THR/TNS, the consortium which has created Romania's tourism brand, including the logo which triggered questions due to its similarity to another logo sold on the Internet, has reacted quickly to the Romanian Tourism Ministry's request for explanations. THR offered to show all the paper drawings and the intermediary designs used in the creative process and even offered supplementary design works on the logo, should the Romanian tourism Ministry ask for it.

In a letter signed by Eulogio Bordas Rubies, president of THR, one of the companies in the consortium, the company said the disputed logo started as a creation on paper, which was later changed and digitized by the company's designers. It further pointed out several small differences between the leaf in Romania's logo and the one on sale on the Internet.

The entire brand creation process included 70 intermediary logo versions, which were tested on a the market several times, in order to find the preferred on, said Eulogio Bordas in the letter.

“It should be clarified that the existence of graphical elements with high resemblance is quite common on the Internet, given the significant amoount of drawings produced and made available on the Internet every day […] Even so, THR /TNS wishes to clearly communicate that the logo used in Romania's visual identity was developed specifically for the Tourism Ministry and the resemblance with the other drawing, although remarkable, is absolutely accidental and unintended, a consequence of two different and unrelated creative processes,” Eulogio Bordas concluded his official statement.

The Tourism Ministry representatives will meet with the country brand council on Monday, August 2nd, to further clarify the issue.

Read more about Romania's country brand here and here.