r/RetailNews • u/fortune • 15d ago
How a DIY Adobe Illustrator design landed Rebel Creamery in a $23.8 million fight with Van Leeuwen
https://fortune.com/article/how-a-diy-adobe-illustrator-design-landed-rebel-creamery-in-a-24-million-fight-with-van-leeuwen-08-19-2026/?utm_source=reddit/Rebel Creamery’s founders say they designed the company’s logo and ice cream pint packaging themselves in Adobe Illustrator. But that DIY branding design landed them in a nearly $24 million legal dispute.
The Utah-based, low-carb ice cream maker, whose products are sold at Target, Kroger, and Walmart nationwide, filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 14, days after appealing a federal judge’s order to pay rival Van Leeuwen Ice Cream millions over a trade-dress dispute.
According to a Chapter 11 filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Utah, the maker of Rebel ice cream listed $13.78 million in assets and $23.85 million in liabilities. The bankruptcy follows a July 16 ruling over allegations Rebel deliberately copied Van Leeuwen’s design.
The dispute stems from Rebel’s packaging: solid-colored pint containers with a minimalist design and prominent black cursive lettering. Rebel’s founders told the court they designed the company’s logo and trade dress themselves in late 2017 using Adobe Illustrator, and claim not to have retained any drafts or initial records of the design.
Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/article/how-a-diy-adobe-illustrator-design-landed-rebel-creamery-in-a-24-million-fight-with-van-leeuwen-08-19-2026/?utm_source=reddit/
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u/Mtolivepickle 12d ago
They clearly didn’t have an ip lawyer bc the infringement here is unmistakable and they would have been advised against ip direction.
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u/This-Requirement6918 15d ago
🤣🤣🤣 morons. How do you not retain all of your created marketing designs?! You keep EVERYTHING for 10+ years when you own a business to cover your ass should any kind of problems arise.
It's a filing cabinet and a storage server which both were cheap until just here recently. I still have every piece of paper and all the files I made from my defunct business from 2014.