Every now and then I get a really lovely email from an aspiring letterer that is about to publish a passion project of his or her own. They tell me my work was an inspiration and that they can’t wait to share their creation with the world. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside for a moment…until I click on their link and realize that much of what they intend to publish is nearly a direct tracing of my work.
A lot of established illustrators and designers deal with the same thing—students or young professionals that rip them off without realizing it. Addressing these young designers can be really heartbreaking because you know that they had the purest of intentions. So here’s a little post to all the hungry, young designers that are struggling to find their own voice, but end up a bit too close to their inspirations. There are definitely people that maliciously rip artists off left and right, and this post is not for them. They are evil and cannot be helped.
1. It’s OK to copy people’s work.[GIANT ASTERISK!]
To be a good artist / letterer / designer / guitar player it takes practice. A lot of it. More than you can even fathom when you’re starting out. If you wanted to become a great guitar player, you wouldn’t buy a fancy guitar and immediately start composing songs… you would pick up a song book, or look up some tablature music on the internet, and teach yourself how to play using other people’s music. You would emulate the greats and learn from them, as they learned from others in the past. You’d spend hours alone trying to be like Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page or whomever you really admired. Then, once you were well practiced and felt confident in your abilities to play, you’d form a band, you’d write your own songs, and you’d find your own voice.
When you’re learning, it’s not wrong to copy people—to learn from them the way that they learned from others before them. What many young artists have a problem realizing though, is that the work you create while practicing and learning is completely separate of what you do professionally. Just because you can play OK Computer cover to cover doesn’t mean you should record an album of your renditions and release them under your name. You know that any such action would leave you up to your eyeballs in legal problems. Copy all you wish in private, and once you feel confident in your skills, create your own original public work.
2. Not everything you make should be on the internet.
Young designers and illustrators are plagued by an issue that didn’t really affect those of us that are in our late 20s or older—they think that everything they ever create should be published to the internet. Blogs weren’t really in full swing when I graduated college. Swiss Miss was in its infancy. Behance didn’t exist. Dribbble wasn’t even a twinkle in Dan Cederholm’s eye. As graduating college students, we were told that having a website was important so that future employers could check us out, not so that the dieline could post about us and an army of bored designers could drool over our work during their lunchbreaks.
When you’re starting out and have a teeny portfolio of student work, it can be very very tempting to publish everything you’re working on, whether it’s practice or actual published work. It’s especially hard because, more often than not, the work you’re doing at your day job is less than inspiring when you are starting out. It will be really hard to resist showing off the illustration you created that was inspired heavily by one of your heroes, because in reality it is probably one of the nicest things you’ve made. But that’s the thing, every new thing you make will be (should be) the nicest thing you’ve made so far, because you’re learning and getting better with each and every new project. Resist posting the practice—the piece that you know is too close to its inspiration. Let that practice fuel original work and then publish to your heart’s content.
3. Diversify your inspirations.
I did a little post about inspiration vs. imitation before, and one of the main points was that it is easy to accidentally rip people off if your inspirations are too limited. If you’re heavily inspired by only two people, your work will look like a combination of those two people’s work. The more work you look at and the more work you are inspired by, the more diluted those inspirations become in your own work. Your ultimate goal should be for people to look at your work and NOT immediately think “oh she is a big fan of this person”. If you diversify your inspirations, the chances of this happening become much smaller.
4. History is important.
Your contemporaries might seem like the most obvious place to start when it comes to finding inspiration, but look beyond them. Have you ever gone on a music site to look up a band’s inspirations and found all kinds of cool older bands you liked? You were opened up to a whole new world of awesome music and at the same time formed completely new opinions about the contemporary band you were into. The same goes for design and illustration—if you’re only looking at your peers for inspiration, you’re not getting the whole picture. They were inspired by artists from the past and found a way to create their own original work—look at their inspirations and the people that inspired them as far back as you can dig. If you’re inspired by both historical sources and contemporary artists, it is much easier to create work that feels fresh and new.
5. Train your eye.
In order to avoid ripping other artists off, you have to first be able to identify other people’s work. Before you went to art school, art was just one big category that everything non-boring fell into. The more you learned the more you started to see the differences in technique, the themes that happened during specific movements, the way one artists put brush to canvas vs. another. By the time you graduated you could hopefully tell the difference between a Picasso and a Braque, even though when you were a freshman it all just looked the same.
As you study design and illustration, something similar will happen. At first all print-makery illustrators will look the same, but soon you’ll be able to point out who did what and eventually the differences will become so clear that you’ll be shocked when your non-art friends don’t see them. And then the nerds will welcome you into their world with a parade and cupcakes.
When you are starting out, you accidentally rip people off all the time because your eye just doesn’t see the difference between what you’re doing and what someone you’re inspired by is doing. You think (anti-awesome) thoughts like “she doesn’t own swashes!”. Over time though, once you spend a few months examining a lot of people’s work, you can look at 10 different script letterers and think “OMG they are SO different! How did I not see it!” If you don’t train yourself to spot the differences, you’ll never be able to see them in your own work and it will be very difficult to make anything original.
6. Just because it’s not illegal doesn’t mean it’s ethical.
Something that I sadly hear too much is that “it’s not illegal to copy someone’s style”. Sure, if you create an illustration that is completely derivative of someone else but not a direct rip-off or tracing, they might have a hard time suing you. That doesn’t make it OK to make derivative work. Remember when you were on a road trip as a kid and your brother played the “I’m not touching you” game by putting his hand/finger as close as possible to your face without actually touching it? It annoyed the shit out of you. When you complained to your parents, he shouted “but I didn’t touch her!” Sure. What he did wasn’t a total violation of your space, but it didn’t feel good, right? If your parents weren’t completely annoyed with the both of you by then they’d hopefully explain that just because he wasn’t officially breaking the rules it didn’t make what he was doing OK. It’s very unethical to knowingly copy someone else’s illustration style when not doing work that is an obvious homage to them. It is illegal to actually copy someone’s intellectual property or claim all or part of their work as your own. If you’ve ever retorted with “well it’s not illegal” you already know you’ve done something wrong and are just trying to justify your actions.
7. Everybody knows everybody.
The design and illustration community is teeny tiny. It’s shocking how many people in our world know and talk to each other regularly. Thanks to the internet, fans can reach out to artists and alert them of people ripping them off. There’s even whole blogs set up to watch over this kind of stuff. If you’re ripping people off on purpose, I’m glad that there are a thousand ways for you to get caught and that there are oodles of people out there that will secretly think you are a bad person. If you’re ripping someone off accidentally, this can be severely detrimental to your career without you even knowing it. When you try to apply for a job with a portfolio full of derivative work you might not get the job and never know why. That person took one look at your portfolio and thought “they’re rippin-off my friend!” and then politely showed you the door. It seems crazy that this would happen, but I get emails all the time from friends pointing out people that applied for internships with portfolios of work that rips-off everyone we know. It is very very important to acknowledge your inspirations and try to distance yourself from them as much as possible.
Whenever I’m alerted of a possible rip-offer, I try my best to educate rather than chastise and gently nudge them to find their own voice. If you see someone ripping-off someone you know or admire, I suggest you do the same—initiate the conversation as a helpful and concerned new friend, not an angry enemy. Most of the time the offenders aren’t aware of how obvious their inspiration sources are. We’re all guilty of it when we’re starting out, but hopefully this article will remind some of you to keep that practice work out of your portfolio, which will keep the angry blog commenters off your back.
Always keep practicing (and practicing, and practicing), keep looking at beautiful work, keep researching others to look up to and be inspired by. In no time you’ll be making beautiful original work of your own.
Addendum:
Jonathan Hoefler wrote an amazing comment that I want to share as a part of the post:
If I can propose an 8th point, which is especially apropos in the type design world: “There’s a difference between making an imitation and selling it.”
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you’ll often find high school students with their sketchbooks out, camped out in front of the Giottos and Dürers. It’s a time-honored way of learning: see, try to reproduce, and discover. I think about this whenever I receive a heads-up that someone had made a derivative of one of our fonts: the Requiem-with-snipped-off-serifs that we’ll see in a font distributor’s website, or the Gotham-with-a-different-M that’s profiled to great applause on some online showcase. What makes these acts so troubling — and, by the way, unquestionably illegal (it’s not at all a grey area) — but makes the eager high schooler so charming?
To me, the key difference is that the aspiring serif-clipper is not only passing off the artist’s work as his own, but is doing real damage to the artist he purportedly admires by competing in the same marketplace. It’s a time-consuming and expensive distraction to investigate these things, but one we’re compelled to do every single time, since each purchase of a knockoff represents lost revenue. And when we share these discoveries with the organizations that have unwittingly bought the knockoffs, it invariably reflects poorly on our young serif-clipper: if there was a relationship there, it is now ended. Everybody loses.
But the 17 year old with the sketchpad is entirely different. He’s not passing off his Velasquez as a Velasquez, and he’s not passing it off as his own — in fact, he’s not passing it off at all. It’s a learning exercise, and if it’s presented at all, it’s always with the appropriate context. (“I did this in art class, from the Gubbio Studiolo at the Met.”) It also reveals what young artists finds fascinating, what they struggled with, and what they learned. It’s been my experience that these kinds of acts are met with great encouragement and support from the professional community.
Frederic Goudy’s commandment to typographers was “stop stealing sheep.” My advice to aspiring type designers is “stop selling sheep.”
A few commenters wanted to see/show actual examples of blatant-ripoffs. I’m choosing not to post examples because the line between a rip-off and something “heavily inspired-by but still passable” is so blurry. I think by showing concrete examples I would be trying to make crystal-clear something that generally isn’t. Former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said that he didn’t want to define exactly what hard-core pornography was, stating “I know it when I see it”. You definitely know derivative work when you see it, and the more you pay attention to contemporary design and illustration as well as knowing your history, the easier it is to spot. If you’re inexperienced, everything looks like porn, if you know what you’re talking about you can spot the real stuff from “artful photography” before you can blink. The key is to not cry “porn” before you know what you’re talking about. So study up!
Another, great post, Jessica.
Shutting down the computer for a day every week can help a lot. Being busy helps a lot too—no time to track favorite blogs.
I am inspired by your approach towards someone, who copies you, I think I’d get pissed off. But I guess, in today’s world it’s all about reinvention.
I agree that without practicing all the work won’t get anywhere.
Sweating (end enjoying) the work is the only way to go.
Thank you for the awesomeness!
:: Marta
Thankyou for this posting. I am no creator of works. I am very passionate about how to create. And how fame meets each creation/or not.
You have shown me how much imitation of a creation is as important as learning a language. Is each creation a language unto itself? An extention of all the creations from the past? For me this is an ongoing question i have yet to answer. You have helped me get a little closer to that answer.
The unseen influence.
Every time the creative copying issue comes along, I always refer to an interview to Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam I once saw. When asked if they didn´t mind for people to copy them so much he answered:
“Well… if people just knew where we take things from.”
Nice post. Congratulations.
Your blog was very intuitive–I recently had my style copied by an artist that is in the same licensing agency as mine! I had to finally tell my agent I wasn’t happy about it. I had worked years to develope my “style”. After mentioning it to my agent –the artist did her original style that she had done before. I am not sure to this date whether she was called out on it but I am so relieved that she stopped copying me. It is a nice compliment–BUT like you stated in your article–it takes years to develope your own particular style.THANKS for writing this wonderful piece!
Another great article Jess, and 100% right. At the moment I’m trying really hard to find my own illustration style, and I am doing a lot of copying of artists work, learning techniques and exploring styles. It is REALLY tempting to publish them (and also quite easy), but I know I won’t as they’re just that, copies. Practice practice practice!
