I’ve been doing my normal web hopping and came across a blog post by Studio Tundra. Their blog strives to bring creative inspiration to daily life. Isn’t that what we are trying to do in blog land?? Anyway, they were drawn to a project by two men who came up with a concept with milk in a can and graphically, their packaging was amazing and truly unique….or so we thought. Later, Studio Tundra was contacted by artist/designer who claimed the work you had fallen in love with was a direct copy of the work she had done and was asking the studio to remove this act of plagiarism. You can read more about what happened here, but the main point is that design and plagiarism is a tricky subject.
In the design world, it isn’t uncommon to take some pre-existing concept/design/pattern, etc and be inspired to create something like it that is your own. Unfortunately, hardly any new design ideas are 100% original. However, a good designer is able to take bits and pieces away from what they find inspiring and use aspects of that inspiration while creating an entirely new look, something they can confidently call their own piece of work.
The only reason I bring this issue to my blog is because I am a designer and face this issue on a daily basis. I’m constantly evaluating my work to make sure I have not committed design plagiarism. When you come across something that looks a little too familiar and smells fishy, it’s a bloggers job to point it out. Urban Outfitters and the whole jewelry debacle is a perfect example how bloggers have stood up again this mess.