Design ripping is a big topic in some circles. There’s even a whole blog, You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice, dedicated to it. There’s probably other blogs about it that I haven’t seen.
I read YTWWN because, initially, I thought it was well researched. However, it turns out there’s lots of authors and only a few of them are good researchers. On top of that, the commenters are rather hot-headed.
Where’s the line between inspiration, rip and ‘reinvention of the circle’?
The gaining of wisdom
In high school I went through a phase of drawing hearts with wings and a halo everywhere. On my books, school diary, desks… anything really. As far as I was concerned I had had come up with the design myself. There was no conscious inspiration for it.
That same year there was a Rock Eisteddfod (I’m not sure if it was the REC or not). A group of people from our school put together a performance of dancing, lighting and costumes. I think it told some kind of story or gave a message. There was one thing that stood out for me: a huge banner with a big heart with wings.
I was so ticked! I thought it was obvious that the design had been ripped from me since I’d been drawing that thing all over the school for months. A friend asked the girl who designed the banner about it; she said it was original. For years I doubted it, until… I bought a doona cover with winged hearts on it. Obviously my design, despite having come up with it fairly independently, was not original. Even a quick Google image search for heart wings halo can tell you the same.
Hey, I was young! What can you expect?
Panoramio vs. MarcoPolo
So now, when I see the Panoramio logo, how annoyed can I be that it looks so similar to the logo I designed for MarcoPolo? I’d say, “not very”, because they’re both to do with locations; they’re obviously based on compasses; lets face it, I didn’t invent circles or arrows!
I think it’s a bit amusing actually.
Panoramio logo and favicon
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MarcoPolo toolbar icon and favicon
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More research
It looks like the Panoramio logo was made in 2005. The MarcoPolo logo was made in 2006 (I think), but since I made it I can honestly say that it was made completely independently of the Panoramio logo, which I saw for the first time a couple of weeks ago.
I also found a post by James Fee, showing similarity between compass logos.
It happens!
Final thoughts
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.
Ecclesiastes 1:8-11
I guess we all like to think we’re true design innovators.
Personally, some of my favourite designs are ‘heavy borrowers’ – but they’ve taken a concept and twisted it into something so beautiful that all’s forgiven (at least for me).
As long as it’s not colour for colour, shape for shape, alignment to alignment etc. ripping, then really, I think it’s better to have tried and tested ideas in great new forms than new ideas which suck. The latter rarely wins over the former, IMHO.
I quite like “appropriation” too – making a new point by using an old one.
When it’s mere laziness or lack of creativity it’s not particularly cool.
When it’s coincidence… it’s kinda unfortunate.
You’re right about tested ideas, Yvonne: some conventions are in place for a reason.
Panoramio favicon image seems to be missing…
Ugh, I recently had a request to create a logo that absolutely had to have a globe in it. There are only so many ways to draw a globe!! On top of it, it had to have a banner around the globe with the conference name. I kept trying to tell them that is not original, it is way too generic and it will be very boring. Would they listen? No. Did they like the creative alternatives I presented? No. Did they like it when I crafted their original idea 100%, point-for-point? No! Grrr…
So much wisdom from the Bible that is still relevant today, no? Ecclesiastes is a good book. Have you seen this? Pretty crazy!
P.S. Photoblog looks good in IE6! The images (non-hover) are still a little light, though. If you have time, I would make them a little darker so they are easier to see.
Maybe the Panoramio favicon is getting outweighed by main logo next to it? I hard a hard time deciding how to present those tiny favicon images!
Ugh, yeah. It sucks when people have lame ideas that they think are good. I read a comic last night that was so relevant to that, Frellance Freedom 13. That’s a cool series of comics! I wish they had a decent navigation system for them though, I ended up navigating backwards by changing the muber in the address bar and hoping that they kept the same naming system for the series!
I’d suggest all wisdom from the bible is relevant today. 😉
Oh my goodness! That video is cool and pretty weird.
Thanks for looking at the photoblog. The funny thing about the arrows is that they are very light, but they’re the same colour as the navigation and the image background. Goes to show how much colours/tones/values are affected by the ones surrounding or next to them!
I see the favicon now. It wasn’t loading at work. Is it actually a favicon? Maybe that has something to do with how it looks in IE6 (sorry to keep bringing so many problems! But don’t worry about fixing silly things like that on account of my IE6 woes).
Oooooh, that Freelance Freedom comic is my situation exactly. It’s scary when they give you “complete creative freedom.” It’s a myth I tell you! I always respond, “I know you have such amazing faith in my abilities, but I really need more to go on.” Or something equally as true but cheeky. I don’t know how they expect us to deliver what they want if they themselves don’t even have a clue what that might look like. I don’t read minds! Of course, you need to have an idea in order for it to be read telepathically… anyway 😉
Are you serious that the next/previous arrows are the same color as the top navigation?? Wow! That’s a great example of the elements around affecting the appearance of an object!
Yeah it is a favicon. I wasn’t sure how the browsers would react, but I went with it anyway. I didn’t want to open up GIMP just to change the format 😛
Heh, had to go back and check the hex to make sure, but yes those arrows are the same colour as the nav. 😉