This is a really great post! It made me feel really inspired to search and find my own, personal and very Julia-listic voice. Thanks!
powerful words i hope will sink in to those deliberate thieves…
and such haunting words from one so young.. to youngsters, and yet so helpful & profound…
thanks Jessica..for your sharing. Tim M.
For more reading along these lines, people should check out John Downer’s essay “Call it What It Is”: http://www.emigre.com/Editorial.php?sect=2&id=1
Although John Downer’s article is indeed excellent and I value his opinion on the matter, personally I think his view on inspiration and attribution in type design is a little too sectarian.
Great post. When I saw this posted in a major design annual I took a double-take, remembering your work on the Mighty logo: http://www.springadvertising.com/designBook.html?start=3
This example is indeed very tricky – inhowfar do the differences in lettering style negate the similar slant and composition, with the initial “m” intruding into the circle from the same location? It would be interesting to try and track down as many examples as possible of logos using a similar motif and make a broader comparison. This however would imply that the person doing the research would have way too much time on their hands (says the guy who researched over 16,000 movie posters investigating the use of Trajan in movie posters over the last two decades, I know, thanks for pointing out the irony).
It’s hard to say which design came first. The Nimby logo was created
almost three years ago. It looks like the Mighty logo was created in 2009. That aside, this isn’t the first time someone has put some type in a circle
An excellent reminder/resource for all creatives. Well said, Jessica.
Fantastic article!
I could not agree more, especially on #4.
Explained many, many times to the kids I encounter about how important history can be, yet sometimes (more often than not), my lectures go unheard.
Great piece, I’ll be RT’ing this for sure!
Thanks so much for writing this. You graced a touchy subject with words put delicately enough for all sides to have an a-ha moment and learn how to avoid looking too identical to your frames of reference, and how to deal with it when it happens! It may also be good advice for professors and critique facilitators to give their students with non-art metaphors that anyone can relate to without hurt/awkward feelings. You are not only gifted with letters, but also with words! The one thing I’d love to find out more about would be ways to find out what kinds of older influences some of your contemporary influences may hold…blogs? interviews? Twitter feeds? Pinterests? Amazon “readers also bought…”? When older influences aren’t published in your college art history of design variety of courses, it’s tough to know where to start beyond the well documented big names…especially since the rampant Internet publishing of work is sometimes limited to the under 45 crowd, and older than that designers who would be willing to talk your IRL ear off about designers they loved while THEY were up and coming young designers, may not be attuned to the same sort of Internet fame (ie communicating via emailing/commenting/tweetinh fans who contact them) as some of you younger spotlight designers may be. With music, it’s easy to get to know and fall in love with your favorite classic rock radio station, and then buy the albums to delve into gems you love that are unusual sources of inspiration, but with designers it feels a little tougher to delve beyond documentaries about famous ones, and of course there HAS to be more ways of connecting dots to some of their contemporaries, right? Even art has art fairs, auction house catalogs…but I’m noy sure where to begin looking under rocks for designers in past years that may lead me down more paths of the past…Any suggestions/knowledge/experience you can share where you struck informative gold on looking back types for inspiration would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for your dedication to tackling and explaining the frustrating sides of the creative industry, it especially makes me chuckle when it’s framed like “don’t fear the internets” and explaining twitter to your mom.
A lot of illustrators and designers publish FAQ’s to their sites, and usually one or two of their sources are legitimately researchable or at least wikipedia-able.
I’m a calligrapher who started getting paid to do lettering work a year and a half ago.
It always frustrates me when I’m in a calligraphy class and I see complete beginners get unnecessarily frustrated when they are not writing as well as our instructors. Don’t they realize that the person who is teaching us has probably been working commercially for as long as many of us have been alive?!
The best advice I have ever gotten was from my very first calligraphy teacher, Christopher Calderhead. He said that it takes years of intense study and practice to become a decent scribe.
Instead of getting frustrated at what I was doing wrong, I decided to just keep practicing and enjoy what I am learning, writing, and creating! Just having that attitude has helped me get a lot further than just comparing myself to other calligraphers out there who get projects that I dream of being hired to work on.
As much as I’m inspired by those around me, I can honestly say that I have so many ideas I want to get on paper, that trying to copy someone’s work would be a complete waste of my time!
Such a very thoughtful and helpful post for growing artists. I’m an aspiring designer and my work has improved from practicing different artists styles. And in doing so, that has helped me find my style… or atleast get a little closer to it.
Also, as a side note. I’m a big fan of your work Jessica.
I believe you must look at “copying” as kind of a crutch. You need it when you’re learning, but you learn the techniques & styles and run with them, eventually making them your own.
The fear of influence is influence itself. [Paraphrasing Wayne C Booth]
Granted, this isn’t quite your subject here, but the obverse side of your argument is to embrace your influences so intensely — don’t shun them, because originality is nearly a myth! — that you almost make them your own. Take my work, his work, her work, and completely possess that work.
A whole lot of these discussions happened throughout modernism in painting and literature. And the discussion was more interesting and rigorous than what’s happening here. But I guess we have to re-live these things in our own way.
It’s funny how in design, at this point, we have rephrase in our own stilted manner what was so well put in now-out-of-print books.
My point is not to try to make something completely original without being influenced, it’s to have ENOUGH influences that what you are doing almost accidentally becomes original because there are so many points of inspiration that it becomes something new. I very much think people should embrace and acknowledge their influences, just be sure you don’t have just one or two.
Yes, good. I was just making a comment, trying to add to the theme — not criticizing your argument.
Cheers.
“And then the nerds will welcome you into their world with a parade and cupcakes.”
Nerds are so nice, as is this post!
Well put, Jessica. If I can propose an 8th point, which is especially apropos in the type design world: “There’s a difference between making an imitation and selling it.”
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you’ll often find high school students with their sketchbooks out, camped out in front of the Giottos and Dürers. It’s a time-honored way of learning: see, try to reproduce, and discover. I think about this whenever I receive a heads-up that someone had made a derivative of one of our fonts: the Requiem-with-snipped-off-serifs that we’ll see in a font distributor’s website, or the Gotham-with-a-different-M that’s profiled to great applause on some online showcase. What makes these acts so troubling — and, by the way, unquestionably illegal (it’s not at all a grey area) — but makes the eager high schooler so charming?
To me, the key difference is that the aspiring serif-clipper is not only passing off the artist’s work as his own, but is doing real damage to the artist he purportedly admires by competing in the same marketplace. It’s a time-consuming and expensive distraction to investigate these things, but one we’re compelled to do every single time, since each purchase of a knockoff represents lost revenue. And when we share these discoveries with the organizations that have unwittingly bought the knockoffs, it invariably reflects poorly on our young serif-clipper: if there was a relationship there, it is now ended. Everybody loses.
But the 17 year old with the sketchpad is entirely different. He’s not passing off his Velasquez as a Velasquez, and he’s not passing it off as his own — in fact, he’s not passing it off at all. It’s a learning exercise, and if it’s presented at all, it’s always with the appropriate context. (“I did this in art class, from the Gubbio Studiolo at the Met.”) It also reveals what young artists finds fascinating, what they struggled with, and what they learned. It’s been my experience that these kinds of acts are met with great encouragement and support from the professional community.
Frederic Goudy’s commandment to typographers was “stop stealing sheep.” My advice to aspiring type designers is “stop selling sheep.”
This is awesome. I’m adding it to the actual post because this is perfectly put.
Great Post,
I’m A Young Illustrator, From France And I’ve Opened My Website About 2 months ago, I Did Some Little Exhibitions Too..And When People Told Me That A Few Of My Work Reminds Them Some Artists I’m Actually Very Happy That They Saw That In My Own Creation..But That Doesn’t Necerssarly Mean That I Rip Off People, It’s Just Nice To See People ( Who Knows A Little Bit About Illustrations / Art ) What’s Your Influence Are..
I think you need to get over yourself.
Paula: I think you need to learn how to construct a proper argument; it’s perfectly ok to disagree and state the reasons why in a polite manner, it’s not ok to just attack people. It just makes you look bad.
So very well said, and all good advice. I’m a great admirer of your work. You are such an inspiration.
Excuse me, that was quite harsh. She’s giving valuable advice and it’s something to at least consider. What she writes is applicable to any field you consider a career or practice in.
Imitation aside, you make a good point about not putting everything you’ve ever done online, which I agree is a habit developed by my generation and those following. I admittedly have this problem, or as I’d like to think, had this problem and have since attempted to correct it, slowly but surely. There is indeed value in showing the evolution of your skill and the process that goes into your work (especially on a personal level), but a smaller selection of quality work will likely give off a better impression than that of a large body of unfinished, unpublished or unpolished work.
Fantastic post and a strong voice behind it. I recently have been dealing with my frustrations towards another classmate of mine who produces completely derivative work and goes into detail describing how they arrived at the concept they did without at all mentioning the inspiring work they ripped off.
I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, so to speak, by speaking out against them and so your post has been a great source of comfort (no.7 in particular) in knowing that the retribution deserved will come in the future. Additionally your post has given me inspiration on how perhaps I can deal with approaching them about it. So thank you very much!!
This is so true and inspiring. I believe every Indian composer who copies should read this..
Great blog. I’m the ‘perfect’ example of someone who started with of with ripping of people as inspiration – thinking no one would know. Man, was I wrong. My boss found out, and I am very thankful that he was understanding of this, and still thought I was a very talented designer. Ripping of people made me define my ‘own’ style, mainly after researching all these designers that I liked. I realized that my style wasn’t anything like the style of the people I admired so much. I’m not an illustrator at all. I suck at it. I learned my lesson the hard way. Cause, believe me, when people you love, you friends etc find out that you are publishing stuff thats not yours – that hurts their trust, and their believe in you, as well. It could destroy your career before it’s even started. The design world is small. Blogs are everywhere, your name is everywhere.
So listen to all of these points above, and just don’t. Don’t copy, don’t steal. Great work isn’t made it an hour, a day or a week. It takes time, and you have to work hard to achieve something awesome. Just like everyone else.
Well said. Productive point of view. Thank you. 5 cupcakes!
Well said. Reminds me of this quote “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”
http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/3f101d4a69a74cc360d2af67ad966d3f1cd58d28_m.jpg
Wow! With all of the noise out on the web I read your whole post and LOVE it. With the work I do, video, it’s so easy to copy and many times I bet people don’t even realize they are doing it. It’s a good reminder for myself as well knowing the films I love so much. I’ve thought about this topic a lot as I’ve seen my work copied a few times (yep that may sound ridiculous) but it’s true. How should one react to that? I think you wrote on this issue with a lot of thought and added some great solutions. Thanks for being honest and open.
Forgive me, since I’m underslept and not quite as articulate as you are!
This was a really interesting article for me, as a former Art School Drop Out (a very post-modern and conceptual Art School at that) and a current design student.
I am very paranoid about being copied, almost to the point where I’m reluctant to put a lot of my work online. For me, I recognize that this is almost entirely about ego. And despite this, I notice influences in nearly everything I do… Sometimes the work I produce is intentionally derivative, but often in a more conceptual way. My (somewhat limited) Art education taught me that this isn’t always something we need to be so freaked out about. I know your type and lettering work is more illustrative than this, but I think about early 20th century type and how a lot of the modern type designers have created typefaces that are nearly identical (such as Sol Hess’s Twentieth Century and Paul Renner’s Futura). Both type designers are respectively well regarded, and I don’t think the similarities devalued either’s work. They were merely part of a zeitgeist or movement.
