was Pitts Insurance deliberate in their theft or were they ignorant? Were they just too lazy or too cheap to develop their own brand? Who can say for sure? But, I will tell you that I would 100% never trust a company that would steal from their neighbor.
Eddie Pitts Pitts Insurance
Edward Pitts Jr. Pitts Insurance
Kim Pitts Pitts Insurance
Pitts Insurance Steals Logo