(FORTUNE Small Business) – At first glance, Capital Bonding's logo seems to have been issued directly from the Department of Racial Profiling. Depicting a dark-skinned man breaking out of prison, the company's ads earned criticism from the NAACP and others after running in the Wall Street Journal. Unfair, says the bail-bond chain's CEO, Vincent J. Smith, who insists the logo is actually a picture of him, a 38-year-old Italian American and an ex-Marine. "I can't control the tint of some publications," says Smith, who isn't planning to retouch his image. "It's our golden arches."

--CARLYE ADLER