Your work is definitely your own, but I see fairly obvious influences in it. I’m often reminded of Sagmeister or Marion Bantjes.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but one of the hard lessons I am continuously learning is that no one creates work in a vacuum. Especially if we work commercially and want to get paid (by clients who want whatever the particular “on trend” look is).
fine art and illustration, design and other commercial arts are quite different, though if an illustrator created a piece that was obviously an homage or response to another person’s work, it would be totally fine and appropriate. The only problem comes when they try to pass that work off as their own original artwork and say “I never looked at that other person” when it is obvious that they did. It’s not wrong to have influences, nor is it wrong to occasionally do work that shows those influences more transparently. It’s only an issue if your work is entirely derivative of one or two other people, when it is obvious that when you strip away what you’ve directly borrowed from others there is no original thought left.
This makes all of us who have created “inspired” work cringe inside. “Could she possibly be talking about ME!?”
Ugh, *facepalm*
Although there are many artists with similar voices/styles (i.e. The Backstreet Boys & N*SYNC whom my husband STILL can’t tell apart), this is a great reminder to keep searching for your unique style.
You are so wrong about musicians. They do that ALL the time. Almost like they are paying homage to the ones who inspired them to even pick up and instrument. Even the greatest musicians record whole albums of songs that have already been recorded. In fact, I think it’s healthy. It reminds everyone that you understand that no matter how successful you think you are, there was/is someone who did it better.
I agree with Leah. You’re sending the wrong signal. If someone is directly inspired by your work, take it as a compliment. If you don’t like it change your style. That’s the world we live in. You don’t own a style. Sad to see other designers back you up so quickly on this. Warhol, Steve Jobs, Duchamp and Picasso would have never existed in your world. They all borrowed to make something better. I think you might want to consider deflating your ego.
The point isn’t that borrowing is bad, it’s that borrowing from one source is never a good idea. If the lineage of your style or idea is a direct line, you’re probably not doing anything new or worthwhile. finding inspiration from many sources is absolutely essential. I doubt Steve Jobs would say that he was entirely inspired by one person and one person alone.
Well, that wasn’t really my point! I can completely understand and up to a point agree with this post. I just think the grey area is awfully broad, and there’s this pesky collective consciousness thing that’s constantly getting in our way (or at least my way). I have had distinct ideas that I was 100% positive I arrived at completely independently, not done anything about them, and then like, 6 years later seen someone make an uncannily similar piece of art/design/whatever.
I think it’s even trickier in the design world, because the industry is so trend driven and the aesthetic, palette, imagery, themes that everyone suddenly all wants at the same time change constantly.
And I was saying that for me, personally, my fear of being copied is largely an ego thing. I have had a big huge problem with it since I was a little kid. Maybe it’s because I’m an only child. I wasn’t trying to apply that to Jessica. However, I feel this far more in design school (where it is all about how something looks) now than I ever did at art school (where it was all about concepts and feelings).
I agree with Chis and Leah. Since the creation of Adobe Illustrator, several illustrator’s styles have become very similar. I think you (Jessica) have been fortunate to become recognized as one of the first successful vector illustrators, I think you were in the right place at the right time, and since then many illustrator’s now believe it’s possible to get their work seen (Jessica Hische did it, I can too!) Which is great. But, you’ve also started this conversation that now suddenly every flat vector illustration with gradients and textures looks like Jessica Hische. Given, yes, you’ve created great techniques that are your own, but I’ve seen one too many innocent illustrators be blamed for ripping Jessica Hische off because they use Adobe Illustrator. I understand there is such thing as direct rip-offs, and that kind of hurts to have done to you, but it gets to a point where you just have to shake it off and be humbled. You’ve given illustrators, Graphic Designers who can’t draw worth a damn but rule at Adobe Illustrator, and hand letters all over the world, hope.
Great stuff. Regarding point #4, I am looking for good books on history of art. Do you know any that are OMGWTF GREAT BOOKS? Thanks
check out the resources page on tdc.org for a list of type books, and go to the library! Librarians are endlessly useful if you know what you’re looking for. Just give them key terms and they can point you in the right direction. Also just check out steve heller’s catalog of books, lots of easy to consume history there.
Well I live in Costa Rica, public libraries are OUT of the question. They aren’t exactly very well “updated” in regards to books nor do they give literature any relevance
Thank you so much for posting this… like shelli said, “it makes those of us who have created “inspired” work cringe inside.” I feel like a terrible person for having shared some inspired work on my own blog–not thinking about the implications whatsoever. And I also realize the danger of posting something even if you say it is inspired by so-and-so… that content can be easily stripped or misconstrued.
It is so hard to discern right and wrong sometimes, especially in the creative realm… but this makes it more clear. Thank you for writing this!
Great words by Jessica Hische. I think one of the main things responsible for designers unintentional ripping people off is a misunderstanding of styles role in the design process. Many use a style as the sole vessel for conveying the concept or meaning in a work. If one uses the concept and the content that concept generates they will come out with a unique work.
Indeed delicately worded. Thank you Jessica! As a design student, it means a lot to hear this from a respected letterer/illustrator/designer.
Awesome post, Jessica. I especially loved your comment about not posting every single piece of your work online. I think there’s a misconception today about a large online portfolio being most effective, but I think there’s something to be said about presenting a carefully curated selection of your best work – and original work, natch.
I’m with Chris M and Leah. You should absolutely copy (or in Picasso’s words, steal) other peoples work (and not the details, but the essence of other’s work). Of course, you should not pass this work off as fully your own work- give credit. Improving on others ideas is what drives culture forward. And it’s been done for thousands of years in the art world. Look at any major art movement, Realism for example, the artists shared a similar style and built off each other. The artists didn’t just happen to all paint in the same style. So I disagree, copy away, give credit where it’s due, and push design forward.
again (probably the 3rd or 4th time I’ve left this comment), i’m not at all saying that it is wrong to learn from others and have others affect your work. Please make sure you read the post and my comments carefully. Be influenced, have influences, just make sure that your inspirations are varied and diverse so that people don’t look at your work and think it is a direct rip of a contemporary. You can’t push design in anything but a circle if it’s just a bunch of people ripping off contemporaries.
Thank you for writing this in such a supportive tone. I’ve come across many articles similar in content to yours, but that do nothing to support new designers/crafters/typographers. They all pretty much tell the audience to stop copying, period. No examination of how copying can assist students or people new to the field to learn the art.
This leads me to a question… How do you develop your own voice/style? I’m in my mid-30s now and I still haven’t figured it out. I’m a production designer, mostly just adding photos and copy to templates designed by corporate. I’ve spent 10 years practising graphic design, only to find that I haven’t developed my own style, I’m just very well-versed at copying the designs of others (not for my job or for profit, mind you). How do you make that leap to your own style? At some point, I’d like to be able to put together a portfolio of original work and get a job in an agency, but I don’t know how to make that step.
You don’t NEED to have a style with graphic design—each project should be approached by examining what the client is trying to communicate, and figuring out the best way to go about it stylistically and conceptually. Illustrators and letterers need to work within a style, because they are (for the most part) hired because of how their work looks. Graphic designers that rely on style end up using certain typefaces inappropriately just because they like them or more often than not end up over-designing by thinking that their voice is more important than the client’s message. Your work has to be consistent, but that doesn’t mean it has to be consistently in the same style. It just has to show a consistent appreciation and understanding of good typography, good layout, and good ideas.
I appreciate this commentary Jessica. It is simple and straightforward and most importantly, not pretentious, which is very refreshing these days.
As an independent in-house designer at a non-profit organization, I do not have the privilege of working in a collaborate creative environment during the 9-5 hours, so the majority of my influences were discovered on the web. In reflection, I continuously battled the inspiration vs. imitation issue and I reached a point where looking back on my work, I am confident that the creative process always prevails. Early in my career (currently at 5 years) I remember feeling extremely guilty when conceptualizing a project by becoming attracted to design I discovered as ‘inspiration’ with the direct fear of replicating work. With a focused and balanced approach, the design process naturally plays and the end result and execution is significantly separated from that initial inspiration and over time that became a moment of clarity for me. I began to realize how I utilized inspiration and how it often served as a foundation for the idea and slowly over time and practice, I developed a professional style that is my own, while understanding where my influences and inspiration is derived and how that integration defines me as a designer.
Personally, I am constantly learning and I do think that design of any nature should be a life-long learning environment and anybody who thinks that there is a magical point where they are no longer learning and are now just doing need to take a step back and re-evaluate.
Bottom line is that, like any profession or craft in this world, it takes time and practice to be successful. I thank Jessica for taking an overall positive approach to the issue by acknowledging that most offenses are not directly intentional and layer in the idea that educating in unity will usually win out over negativity and anger.
Great post and sound advice. I want to add a footnote/reminder to your point #3: Though it may be hard to believe (with blogs like mine clogging the internet), the percentage of design and illustration history online is infinitesimal. 1930s to 1970s visual material in particular gathers dust in libraries, waiting to rejoin the conversation.
Absolutely. I think a lot of the time folks need to get beyond the internet when looking for inspiration. Libraries are amazing places! So many young illustrators and designers seem to exist almost entirely online. As Jessica said, the more influences you have, the better you’ll become as an artist.
It’s important to actually enjoy looking at and learning about the history of the particular discipline you work in, the contexts and the background… and beyond! I see so many illustration students who *only* look at illustration. Look at other things! Read books, newspapers ; draw your influences from anywhere and everywhere. It’s not just about pretty pictures, a designer needs to observe and understand the world around them.
Jessica, I used to like you. In my second year of design school I had the biggest typo-crush on your work. But over the last couple of years I have seen more and more of you complaining about people ripping you off, stealing your ideas ya-da-ya-da. I think everything has gotten to your head. If you spent half of as much time working than you do getting so hung up on stuff like this, maybe your own work would be less repetitive and expected. I’ve got to add, a lot of your work looks similar to Marian Bantjes… Accident?
Lexi,
It’s a true shame that you translate Jessica’s mature advice as pompous or condescending. I, for one, cannot thank Jessica enough (and others like her) for every post they create, taking time out of their surely busy schedules to spread advice for the pure benefit of the less experienced in our community.
Every word in this post is so clearly measured, concisely composed to convey a message in the kindest of words. I’m glad Jessica has ‘gotten these ideas to her head,’ and I’m glad she was then inclined to put together a note of caution.
Jessica, thank you again for reinforcing this important message and taking the time to spread it widely and publicly, as you usually do. Your words are as impactful as your illustrations, and I hope that you are encouraged to continue sharing your insightful advice.
Methinks Lexi is a tad jealous! Jessica is taking time out of her day to educate others in the industry, kudos to her.
Jessica. You’re fantastic.
Thank you for all that you do.
Lexi, theres a difference between being constructive and just being hurtful. Might be best to evaluate which you’re approaching.
I just wanted to voice my full support of your stance on this issue and thank you for constantly educating and inspiring me.
trendsetters never stop innovating, but are always maturing in their elements of style. by the time an idea is getting ripped off a good designer is onto something fantastically fresh anyway. (perhaps this is why you have the heart to teach others – you are not afraid of them.)
FWIW Marian’s work is COMPLETELY different from Jessica’s.
All I know is that in the old days, when a person wanted to become a painter, they would serve as an apprentice for their favorite artists. While there, the apprentice would have to COPY their masters works in order to learn that particular style. Once they mastered that style, it was the apprentice’s job to make it his or her own by taking what he or she learned and making it better. That being said, I don’t think its bad to copy someone’s work to learn. Once you’ve learned it, stop copying and make it your own. Sometimes you gotta fake it to make it. Thanks for posting this Jessica.
