Tenet Components Comments on Their Logo's Similarity to Christopher Nolan's Upcoming Film
Tenet Components' Tyler Deschaine is worried that people unfamiliar with the Bellingham, Washington based brand will think he ripped his logo from Christopher Nolan's upcoming film Tenet when they see the similarity between the two. The 2020 science fiction spy action thriller film is written and directed by Christopher Nolan and produced by Nolan and Emma Thomas. When the two logos are placed side by side, the similarities are apparent.
 | No, despite the striking similarities, we are not making a movie with Christopher Nolan. Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe Nolan was inspired by our branding; regardless the apparent negligence is frustrating to say the least. Thank you to all the people that have reached out in support of Tenet (the bike brand). |
Tyler Deschaine was a Product Manager at Diamondback before he started Tenet Components. He said he really wanted the name of his new company to be a palindrome. Initially, he thought he made the word "Tenet" up when he scratched it down on a piece of paper during a brainstorming session in 2017. When he found the definition, "a principle or belief, especially one of the main principles of a philosophy," he knew it was perfect for his company. He then designed the logo himself and trademarked the name within the bicycle industry ahead of the brand's launch in June of 2018.
He became aware that the upcoming film was using a similar logo in the fall of this year.
| The Tenet Instagram was tagged in a random post about his new film. At the time there wasn’t a logo associated with the post and I wrote it off thinking to myself “Well this is going to be annoying." Then shortly after someone had swiped my logo from Google images and pasted it on a YouTube video describing the “secret trailer”. As a joke, I posted an Instagram story with it and that’s when someone messaged me an article that pretty much described my logo. It wasn’t until the official movie website went live that made my jaw drop. |
People were making connections between his brand and the film early on. He says it's frightening to him that people's first reaction when they see his logo is that he's stealing other industries and can’t think for himself and be creative on his own.
| My biggest concern is that people who haven’t discovered my brand might come across it after having seen the movie and think that I stole the logo or was trying to ride Nolans coat tails. I’ve poured my heart and soul into growing this brand even the slightest bit, and to potentially have it decimated by a big budget film studio over apparent negligence is terrifying. As far as we know it could be a simple coincidence, but for us potentially quite damaging. |
He reached out to five different law firms about what his options were. While lawyers said he has legitimate concerns, in the trademark world, it's difficult to challenge Warner Brothers since his trademark is in bicycle industry only. They also said, while it's within his rights to post an Instagram story, it's not worth him going after the trademark with a multimillion-dollar company.
| We were granted the trademark for “Tenet" in the bicycle world on October 9th, 2018. In trademark law, that only protects us from word use within our industry. I don’t have any issue with them using the word Tenet, there are thousands of trademarks for that word across dozens of industries. My issue is with the stylization, but that is neither here nor there. I’ve spoken with layers and despite the validity of my concerns, I’ve been advised not to pursue it. Even sending a letter could potentially open myself up to a preemptive lawsuit from Warner Brothers. These sorts of things can get dragged on for years and the legal fees can go well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We’re a tiny component company that is taking baby steps to carve out a place for ourselves in the industry. We in no way want to get raked through the coals of litigation. That would end poorly for us. Also, we’ve got more important things to focus on, like developing new product and creating rad content. I want to make it clear that I never thought of this scenario as a get rich quick scheme. At the end of the day I just want to avoid potential damages to my brands reputation and I suppose this article will help clear the air. Thank you Pinkbike for reaching out and giving the little guy a bigger voice. Now go see Tenet and think of us while the logo is spinning in front of your face. |
Tenet Components first posted a video using the logo on Pinkbike in 2018.
We have reached out to Warner Brothers for comment but have not had a response at the time of publication.
Author Info:
Member since Mar 30, 2011
Must Read This Week
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
Yeah, it's hard to know. I will say that as an illustrator/graphic designer before I start I always google a few things related to my project so that I know what's out there, and what to avoid. In this instance, if this was my gig I would have googled "tenet logo" and presumably Tyler's logo would have come up. At that point I personally would go "oh snap, can't do a sans font with a backward "E" and an upside-down "T", gonna have to fire up the creative juices and come up with something else."
Apparently, WB's designers didn't feel that way. With the sort of budget they have, that's pretty pathetic. Either the designers didn't do the most basic research, which is lame and means they should get in trouble, or they did, and decided to rip Tyler off. Either way, this is stupid.
regardless it's getting their name recognized and they're responding to all this very well.
You'll definitely increase your fan base through all this. Smart business people capitalize on "opportunities" which some would call "problems".. Again, good job Tenet..
Me being an artist and designer, I can confidently say this is not even speculation.. I know for a FACT WB design team found his logo during their research when trying to come up with a design. I would feel so lame copying another designer's design. It's one thing to get inspiration to move in a particular direction with a design, it's another to steal a design with minor tweaks... what does that say to the designer(s)/ team-? ..
Second, the logo (both of them) are really pretty benign. Its just a the word with a couple letters flipped. This wasn't some crazy idea. Its not all that crazy to think that two people designing a logo for the same word just decided to do it.
YIOURE WELL COME IN ADVANCE
The blame goes up the chain on this one. And probably it's not that they didn't discover the coincidence at some point. But probably that they decided it wasn't relevant.
It is cool that the component manufacturer got ahead of this. For sure don't want people thinking they were the ones with the coincidence. But otherwise they should just enjoy the free advertising.
I never heard of them till this, so hopefully they will get some new customers out of it!
www.bing.com/images/search?q=tenet+logo&qpvt=tenet+logo&FORM=IQFRML
so what...?
Seems like a bit of ado about not much at all. The movie looks interesting and the bike company (whom I'd not heard of until this article) looks like they've got some interesting products and are certainly located in a rad area.
I agree, but think Tyler is more concerned about backlash towards him and his company when people erroneously think that he's made some lame attempt to ride the coattails of the movie; he stated so in the article.
It's fair enough - it would be so painful to be accused of that when you've made such an effort to build and grow something of your own.
Handling it in a straight-forward manner on PB is about the best move he could make to avoid that, so good on him.
Now if Tenet, the main source, didn't want to talk to Pinkbike or asked them to please not report on this story then that would make producing this news piece a dilemma since Pinkbike, it would seem, supports most small to large bike companies and wouldn't want to cause them any unforeseen legal problems, but it looks like Tenet/Tyler did participate in this article so this all seems legit.
Good luck everyone!
Seriously though, after reading this article I will check them out and I otherwise may have missed them. This will probably garnish good publicity for the brand especially from folks that bike and know the story. It may get trolling and bad press from the non bike community and the type of people that hear the original version of a Lou Reed or Bob Dylan song that was covered by some huge pop band and think that Dylan is the one that ripped the song off.
Putting it in a black circle I would say is where things have started to get to similar and until this article I’ve never heard of the film or company so I suggest both need to kick their PR people in the arse.