A family friend wants to start a business online and wants to trademark the logo. I was wondering if the copyright trademark was the same used for the visual arts?

Yes, the copyright trademark is what your family friend needs to register for. Check out the www.uspto.gov for forms and filing requirements.

Have your logo and mark ready and with the application you will need to submit the mark and describe the mark's colors, font, and its application in commerce. Once you submit the application, it will be reviewed and within 9 months of submission you should get some correspondence from the USPTO as to whether a conflict with your mark exists.

Registration with the USPTO is very important. Each state has its own trademark registration, but state registration is practically useless, because the federal registration controls all marks in interstate commerce.

Hope that helps.

You may want to do a trademark search prior to your application. Do this to see if your trademark is in conflict with another already in commerce.

See the link below to do a search on the USPTO site.
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=upq741.1.1