First and foremost, Lexi, you might not realize how ignorant and petty you sound, but you might want to have more information before you throw out wild accusations. I went and listened to Jessica at an AIGA event, and it is obvious that she works incredibly hard, and it has taken a lot for her to get where she is–meaning that she has every right to “get hung up” on people ripping off her livelihood. But more importantly, her post is more about trying to help young designers out than complaining. And to Chris (and those that agreed with him), in your words, Picasso, Duchamp, and others “all borrowed to make something better.” This implies that they changed what they borrowed and made it their own. They didn’t outright copy. And I personally believe that if you really want to be successful, it is imperative that you create something unique that sets you apart.
Thank you Jessica for your kind and helpful words.
I’d just like to echo everything Nicholas said. (I even work in the same environment.)
I agree with Haley and the rest of the positive comments on here – thank you for having a voice and taking a stance on this topic. Developing a style is a difficult thing that can take years of practice and self-reflection, and I 100% agree with you that you must have a curious mind and look for inspiration in diverse areas. If you just focus on one area of art/design/illustration etc. for all of your ideas, are you ever truly inspired?
“But over the last couple of years I have seen more and more of you…”
stalker alert
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
Jesscia,
This post is awesome. I deal with people stealing my work all the time. It’s a very serious issue which you discuss very well. The people here that are disagreeing are probably the one’s copying themselves.
And by copying themselves, I mean they’re copying other people’s work.
I love this quote by Ira Glass, it describes the frustration I know I had when I first started out–and still do! Thank you for this article, and I love that it was geared towards the do gooders rather than the evil doers.
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass
Also the video, because you have to hear it with Ira’s voice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI23U7U2aUY&feature=player_embedded
I’m a software developer, not a designer, but I find your advice is applicable in our discipline as well. Thank you. I really like the tone of the article. If you don’t mind me asking, how long did it take you to write this? It would have taken me a long time to write something this long and this articulate.
I really enjoyed this post and think it is a fruitful conversation to have, if only in the comments section.
Someone mentioned originality being a “myth” – I tend to think this is true. With so many years of wonderful graphic designs in our past, I feel it’s as though it’s all been done, in a sense, and we’re all just reworking it, or taking bits from one design and putting them together with bits of another. I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this. I’m not in favor of blatantly ripping people off, but it’s an interesting philosophical discussion…sometimes I’m not sure what originality means anymore!
Great post.
What I find worrying is that so many people misunderstood what you were trying to say.
Influences from one single source is bad, influences from many sources is good.
If you look at the same stuff over and over, you’ll get repetitive, dull, and mundane.
Thanks for taking the time to post this!
I was trained as a lettering artist at American Greetings. I learned brush lettering and pen work by mimicking my mentor and colleagues. After a year (A YEAR!) my personal/signature style began to emerge. Ten years later my work continues to evolve. I love that…! To anyone who dismisses practice practice practice misses the joy of self discovery. Fantastic post, Jessica. Thanks!
Great article! I’m sure many have seen this, but thought I’d post it in case you haven’t spent a good hour on this site in disgust: http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/
Just wanted to say thank you for all of your insightful posts. You are truly amazing at what you do, and I find it so great that you are willing to share your thoughts and experiences to help the rest of us. I have read a lot of your posts, but have yet to comment until now. I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion, and debating is healthy, but it’s very uncool how some people can be so rude over the Internet.
Thank you for all that you do, it’s greatly appreciated by the majority of us!
“If you wanted to become a great guitar player, you wouldn’t buy a fancy guitar and immediately start composing songs… you would pick up a song book, or look up some tablature music on the internet, and teach yourself how to play using other people’s music.”
Perfect analogy. Coming from this guitar playing designer
Don’t worry about the doom-sayers Jessica, just keep doing what you do best!!
I would like to add to the ‘art student at the gallery’. The mindframe of that student is quite different from that of the commercial artist.
The student is concerned mainly with learning. While copying, that student is analyzing and questioning the master’s motives, trying to form conclusions themselves. There is no outside pressure for that student to create anything of quality. This gives the student great freedom for exploration, most importantly of thought.
In contrast is the ‘commercial artist in a hurry’ state of mind — one that is either too lazy, or too rushed. In this case, it is very unlikely that any thought or questioning will occur when copying from a superior work. As opposed to the student, the commercial artist likely has a great deal of pressure to achieve a result of quality. This leaves little room to deviate from the “resolved” style from which they are copying.
The key difference is what is happening in the creator’s mind when they are copying from someone else’s work. Copying will likely be beneficial to the mind of the student, because their mind is active. Copying might be financially beneficial in the short term to the ‘commercial artist in a hurry’, but it does not bode well for the future of their mind (or their financial future, if it happens too much and word gets out).
Think before you copy, and if you have to do it think WHILE you copy.
Jessica: This is a great article written by someone who has clearly thought about this matter in depth. Thanks for posting it.
Hi Jessica,
I truly enjoyed your post and found it to be very inspirational in itself.
I saw a tweet of yours a couple of hours ago that said you needed to stop reading the mean-spirited comments to this blog post because they were ruining your day. And to that I would like to answer with a quote from the book Rework (by 37 signals) which I’m currently reading for the second time.
“Strong opinions aren’t free. You’ll turn some people off. They’ll accuse you of being arrogant and aloof. That’s life. For everyone who loves you, there will be others who hate you. If no one’s upset by what you’re saying, you’re probably not pushing hard enough.”
And with that I would like to encourage you to keep on writing these posts. Even though they might be controversial, zillions of people out there (like myself)learn and get inspired by them. Also, I find it very admirable that you always look for new ways and topics to “give back” to the illustration/design community as well as to anyone who wants to listen; which I’m sure most of you’re detractors are not willing to do.
Be strong + be positive!
I think Alicia’s comment quoting Ira Glass (see above) really hits the nail on the head. The issue of finding what works for you in a visual communicative situation stems from your taste. This is something that you either have or you don’t. It’s rarely learned. This taste level is what draws you to influence, and then eventually helps you pick and choose which parts of which influences make sense for a particular situation. By studying, practicing, experiencing, you are building a mental library of knowledge and skill practice to pull from on each project… but your taste is what is calling the shots of what to pull when and how much. This is what I believe it means to develop your proverbial “voice” in any visual trade, and if you’re having trouble on this journey, just breathe deeper into the spot that is giving you an issue (as we say in yoga).
I think this post is just an encouragement and suggestive how-to for the design community, in hopes that it could be a place full of more new ideas and unique contributions rather than replica after replica of popular style impersonations claiming to be original. For that, I appreciate this post. Thanks Jessica!
Jessica,
Haters are gonna hate, and trolls are gonna troll. I hope you’re letting the negative comments roll off your back. Most seem ill informed or inexperienced and, at the very least, ignorant of what you were trying to get across to them.
Reminds me of Frank Miller’s amazingly well educated and unprejudiced recent comments on Occupy Wall st, and Alan Moore’s retort. Sometimes, people just don’t get it. Persistence and patience like yours certainly can’t hurt though!
-S
I think some of the resistance you’re meeting is because the design world has become so close-knit (as a result of many of the same technological changes in our culture that you discuss), that it now wields an unprecedented amount of power over young designers. Case in point: Lilly, one of the earlier posters, who talks about how lucky she was to have had a boss recognize her imitation and help her grow out of it. Instead, it could have easily been the community of already-successful designers who now, with minimal effort, are able to blackball someone for a mistake many of them probably made at a time when their portfolios were not easily accessed by their heroes. Young designers get a lot less forgiveness and room to grow by the community that should be encouraging them.
It’s great that your response is to generally try to reach out and help them, to coach them through it. The way that you talk about the perilous consequences of putting things online, it seems as if you are fairly alone in responding with such positivity. But on the other end, you’re writing highly-publicized posts that pre-suppose the journey from imitation to inspiration is objective and should be the same for every young designer–an attitude that, in my opinion, feeds the design community’s tendencies to be somewhat inflexible and unforgiving.
As an educator and a designer who’s been around for a couple decades, I may have an interesting take on all this.
If one goes back far enough, they discover that when Swiss Design was all the rage, many schools taught designers to copy the style as closely as possible – because that’s what Swiss design is all about. Mathematic formula to make everything read well to many, many people.
And at my first school, this was how I was taught as a designer. Do what you’re told, use Univers or Helvetica (or ANYTHING by ITC), set it tight and you’re gold.
It wasn’t until I ended up in my second design school, I found this to be a bunch of horseshit. And then years later (when I started teaching history), I’ve decided to take all of this apart. And I now blame Herb Lubalin for a lot of it. Whether or not he had anything to do with it, I had teachers who memorized every issue of U&lc and passed the ‘rules’ on to me.
For many, graphic design was all about following the status quo. This thinking produces worker bees that fit into a corporate structure, so logo police are happy with designers who could ‘copy’ a corporate brand without screwing things up too much.
Hell, I made a lot of money in the 1990s by taking apart corporate systems and designing new stuff within them. Copying was the rule of the land. And the first time I saw this was really a problem was when one of my design instructors (at my second school) walked into class with CA magazine and said, ‘What a boring issue. Everything looks alike.’ That comment was an eye opener. Emigre magazine and then David Carson opened eyes even more.
Regarding education: There’s still a helluva lot of educators who teach that graphic design is about conformity. Good graphic design is following rules that have been around a long time, or even following trends. Problem solving? Yeah, but really. This will go away when one is working, right? Seen that at a lot of small shops with pushy clients.
‘There is no personality in graphic design,’ is a statement I was shocked to hear another educator say once. At a major, local design school, I interviewed for a teaching position and they told me (at the time) a big part of their curriculum is teaching students to copy whoever is trendy. Cause that’s what’ll get their students hired.
So unfortunately, this also means copying the innovators in our field – and yeah, you’re one of them. Is this right, no. Is this good, no. Does this lead to new innovators? No. And you know, after looking at other media, television, journalism and (even) architecture – all I can say is that I’m convinced there’s about 5 or 6 innovators in each field, everyone else doesn’t have any good ideas.
All I can say to students who copy is: you’re gonna get caught because people LOVE to rub this sort of thing in. So if you at least are ‘inspired,’ bring something of YOU to the project. Make it your own. This is what will set you apart from the rest. And it will keep you (and your clients) out of the courtroom.
It’s scary for most, but copying is what humans do for lack of a good idea. Unfortunately.
Jessica, this is a great post and thankfully it’s taken in the way it was intended by most commenters. It’s a shame that many have misinterpreted your points and some have even resorted to being downright mean and aggressive towards you.
The subject is something I know I can learn from and improve because of, and I think we all can.
Thank you for the excellent words – as another poster commented, you really do have a way with them (as well as with letters)!
I’m on team Jessica. To borrow the musician analogy, you can’t sing with a borrowed voice, you can only lipsync. I find I learn the most when I don’t take the easy way out – if I find myself doing something too close to what I have seen before, or even to something I have already done before, I stop and think, how can I do this different? I definitely don’t hit all the right notes the first few times I try to push beyond what I am comfortable with, but at least I’m trying to sing my own song. To quote William Blake: “Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.”
Side note: Jessica does not deserve any personal attacks. Good writing like this pushes the whole creative community forward and I am constantly astonished by the originality of her work.
This is an excellent post and really great advice.
It’s funny, because when I was starting out, I was so adamant about creating original work that I resisted borrowing ideas from the work of other, more experienced designers. In hindsight, I now realise how naive this was. How did I think I could compete with the masters when it comes to concept and execution? Like you say, it’s fine to “emulate the greats and learn from them” in your personal projects, and you’ll eventually develop your own style.
These days, I have no reservations about borrowing ideas and appropriating them into my own work. And honestly, I think I’m becoming a better designer as a result.
