In this episode of Nancy and The Meerkats, Nancy’s helping Ed Shearling design a logo for his new band!

On their rise to the top, Nancy has had to overcome a lot of intellectual property issues caused by her nemesis Kitty Perry, who’s tried to steal the band’s logo and copy their hit songs.

The band are now international superstars and helping one of their biggest fans start his own group – a sheep named Ed Shearling.

There’s just one thing… Ed doesn’t have a logo for his new band, Quackalack!

A logo is just a unique image which represents something. It helps make it easy to tell different companies and organisations apart!

Logos are a sign that represents a company or an organisation and that includes pop bands. Sometimes they’re just a name – often written in a certain style or colour. Other times, they may be a picture or a pattern.

It’s a practical way to help people identify merchandise which comes from your band. Whether that’s music and videos, or promotional stuff like t-shirts and mugs.

Now it’s not like you have to have a logo to be in a band – Beethoven and Mozart didn’t have one, of course.

If you decide to have one for your band, you’ll need it to be unique – like nothing else out there! It’s all to do with intellectual property.

Once you’ve got an amazing logo of your own, you have to register your logo as a trademark so that other people can’t use it without your permission.

Trademarking is a way to connect your logo with your property – whether that’s a video, book, or songs. Registering it is the process of filling out the forms to make it all official.

One you’re ready, just go on the internet and ask people at the Intellectual Property Office to register it. You need to pay a small fee, but it’s worth it!

You have to upload lots of clear pictures of the logo design, with details about the colours used – and then you’re all set!