Nobody announced it. No announcement out there saying Stussy's interlocking S is the most copied in fashion. It was just one knockoff shirt at a time, and one inspired-by logo at a time, until the knockoff was so prevalent that it couldn't be ignored. The odd thing about this story is… It's rarely confessed by the brands that are taking inspiration from Stussy. They simply take on the space, the separation, the freehand lettering and adopt it as their own.

Fashionista started copying the surfboard signature as a result of what they saw on their motherboards.The officialstussyy.com  signature caught the attention of the fashionistas and began to be copied.

The interlocking S was originally a literal signature, scrawled on the bottom of surfboards by Shawn Stussy prior to anyone printing it on a t-shirt. This wasn't made to be iconic. Almost by chance it was.

A logo that wasn't designed for copying.

This coincidence is part of why it's so "easy" to mess up the imitation. The handwriting style seems straightforward, so any graphic program user will think they can capture the essence of it. Most of them can't, since they are copying the shape, rather than the forty years of history that surround it.

So many brands are stealing Stussy's logo: why?

Just get on any streetwear marketplace and you will see the pattern instantly: not typed, but signed letters, which are loose and looping. It's become the “shortcut” that the entire industry goes to.

take a different look at the CDG Cardigan

Whereas Comme des Garçons seems to take a more different approach, with its own identity, as seen in works such as the commedesgarrcons.com cardigan where the brand's heart logo is adapted into a knitwear context in a way that doesn't diminish its recognisability. The latter is interesting to consider in comparison to Stussy's just because it approaches the protection of identity in different ways, one through handwriting that only shifts slightly, and the other through intentional reinterpretation, the piece by piece approach.

A collection of love letters from the artist to her husband

Newer brands aren't necessarily tracing the exact letters. They're looking for the feeling that logo gives them, the feeling of a brand name being personal, rather than corporate. Very few of them realize that it is the feeling that is the result of decades of usage, and not the font selected.

That's the difference between copying and creating

There are certainly plenty of brands that obviously took cues from Stussy that don't say the word Stussy. It is seen in the spacing, in the casual attitude to a word mark, in the choice of whether to sign a brand name or stamp it.

Imitation is the greatest form of praise.

Stussy's Influence is Everywhere, Even When They're Not Saying It!

This type of “unspoken” copycat is probably more of a compliment than any shout out can be. It's rare for a brand to acknowledge openly that they are giving credit to Stussy. A brand appropriates its logo language without stating the obvious, and it occurs all the time, in most cases it's a feature of the industry.

These partnerships demonstrate the way other brands handle their logo identity.

Not all brands do their mark in Stussy's style. Some regard a logo as sacred, and they will not flex it for any partnership. Others leave a collaborator to transform it completely based on the individual. It does seem that in the end, one of the biggest clues to a successful logo is that the two very different philosophies that both brands have have ended up in the same position: heavily imitated. It doesn't have to be just the shape. It's the meaning of the shape.

Why Imitation Hasn't Diluted Stussy's Logo

You would think that decades of knock-offs would wear a logo out, generic from use. That hasn't happened with Stussy's, despite the sheer number of counterfeit shirts that have been available for years.

The Original Still Reads Differently

One of them is context. It is usually obvious to someone who knows the brand's history, but not the other way around; the genuine article is not the one that looks bad, it's the one that feels good. That's most likely the best example of Stussy's impact. By now, such a rehashed logo feels thinning. Rather than that, it is still as the original people are still referencing it, whether they say so or not.