Hi Jessica,
Thanks for this article. The points you make here are so true. I wish more people would realise this. I learned the hard way… When I finished college I began trying to develop my own style as an illustrator, and found myself imitating other artists too much, and gained criticism instead of praise. It was only after I made a conscious decision to break away from that, and broaden my influences that I eventually started developing my style. It’s easy to copy another artist’s style, but its so much more gratifying to create your own style. As any artist does, I draw influences from current and past artists… but I want people to recognize my work as being my own and not someone else’s.
If you imitate another artist’s style, it is likely that you wont be able to execute it as well as them, and even if you do, you’ll be criticized and attacked by the online community, and lose credibility with your peers and potential clients.
I am a big fan of your work. I appreciate this post and your suggestions. However, I find the way you react to people who disagree with your post (you call em haters) strange. You are publishing something on the internet and you are opening the comments… There will be people who disagree with you and people who are jealous. It’s frustrating but, that’s life. Just saying.
I love the post, Jessica.getting through art school with your integrity intact can be a big challenge. An arguably bigger challenge is keeping it intact when after round 2 of sketches, the art director sends you a folder titled “reference” full of samples from one or two popular illustrators, and says “we really want it to look/feel/smell/taste” like this.
That’s when you realize who turned down the job before you.
It’s clear that the polarization seen here is due to the clash of the inexperienced and the seasoned experts.
Jessica, you present the hot topic in such a diplomatic way, although I’m sure you had to edit down from a far more rant-y article. You’ve acknowledged the subjective areas and morality issues, and we’re left with a point that I find impossible to argue with.
My favorite teachers in life gave it to me straight and did not coddle. Thank you for doing the same for others who are just starting out.
As always a constructive essay that is fun to read and thought provoking! XO
I see the point you’re trying to make and the overall intention with your writing this, but I have to say that I respectfully disagree with a large portion of it. I’ll take a moment to step aside with my large megaphone and announce:
DISCLAIMER: I am not a proponent of blatantly ripping someone’s work off and trying to pass it as your own, but history has shown a large degree of what some might call blatant rip-offs and others might call re-framing the work in a different light is rather open to interpretation. Everything is a remix. (http://everythingisaremix.info)
You’re heart is in the right place Jessica, but I feel like you’ve not done a fair job with being open-minded to what art has been historically, what it still is, and what the internet has brought us.
However, it’s great that you’ve brought the topic up at least so we can all hash out our different view points and a proper dialogue can begin in the community.
That said, there are a few key points I would like to respond to specifically.
First, you just said yourself that:
..”it’s to have ENOUGH influences that what you are doing almost accidentally becomes original”
That contradicts what you’ve said before about copying people. Copying one person or one hundred is still the same. If I copy the Mona Lisa and claim it as my own that’s pretty blatant. But if I take 40secs of 100 songs and chain them together I’ve still copied 40secs from 100 songs. That also seems pretty blatant. Now, whether that’s legal or not is one thing, and whether it’s art or design or even ethical is another. It doesn’t take much research to see that Picasso stole complete compositions from other artists and just changed the colors or brush strokes.
So, I’m not going to say it’s right or wrong, but what I am going to say that you’ve presented a double-standard. If copying one person is wrong, then by copying 100, it’s still wrong by your argument. And, in fact, it seems like you’ve said, “Copy more people to hide your copying better.” Which, I’ll assume isn’t your intention, but by your argument it could be taken that way.
Secondly, you’ve laid out some boundaries with what is ok and what isn’t, but you’ve stated yourself that you aren’t going to show any examples because the area is rather “fuzzy” and it’s a “know it when I see” scenario.
It’s unfair and rather presumptious to first state the dos and donts and then not provide any clear examples. If you can’t provide examples then your argument has no evidence to back it up, making it moot.
The whole “I know it when I see it” argument is rather flawed. When who sees it? You? Me? The Courts? No two people see the same thing. And that is why we still have this discussion going, because what you call a blatant rip, others call a reinterpretation, and vice versa.
I’m afraid you’ve tried to convince yourself and others that there is black (rips/derivatives) and there is white (true originals). But in stating “I’ll know it when I see it”, is only saying that the large portion is grey. In fact there might be a fair amount of black, a HUGE amount of grey, but only a minute sliver of white. There’s nothing new and truly original under the sun.
What is legal and what is right is not always the same thing. The law is not always on the side of the creative. (SOPA anyone?) Should we all be aware of copyright law as creatives? Yes. Is it a broken, mangled, archaic mess, that needs fixing? Double Yes. As critical thinkers we need to always be aware that there is the law as it exists, but that doesn’t have to shape our viewpoints of what art, or derivatives, or creativity in general is. We need to have our own viewpoint. And we need to find a way to get the two to work together, or change the law to meet the broader viewpoint.
We as artists, designers, thinkers, and creators are only continuing what those before us have done. Original is a fantasy we’ve created to boost our egos and put labels on what “true” art and design is.
I’ll give you an example. You’re view point on inspiration vs. imitation doesn’t so much take into consideration collage-based art and design. Legos, their design and color scheme are owned by the The Lego Group. They even state, “the Brick and Knob configurations” are owned by them. By your argument Lego owns every lego brick’s look and feel, which would lead me to believe that anything I build with them is the property of lego, and if I claim the castle I built or the large sculpture I made out of legos is indeed my work of art, then that means I’m violating copyright law and ripping off lego?
Beyond that, believe it or not, but sometimes two separate people have the same idea without any contact with one another. The famous American comic strip “Dennis the Menace” is a good example of this. Dennis the Menace, by Hank Ketcham first released his comic in March of 1951. What you might not know, is that in that same March of that same year, D. C. Thomson & Co., Dundee published a comic strip in the UK with the exact same name (drawn by David Law). Neither knew of one another, there was no internet back then. It would have been almost impossible for one of them to be poaching off the other. After they learned of each others existence there wasn’t a lengthy legal battle, or finger pointing. What happened was they just allowed each other to keep working independently. Later the UK version changed its name to “Dennis the Menace and Gnasher” and then later to just “Dennis and Gnasher” for marketing purposes.
The second large point I want to contest is that it is wrong for students and those learning to put everything up on the internet for the world to see. I think that’s where you are by far the most damaging to your readers. If places like Dribbble and Forrst have shown nothing else, it’s that showing the work-in-progress shots instead of just the final piece helps gain feedback from the community and helps you produce a better piece. It also helps others learning see how someone else got to where they are.
Your argument here seems to be discounting the benefit of seeing the progress of a work, rather than just seeing the final polished piece. It’s been proven time and again that showing progress is beneficial to yourself and others. Hiring Managers have even cited that they prefer to see the process of the creatives they hire. They want to see the roughs, and the prelimniaries lead up to the final piece.
The classroom setting has moved outside the classroom, it exists on the web abroad, where everyone can be both teachers and students helping each other grow by sharing our work (finished, in progress, and rough) with one another.
The notion that we should hide away everything we do until we get to the final finished piece years down the road in our career is only furthering the condition of creative isolation that plagues the creative workplace these days. If you aren’t comfortable sharing your roughs, and feeling vulnerable then you aren’t going to be able to effectively work in a studio environment. The Art director doesn’t have time to wait for you to perfect your piece to look at it. Your argument only furthers the creative isolation by creating a sense of fear and possible shame towards one’s rough in-progress pieces.
In Design, especially, the process is everything. It is also developing a psychological pattern among freelancers that can be damaging to a client relationship. If you aren’t showing your Client progress, and roughs, getting input, and discussing them, then you’re setting yourself up for a dangerous situation. Weeks later when you resurface and send your client the final mockup, and its the first thing they’ve seen from you on this project, unless you are on lucky dude (or dudette), then it isn’t going to bode well for you.
You’ve raised a lot of valid points and arguments, but I just feel that there are several areas inside your points that either are clearly phrased, or clearly thought out well enough.
There are no defined lines. We have to do the best we can do. And we have to keep discussing this. That’s the best way to move the debate forward. I would just summarize by saying:
- We need to be honest about what we’ve done. We shouldn’t try to hide what we “borrow” from others. We should do it and be proud. But we should also understand the consequences of how we borrow, to what extent, and why.
- We need to use common sense.
- We need to talk with another, we need to show our work, and share, and discuss what we are doing. The more we show the more others can tell us when we’ve crossed the line.
- We need to push for a renaissance in creative copyright and “originality” and stop clinging to archaic, broken laws and legal statutes.
- We need to stop telling ourselves that there is such as thing as true originality.
- We need to treat each other with respect creatively. (Something I think you pointed out well in your comment on dealing with people initially who have ripped your work)
- We need to treat each other with respect and not jump to conclusions. If a designer has work that looks like it is a rip-off of someone else, it doesn’t mean it is.
Thank you Steven Lovell for writing an insightful response rather than just fanboy praise. It seems like whenever someone disagrees with a blog post, people start crying “TROLL” and I’m sick of it.
Jessica seems like her heart is in the right place and she is trying to protect her work. But I believe there was a time when she would have been flattered to discover work that was inspired by her own. Like someone else said above, the greatest artists and designers are always evolving and by the time others are copying them, they’ve moved on.
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
Stephen, Loved your take on this and I agree with all of your points!
Thank you so much.
This review is basically what I dreamt to read for years.
I’ll be 18 in a few hours, and thanks to you, I feel like I just received my first birthday present in advance: tonight, I definitely know I was doing the right thing when, as some of my friends bragged that “it [was] okay to copy, anyways nobody will ever like original works”, I continued, struggled, to try to find my very own way, and as you said, aiming for diversity toward inspiration sources!
I’m actually preparing the Arts-Déco of Paris. I knew it would be hard, and still, I’ve never worked that much in my whole life.
But now…I’m just so happy. It’s like Life just told me: “Kid, you were right to think like that. Someone just put words on that feeling you’ve had for years concerning creation. Now go and become something.”
I will fight my way through this and I hope to meet you one day, in order to thank you again, in person.
Paula’s correct you need to get over your ego. You act like your the first person who digitally lettered anything.
Carlos, your website doesn’t even exist. Calm down.
Some of these commenters are pretty funny – although I don’t think they mean to be. I like the one that said somehow your “style” is Adobe Illustrator, that you’re the first big illustrator using it, and work that looks like yours is the only thing Illustrator can do. Good stuff.
Thanks for this blog post. As usual, you have an elegant way of simply presenting the common sense ideas that can be deceptively hard to parse out.
You said that copying style is unethical. Would you be willing to explain why you think it is unethical?
Is John Williams acting unethically when he copies the compositional style of Wagner for instance? I know that Wagner is long dead – do you think that makes or doesn’t make a difference either?
I’d be interested to hear your opinions about these things.
Read through my comments to other posters, it’s not that all copying is unethical, copying helps you learn and if we don’t learn from the past we can’t grow completely as artists. An example of when copying becomes unethical is when you are borrowing directly from one or two contemporaries rather than letting yourself be influenced by your contemporaries, history, the world around you, books, everything. John Williams didn’t run the risk of ruining Wagner’s career by borrowing from him (and others) for influence, diluting Wagner’s ability to be hired, possibly charging way less than Wagner, etc., however if Williams had literally played a Wagner composition and said it was his own original work, that would be unethical.
Hoefler nails it. Hunter S. Thompson used to sit and type out The Great Gatsby to learn the rhythm of the prose. He didn’t sell it, didn’t claim to author it, nor did he ever market himself as “the new Fitzgerald.” He did, however, train his creative muscles to be able to rely on them as he found his own voice.
Jessica, I want to say that firstly I love your work and have so much respect for your many endeavors in the design field outside of producing visual images, including your speaking engagements, may podcasts, and video-interviews, and side projects. I think it’s really cool that you are such an active member of the design community. However I feel as though you are claiming you have a monopoly on swashy vector lettering. And using your power and connections to allow you to actually enforce it. This seems like it is lacking in perspective and humility. The work you do is beautiful. But a style is not something one can own, only use. I really liked your previous post regarding influence vs. imitation. I feel like that was right on target and I appreciate your insight. But this one seems a bit off.
Hi Alicia, Thanks for the very kind words but I think you may have misread the post. No where do I claim that I am the sole person that does and should be allowed to do swashy lettering. In fact I state that once you are familiar with script letterers you can look at 10 different ones and spot incredible differences that make you step back and think “these people are so different from each other!”. The post was meant to be encouraging and educational, not angry and self-aggrandizing.
I’m amazed at how many commenters seem to think this post is Jessica saying “stop copying my work.” It’s too bad so many have taken her thoughtful and insightful advice and twisted it into such a narrow and nasty frame. I hope she doesn’t let these skewed perspectives discourage her from continuing to open up the discussion between designers on all levels. I appreciate how she finds the time and effort to tackle so many enigmatic and squirmy subjects in the design world with the kindness and thoughtful insight she articulates.
Thank you for taking the time to write this, Jessica. I wish, as Ross wrote above, that people would take the time to read slowly and carefully through the original post. Far too many comments here are from readers who have completely missed the point, as well as the point of view.
“John Williams didn’t run the risk of ruining Wagner’s career by borrowing from him (and others) for influence, diluting Wagner’s ability to be hired, possibly charging way less than Wagner, etc.,”
This is what it all really comes down to: The fear that if someone can copy your style and sell it as their own then you might lose potential work.
Based on what Jessica said at Design Thinkers she has worked very hard (13,000 hours +) to get to where she is and like anyone doesn’t want to see that eroded by people ripping her off. The sad thing is, as hard as it was to get to where she is, it is probably harder to stay there.
I heard Marian Bantjes at a conference tell the story of refusing to do work for Coca Cola because she’d already “been there, done that.” Maybe if people come calling for your style, it’s time to evolve and leave your style for the copycats.
Im frankly thinking the same thing. The focus should never rest on whose stealing your work especially if your putting 10,000+ hours in. Remain focused on the work, the clients know who to go to for this style as does the design community. Ive seen a few occasions where Jessica had gone off about people stealing her work. If its a rip, the design community will see it and know where that contemporary influence came from. This post is more about artist copying you and potentially diminishing your fees and clients. Thats never cool, but just say that. Dont make this an issue where it seems as if this a plague running through the creative community. If its good, people are going to rip you off, theres no need to spread awareness. We see them. As for the fanboys, you guys really need to take a breather.
As a student currently studying graphic design I really appreciate this article. Thank you!
Great post. Two nitpicky points:
(These all assume US law. If you’re in another country or doing business internationally, the rules may change.)
Releasing an album entirely consisting of covers from OK Computer turns out to be legal in the US. You’ll have to pay a federally regulated licensing fee, but Radiohead has no option to stop you beyond demanding payment. It’s a key way
Addressing something Hoefler raised, the United States has a long history of font knockoffs. A specific font file is protected by copyright (and thus distributing a copy, modified or not, without permission is illegal) on the grounds that it is software, but the look of the font is not. Anyone can legally study a font as closely as they like and create and sell or otherwise distribute a knockoff. The name may be protected by trademark, so a knockoff typically has a derivative name. (Scott as a knockoff of Stop was the first one I encountered back in the 90s.) There is some uncertain legal ground that design patents may provide protection, but it’s an area of active litigation.
Thanks again Jessica for your words, these things must be brought to light in times where it is far too easy to “be inspired” by so many talented pens around the world, and even easier to publish them as your own without knowing where every curve, straight line or swash comes from.
Practice, practice, practice is definitely the key, and finding your own voice is something every designer should one day look back on and proudly smile about.
People shouldn’t try too hard at finding their own voice… your voice is something that finds you while you are busy practicing. At least that is my take on it.
Muchas Gracias.
Q
So many times, while researching inspiration for a project, I come across another designers work and think, ‘oh my god, that’s perfect for this project, now what do I do!’
But sure enough, every time I delve into the project, I end up with something unique, albeit inspired. That’s because if you truly invest yourself into the unique challenges of the task at hand, you will find an original solution.
I read most of the comments. It’s a very good discussion. And I thank Ms. Hische for starting it. I hope she is not too much discouraged by some of the unkind negativity or the merely dissenting voices. I hope that, through the clashing of contrasting opinions, deeper truths will be revealed. I know I am learning more with each new comment.
As a new designer, I am still a little unsure how I feel about all of this. I think I can see some of the grey areas people talk about. I guess I feel a little trapped. Let me say outright: I recognize theft is wrong and dishonest, and I ethically try to avoid it all costs.
However, I also remember in my classes—just two years ago—that my instructors all had us do assignments in the style of famous designers and illustrators. Of course, if we matched them well, we got praise from our peers and good grades from the instructors. If we had a creative impulse and tried something different, we got marked down for not doing the assignment properly, even if we demonstrated the right technical skills in getting it done (i.e. use of design principles, basic software knowledge, printed correctly, etc.)
Later, at the end of our program, our instructor told us to include these stylistic reproduction assignments in our portfolios because they inevitably looked the most impressive. As a student, I remember being very impressed by a fellow student’s recreation of a George Lois Esquire Magazine cover.
Having briefly worked in higher education (in another field), I know that it would be much, much easier to objectively evaluate a stylistic reproduction than to subjectively try to interpret what a student has accomplished or demonstrated in a unique assignment.
Also, when 18 of your fellow students are doing the reproduction assignment and you ask to try something else, you are often discouraged or told “no.” I assume it is because instructors are too overworked to grade the assignments of 20 or more students doing their own thing.
My instructors, nice enough people, seemed to pay lip service to the idea that copying and formulas are bad, but then they unconsciously encourage and praise a kind of uniformity and imitation.
My Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign skills—skills that I was told the “unsophisticated” employers in my area want—were largely learned by doing reproduction assignments like these.
And now, I feel I am asked to try and find my own “voice” in an ever-expanding sea of “voices,” voices which, at some point, all seem to blend together anyway.
I wonder, like others have wondered above, if originality is even possible. The waters appear to be more than a bit muddy, especially when you have professional examples like Shepard Fairey, a hero to some of my colleagues.
Ultimately I feel caught: being asked to have a unique voice when the instruction or feedback for unique and creative work was absolutely missing. There are no mentors and an overabundance of conflicting opinions. It’s challenging to say the least.
This article has already been written.
http://www.mikeperrystudio.com/detailed/248
Hey Jessica! You are such a wonderful resource for young designers, not only because you are amazingly talented but because you also write so eloquently and yet familiarly about your own work and all topics of design. Have you ever thought about teaching? As a recent graduate myself trying to developed my own design voice, I can see how easy it is to over-rely on established designers and take inspiration a tad bit too far. You addressed this issue very respectfully and with a sense of humor, as you do with all your design posts. Thank you so much for yet another wonderful piece of writing!
Often, when I hear of a great talent being copied… I can’t help but think that everyone should sell more goodies to the cheating masses. Posers make a great potential customer base. Rather then get annoyed at the antics of a new BFA sell them portfolio templates, business card kits, an incredible monogramed folio to take on interviews.
If you never ask for money from heisters they get ideas. Why do artists think they can only sell to major brands?
I agree with Jessica that artists/illustrators/designers will benefit immensely from exposure to different fields and areas. Having tunnel vision will ensure more derivative work (whether consciously or not), because if that’s all you’re exposed to, then that’s what you’re doomed to repeat.
Jessica,
Thank you so much for this post! I agree every whit. I feel like this problem is rampant in practically every industry.
Being a graphic designer of 8 years and still considering myself a newb, I sure hope I don’t ever copycat my inspiration. Sometimes you get too close to a design that you don’t see it until afterward.
I sure hope you know you are well respected in the design industry. Not just for your remarkable skill & talent, but for posts like these. Your advocacy for ethical design work is inspiring. You’re fantastic.
Jessica: Thanks so much for a well-articulated point-of-view.
One of my students forwarded me this piece and I’m thrilled to see another put into the blogosphere many of the lessons we go over in a classroom setting — even your use of the musician archetype is one we’ve used as an analogy in class (as well as an architect and chef: when training you visit /more/ buildings and eat at more restaurants — not less… in the hopes to broaden your base). On the history side, we also lambaste modern constructivists for pimping $2K handbags for Saks, but that’s another discussion… It’s almost like you were sitting in the front row and taking notes, but I know this wisdom goes way back.
One of the key points that seems to have been overlooked by some of the commenters is the idea of /synthesizing/ the inspiration one receives… To Stephen’s lengthy post above, copying a hundred people is still copying, but looking at a hundred pieces and synthesizing them in to a unique take is what separates imitation from inspiration.
… and by keeping that base broad (and diverse) /and/ knowing the De Stijl crew from the Bauhaus /and/ by knowing Paula Scher from Paul Sahre /and/ knowing the letter-of-the-law from the spirit-of-the-law one can begin to develop a more personal, more unique visual point-of-view.
Bravo. This is my first visit to your site — I’m looking forward to seeing more.
thank you for such an honest and thoughtful post!
You can’t fill the Madison Square Garden if you’re a cover band. You just can’t.
I’m late to this discussion, but first, much thanks to Jessica for the post, it is incredibly well worded, constructive and extremely kind. I think Jessica is the most astonishing young designer out there not only for her work but for these things that she writes which are always articulate, intelligent and above all helpful.
I first met Jessica several years ago in New York when she introduced herself to me as an admirer of my work. She gave me a card which was good enough that I checked her out and I was very impressed. While I could see that we shared similar interests I have never felt that her work was in any way derivative of mine; in fact I could barely see what I considered an influence. What I did see was quality, and I’m always happy to refer clients to her (except that she is now busier than I am). Over time and the internet we became friends; this would never have been so if I thought she was “copying”.
Jessica makes a great point about copying which I hadn’t considered and that is “Do it, just keep it to yourself.” and implied is if you think it’s a really brilliant copy that shows your skill, show it *beside the original* and articulate what you learned from it. Sounds like a good exercise to me.
Re: having more than one or two influences; I add to that look outside the design field. The broader your base of influences the more likely you are to get interesting ideas. Architecture, photography, sculpture, dance, film, science … etc. I’m occasionally envious and admiring of things I see in my own field, but I’m ONLY inspired by things that are not related to design.
Aside from a potential learning exercise I have never understood the desire to copy or emulate someone else’s work. I just seems so unbelievably BORING. And n.b. I *always* turn down job requests that include images of other people’s work for “inspiration”—this is NOT inspiration; in fact, to me it’s exactly the opposite. In these cases I tell them to contact the person whose work they sent. Hell, half the time I turn down work that includes images of my own work for reference … like I say: BORING.
As for what is copying: nowhere does Jessica say or imply that she has any ownership over any kind of style (let alone specifics: swashes, Illustrator, etc.). You use swashes, scripts, antique type styles, etc.? Big deal, we don’t care. But when you’ve made something of your own, you know it when you see it again. It means it’s been copied as a piece, not as a style, usually “tweeked”, and usually really badly. Generally speaking I am very unconcerned about the “style” thing: people all the time are writing to me to say “so-and-so ripped you off” and I look and say “No they didn’t.” On the other hand, the very few times I see something and say “Holy shit, they really did!” I just call my lawyer.
While I don’t disagree with any of these points on their own I’m not sure that imitation is something that deserves so much time and thought from serious creatives. Why spend time seeking out, contacting and defaming those who copy you when you can use that same time to push your work to a new level and render their copy of your old stuff irrelevant? While starters should be working to find their own style, those who have already found theirs should be working just as diligently to perfect theirs and take it to new, unexplored places. It seems like a waste of time for someone as talented as Jessica for example, to seek out copy cats and write essays as to why they are out of line. Everyone but them knows they’re out of line and they don’t want to hear it. Let them work in your shadow while you bask in the sun. Eventually, they will want to be where you are and they’ll realize that you don’t get there by being a second rate version of somebody else. Just my opinion.
I want to reply to Steven Lovell:
There is a huge difference between inlfuence and copying. With *influence* you see people’s work, you buy a book, you bookmark a site in a collection of other sites, you say “I love this … and this … and this … and her … and him … etc.” The more you look at their work the more what’s in it creeps into yours, ergo the broader the range of influence the more diluted that influence is in your own thing.
*Copying* means sitting down with a piece and looking at it, and your work, and it, and yours and tracing, redrawing, emulating or incorporating all or some of the elements of that piece into your own.
Jessica says “Copy on your own for educational purposes, but don’t show the work you copy as part of your portfolio.” and “Have many influences.” Two completely different statements.
>When who sees it? You? Me? The Courts? No two people see the same thing.
1. When the author [Jessica] sees it, 2. When her colleagues see what she sees 3. When the lawyer sees it.
And yes, the large portion is grey. Such is life.
>There’s nothing new and truly original under the sun.
Yes there is.
>Original is a fantasy we’ve created to boost our egos and put labels on what “true” art and design is.
No original is a reality that comes from real, hard work put in over time.
Re: Lego: Lego is a building block. You can make original things out of Lego, just as you can out of clay or crayons or any other existing material (though whether legally bound or not, you’d be foolish not to say “Made with Lego”. What you can’t do is “create” a system of building blocks in bright hard plastic with a round interlocking system, and say “Hey, look at this system of building blocks I invented!” Nor can you say that about dull, grey speckled blocks that look like Lego, or wooden blocks that look and function like Lego (well, you might be able to as a piece of “Art” but if you tried to sell it as a system you’d get your ass sued). You could say “Lego’s system of interlocking is dumb, I’m going to make a completely different interlocking brick.” by which you were influenced by the stupidity of Lego and made something that was completely new, albeit an interlocking brick.
>sometimes two separate people have the same idea without any contact with one another
Yes. All the time. I make a poster with a carrot in a circle and some guy in Istanbul does the same: they will look quite different aesthetically, but they are still carrots in a circle. You make a chair out of dryer lint, and someone in Amsterdam makes a table out of dryer lint. Those are “ideas”. It happens all the time. Not what Jessica is talking about.
>it’s that showing the work-in-progress shots instead of just the final piece helps gain feedback from the community and helps you produce a better piece
I was once tipped to someone showing a “work in progress” on drawger or dribble or wherever, that was an exact (“tweaked!”) copy of my work for something else. This would have been fine if he’d said “Here’s Marian’s piece and here’s how I’m trying to make a copy of it, for fun” and the feedback had been “Your curves are a bit wrong; notice how in Marian’s the loops are like this, but in yours …” However, I was not mentioned and his “in progress” commentary was “This is so Rad!” or whatever bullshit those people spout. (See how much nicer Jessica is than me?)
So I’m with Jessica: if you want to show your copied work in any way, show it as an attempted copy to prove the efficacy of your illustrator skills or powers of observation of detail.
>If you aren’t comfortable sharing your roughs
Totally different topic. And your following paragraphs have absolutely nothing to do with Jessica’s post, but they are correct.
@marian bantjes
You’ve provided your counter-points well, and I thank you for keeping intellectual discussion alive rather than just saying “I Disagree!”. I do think either I didn’t get my point across adequately or you misunderstood what I was trying to get across.
For instance, the lego example was meant as a metaphor for showing how one could take pieces owned by someone else and create something their own, but by Jessica’s definition of copying it left things a little hazy about whether that was right or not. She also created a double-standard herself by saying (accidentally or otherwise) that it wasn’t ok to copy one or two people, but fine to do it with tons of people mixed together. That’s a little misleading. But your counter-metaphor is a valid one, just a little off the point I was attempting to make.
>>There’s nothing new and truly original under the sun.
This has been proven to be true time and again. You’re fooling yourself if you think otherwise. Everything we do is a remix of something else. As social creatures we borrow to the extent that eventually we’ve borrowed and collected enough things and mashed them together in a complicated enough way that it has the illusion of being truly original, but it really isn’t. A calculator is a more advanced abacus, and a computer is a just a mashup of a typewriter and a calculator with an every growing list of additional features which we have termed applications. Each thing is an evolution of another thing, and borrows heavily from its predecessor. I would at least urge you to simmer on if something can trully be original from a philosophical stand-point and at least try to have a more open-mind about that possibilty
I did, however try to point out that blantant, intentional item for item copying in a malicious way was not something I was approving.
>It happens all the time. Not what Jessica is talking about.
Overall, what I was trying to say is that copying can be very grey and very subjective, and sometimes it happens by accident (without any prior knowledge) and you shouldn’t jump to conclusions right away. Jessica made a point to mention people not getting hired because they thought a hire was ripping a friend. What if he wasn’t?
I didn’t feel she gave the topic of “inspiration vs. imitation” an open enough viewpoint and seemed rather jaded by her own experience with her work getting copied, which might in turn perpetuate so many of the copying stigmas we have as a creative community. I also have issue with making an argument, especially one on a topic such as this and not providing clear examples. If you can’t then don’t be so clear-cut in your argument.
>I was once tipped to someone showing a “work in progress” on drawger or dribble or wherever
I’m sorry someone lifted your work without credit. But like I said in my closing, if we are going to copy work we have to be honest about it. He obviously wasn’t. That is something I’m not ok with. So I completely agree with you here.
>If you aren’t comfortable sharing your roughs
>>Totally different topic. And your following paragraphs have absolutely nothing to do with Jessica’s post, but they are correct.
I thought different. It seemed she stressed a lot of hiding your rough stuff and only showing your final work after you’ve gotten to a point where you can’t see that your work is a derivative of someone else’s, and I feel like that’s urging people to hide their work, which I don’t agree with at all. As long as they are honest about where the imitation or inspiration is coming from I thing we need to share more creatively.
You are of course within your right to disagree with me.
And let me say that I’m not against Jessica, I think she’s made some valid points, but the way in which she’s constructed and approached her argument is a little less open-minded than I would liked to have seen.
I love seeing these types of discussions.
The reality is, the original artist is the only person who can truly judge if their work has been infringed upon or plagiarized. And the only safeguard against plagiarism is to write a Cease & Desist letter to the plagiarizer – which these days is highly unsuccessful if you’re not a multi-million dollar corporation.
In the end, I think the better the original artwork is and the more successful the original artist is at promoting their work, a savvy audience will usually be able to trace the original artwork back to it’s original creator.
If you ever think you have created something truly original… you merely betray your ignorance to the rich history of life on Earth.
I am late to this conversation, but I wanted to chime in. For the youngins reading this, it is a fair warning. It is obviously never worth it short cut your own process by stealing the essence of another’s hard work. The value of an original work or style goes far beyond the specific elements and techniques. The process of studying and amassing influences, the hard slog of learning the context that you as an artist are operating in (both in history and within your contemporary community), that is what you are stealing. If you steal, the internet will find you, because the internet is good but just. I can haz justiz!
That said, I would encourage all designers and artists to publish as much as you can. Get your work out there. Do not edit. Organize. Present work in appropriate contexts, but present a sh** load of it. All of that rip off practice work is appropriate if it is clearly presented as such. Keep a place for a polished, edited portfolio. Have a blog for thoughtful, crafted writing. But also keep a junk drawer of progress and share as much as you can. It is humbling to publish your unfinished work. It is encouraging for others to see you struggle as they do. The support of the community online is a beautiful thing. You will have plenty of NDAs preventing you from posting everything you do, so share what you can. We all benefit.
You only win by doing great work and lots of it. You will be ripped off. Something you did might show up on a t-shirt in Bulgaria, but the benefit of sharing outweighs the risks.
Thanks for the post Jessica!
@Jessica, *facepalm* at the discussion you started. Lol!
Sokay, don’t worry about it. It’s a never ending-discussion. It’s good you brought it up. People will have opinions. I just made peace with anyone directly copying or being “influenced” by my work. It’s the cost of sharing your stuff with the world, in my humble opinion.
“Two camels in a tiny car.”– Yea, I had to throw my troll in there somewhere. Hear that Ray William Johnson? I’m ripping you off!
What an excellent piece. Thank you for sharing your thought-provoking thoughts on the subject. While not in the same industry as you, creative work that is shared online is ripe for the copying, so we in the crafting realm experience this daily. I’ll send my blog readers here for a read because your eloquence far surpasses anything I could muster. Plus you have way more experience and knowledge here. I can simply say: right on sister.
While cruising around I found your Should I Work for Free chart. Brilliant. It will become a valued reference!
warning: I used a Metallica and Cake analogy in the same post
I think there is a fine line between inspiration and plagiarism .. There are genres of music, art, literature and film because there are similarities between the work, however if some work treads “too close” to another specific piece of work it might be classified as plagiarized. The question is what is “too close”? .. and that is a very subjective question.
If Metallica came out with an album in the 1952 and then another band released a heavy metal album in 1953 .. you would say they plagiarized Metallica. However, if a band came out with a Metal album today .. you would just say it was a metal album. This is because a lot of bands have contributed to the genre and one band can not take ownership of it.
We do not live in a vacuum .. we are social creatures and absorb information constantly .. conscious and subconsciously. We rearrange, words, pictures and sounds to communicate ideas and feeling. We are creatures that elaborate more than create. We build on existing knowledge. Think about almost any product today and what had to happen before that product could exist today. We are also logical creatures and eventually will come to a lot of the same conclusions given the same information a+b=c
With that being said how does someone find “their voice”? I agree with Jessica about having a lot of influences and not just modern day influences. This can be like baking a cake … the mixture of your influences, your experiences, your background, your interests, etc will make it almost impossible not to have your own voice .. it just takes time to discover what that is. I think one way to achieve this is to create tons of work. The more you create the more you will get to know yourself, your world, your means of expressions, etc …
It seems like many of these negative responses are motivated more by jealousy and/or envy of Jessica’s position within the design community. I think the heart of what she’s trying to argue is pretty straightforward, and hard to disagree with: if you desire Quality, here are some steps you can take to arrive at a unique, honest, meaningful, and non-derivative design solution or career.
I see this as being analogous to growing and nurturing a plant. If you are aware of the many different factors and processes that contribute towards the growth of that plant, you will have a greater chance of successfully nurturing that plant.
She is simply suggesting steps (that have worked for her) to grow a healthy and robust career as a designer. Frankly, the world is filled with uninspired, plagiaristic, and useless “designs”. Don’t vilify her for attempting to address this.
I’m glad you wrote this, Jessica.
To those who are offended and upset and contrary: there is absolutely nothing offensive here—at least above the comments. It is a challenge to make better work. It is geared to, and kindly worded for, young image-makers. Jessica actually has gone out of her way to make this a positive message, rather than what many have and I would be more tempted to do
I find this post motivating for myself and hope that when folks understand no one is telling them how to live but giving tips for processing inspiration and nurturing a budding career that we’ll all have benefited from this piece.
I believe we can push each other and keep it positive and civil.
Jessica I am so glad you wrote this article. I’m going through a situation right now where after several months of really hard work I released my web site only to have a fellow student immediately (we’re talking within a couple hours of me going live) copy several elements of it in his own redesign. Despite confronting him, he doesn’t seem to realize what he’s doing and is in denial that he’s doing anything wrong. I was able to show him your article and even highlight the point about if you take inspiration from one or two people it’s going to look like you’re copying them.
Thank you for this article.
Good article. Fantastic discussion.
I love the commenter who in one sentence thanks another for giving more than agreeable “fanboy” praise, and in the very next sentence says he’s sick of those who disagree being unfairly labeled “trolls”.
Gotta love the interwebs.
Two quotes come to mind when I read this discussion.
The first is, quite simply put: “To learn is to imitate, to know is to forget.” Inexperienced designers usually imitate, until they’ve gained experience, and no longer have to do so.
Of course, if the copied work is being claimed as their own, I think of the quote from Chinatown: “I don’t get tough with people Mr. Geddes, my lawyer does.”
@James Thanks for pointing out my own naive contradiction. Definitely put my foot in my mouth.
Clearly I didn’t articulate myself as well as I should or could have. I was just happy to see someone actually counter argue some of points made in the article. Her fame and success doesn’t make everything she writes metaphysically true. But I’m thanfulthat she put the article out there and started the conversation!
Good points, especially #4.
@Trevor
Essentially everything posted on this board is subjective opinion anyway, and I don’t agree with bringing Jessica’s fame or success into the conversation at all as it has nothing to do with it apart from the fact it seems to be the driving factor behind some of these misinformed posts.
Some of these people should probably read through the article a few times before commenting to ensure they understand the points that have been made. Seems a lot has been misinterpreted, which has then been explained by Jessica but then continues to be misinterpreted until the conversation transforms from a debate into a load of typical internet dribble-shit.
Don’t get me wrong though, I love to see debate and opinion on an intelligent design article, but rehashing the same points over and over and refusing to read and understand both an article and it’s author’s responses to your questions and/or accusations quickly kills a conversation… in my opinion.
I’m sympathetic to the Hische–Hoefler thesis. But over time, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to justify holding others to a standard of behavior higher than the basic benchmark of what the law requires.
It’s not because I think the law has all the answers. On the contrary, US intellectual-property law is often convoluted. But even with its grey areas, the law is still an objective baseline: it exists, and it applies to everyone equally.
In the design world, standards of behavior that go beyond the law — i.e., ethics — are not objective. They are also voluntary. I can apply ethical principles to my own work, and to the people I work with, because those are within my realm of choice.
But how can I impose these ethics on others? Take one issue Jessica talks about: the notion of “rip-offs.” Some rip-offs are plainly illegal. But many other things that I consider rip-offs are, objectively, perfectly legal ways for others to make a living. What am I supposed to say then? “I’d strongly prefer if you found another way to earn money”? I can hear the derisive laughter now.
Jessica, I like your idea of trying to “educate rather than chastise” the imitators. But I think there’s an unstated premise to your argument, which is that with education, training, and practice, any imitator can make “beautiful original work.” It would be nice if that were true. But I don’t think it is.
And thus we come back to the conundrum. I think this kind of ethical principle, though facially rational, is not fair in practice because it imposes asymmetric demands. People who have the talent to make “beautiful original work” end up asking people who don’t — people whose major talent *is* legally ratified imitation — to stop doing what they do. But what’s their alternative?
Hello everyone, first of all thank you Jessica, this post was a very intelligent way to touch a difficult subject.
I apologize in advance for my horrible english, I hope my point will still be understandable.
I’m an italian illustration student and I struggle with these issues almost everyday, they are still very confusing to me. I get the “Don’t steal!” speech often, but most of the time I’m left with a lot of unanswered questions.
I know I’m heavily influenced by people I admire, and to be perfectly honest I’m not sure on how to ‘stop’ taking from people and start ‘giving’ my unique voice.
It’s not something I control as well as I would want to.
I want to be an illustrator because i want to tell stories, and drawing is the way I like best.
In order to do that I need appropriate tools, lines, colors, compositions.
Just like a writer needs to learn grammar and read a lot of books to tell his story, i need to learn techniques and look at what talented artists have done before me. They are not telling MY story, but they probably faced problems i am facing as well, and they came up with brilliant solutions. Next time i will face those problems I will not be able to just forget about their solutions, and I will very probably use them to push my story forward.
I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how much i try: my work will never look exactly like my heroes’ work.
It will be imperfect, and flawed, and I will misinterpret them, and my hand will show, even when i’m not trying to ‘let her speak’, for the simple reason that i’m not them, i’m someone else.
That imperfection that slips through my hand right now might be not exactly genius, but that’s who i am, and in time it will show better and better.
As much as everyone else I wish I was a genius, I wish I was able to create from scratch something that it’s a lot better than everything else without taking from anyone: but i can’t. I need to rely on my taste as much as my imagination, spot what’s so good about others and try to improve what i do accordingly.
So that, apart from not being really good at the moment, I also know that I’m not very original. Everytime I draw a bird I just know that someone else had drawn it that way before, maybe I can’t recall WHO, but I know i’ve seen it somewhere.
What if I piss off someone accidently? What can I do about it? Stop drawing birds?
I try to broaden my interests as much as I can, but again: this makes it very difficult to know exactly WHERE did I see that bird? Did I come up with it or I just saw it somewhere and it sticked?
The only solution I came up with is showing little to nothing of what i do. I do have a blog but I only put random doodles on it, thinking a doodle can’t hurt anyone, and surely can’t hurt my long term “career”. But I will need to come out one day, take my work more seriously. How will I know if my style is as “pure” as it’s supposed to be? How will I know if what I like in my drawing is mine or it’s just the reflection of someone much better than me?
So I already don’t post all of my work on the internet, but i probably do the exact opposite of what you suggest: i just post the crap. Out of fear.
If the only possibile way to tell derivative work from inspired work is “you know it when you see it”, then I’m afraid I might not see what’s obvious to others.. but what should I do?
Either I stop making things to be sure I’m not ripping anyone off, or I go on and risk it. As for now, I’m thinking ‘go on’, for the simple reason that I cannot stop chasing my dream job. I just really hope I won’t get into anyone’s way. I want to believe style is a side effect of doing our job the best we can, but I’m left with the unpleasant feeling of not knowing what’s ethical and what’s not.
@Matt
I only mentioned Jessica’s fame and success because her voice rings louder in the ears of the design community than say me or you. Her opinion carries more weight but doesn’t mean it is the absolute Truth. I don’t know where I stand on this topic but it has raised questions for me like:
- Was Milton Glaser pissed about I<3NY getting ripped off?
- Can a designer own a style? Does Jessica own words written in vector ribbon?
- Would my ethics change if a client asked, "Can you do this in a Jessica Hische style" and I knew that I needed the money to pay my rent? feed my kids? help pay my mother's medical bills?
- Where would music be without blatant ripoffs? (Page and Plant did it and were called on it and people still love their music)
This is all so complex. It makes me wish I was back at Uni and could just talk and think and talk and write.
I suppose I’ll throw another perspective into this discussion. It may be a bit fatalistic, but all novel ideas, techniques or aesthetics eventually become commoditized, if the market demands it. The reality is that most of the design work out there is in the commodity market. By this I mean the low budget jobs, in which the client is looking for a very particular thing and most of the cost goes into production rather than design. In these cases, if the client is asking to make it look like xyz, and there is not technical reason it can’t be executed it, will most likely end up looking a lot like xyz. As much as it sucks, this is a valid business.
The good news is that very few people aspire to be a commodity designer. Just because someone’s knock-off work is on the internet, doesn’t mean it is actually getting web traffic. Even though, some folks are making money on knock-off design it is probably not from clients you want, anyway.
Simply put, Nickelback sells a bunch of records, but nobody actually respects them.
it seems the imitators get more attention than the inventors.
Matthew, I think the point is not to hold others to a higher standard of behavior, it’s for people to hold themselves to a higher standard.
Part of being a professional involves not being a dickhead.
A very interesting posting & ensuing discussion… But just two nitpicky points:
- during the development of cubism Picasso and Bracque worked collaboratively, and their work from this period is almost indistinguishable from each other– experts would have a tough time telling them apart, let alone art school graduates.
- the Stewart ‘I know it when I see it’ quote is probably not the strongest one to have drawn upon here; such a subjective argument was long ago discarded as a basis for legally defining obscenity. Applying a sweepingly subjective (and personal) standard of judgement, and deeming it ‘objective’ and true/right, is not a justifiable approach, in adjudicating on pornography or design
So, I assume any designer that make claims that they had anything ever copied or “ripped off” has never purchased anything but the “original” good. So no chairs that look like an Eames or Eames-like era, any discount clothing from H&M, J.Crew, Urban Outfitters, etc., and you only eat food that comes directly from the butcher or farmer. If we hold others to this particular standard then we must practice what we preach. We are a functional tool for society and culture — nothing else.
I’m sure Jessica is a great person but I know folks that think they own ladders disappearing into a wall, hand-drawn type, the art of letter pressing, or people who think they own iconography. Just because you claim it, it doesn’t make it so.
What happens when everything has finally been created? Do designers really just keep mixing and matching to make it their own?
Just be a good human being, you’ll be surprise how far that really gets you.
I agree with your post. It’s great, an I love your work! But Jessica, do you really think that your design and type is truly “original”. That is like saying “I’m known for using Helvetica so that is my style and no one can use it”. You have numerous pieces that look like similar to that of numerous “vintage revival” designers that are working today…that look a lot like numerous original designers from way back when. Don’t talk the talk when you can’t walk the walk. Just saying.
The key word there is numerous. The part of the article that I think is most important, that many people are skimming over, is that “original work” doesn’t mean making matter from thin air, many times it can mean remixing, borrowing from other people, being inspired by history and contemporary people, anything. You can make original work by combining numerous inspirations and injecting your own flavor and ideas. My work isn’t derivative of any one person, it is inspired by everything I have ever looked at, everyone I have ever met, every awesome meal I have ever eaten. We can’t help but be influenced by the people and things around us every day, but it’s our duty as artists to push those influences to new places, to combine them in a way that is unique and new.
“Inspiration vs. Imitation”, she said to the 2 billion+ people with access to the internet, nearly a millennium since the first known use of movable printing type, 570+ years after the first printing press, 481 years after the opening of Garamond’s first type foundry, and so on and so forth.
You’re beating a dead horse, Jessica. Yes your heart is in the right place as Stephen Lovell said, but you must take into account how many of these people agreeing with you include the note, “THAT’S EXACTLY HOW I FEEL! GREAT POST LOL!!” Everyone who is involved in any kind of creative endeavor intuitively feels your pain at some point. But why does everyone feel this pain?
Because it’s unavoidable, unstoppable, inevitable. For the rest of your life you will have to deal with this kind of undesirable phenomena, as will the rest of “Team Jessica”. Posting something like this is as futile as protesters waving signs saying, “STOP ___-ISM NOW!”. “Ok, I agree! Let’s stop ___-ism right…NOW! Is it stopped? Good job everyone, ___-ism is stopped!” Oh wait, no it’s not.
You can’t stop it. You probably can’t even make a dent in it. And as a popular creator who is very successful and easily digestible, you are subject to regurgitation, even more so now. If you really want to avoid it, stop doing work, refuse jobs, don’t participate in the design community. Then all the people who copied you will take on your jobs and then they can futilely attempt to deal with plagiarism when the next batch of young copiers come about. Or is that what this is all really about? Are you more concerned with maintaining and living the successful designer’s life that you’ve made for yourself or do you genuinely care so much about your work that you feel you need to tell the internet the do’s and dont’s of inspiration vs. imitation? My answer to both is to stop writing weightless words and get back to just making great work that blows people’s heads off. And do it quickly, because really the only thing you’ve done here is prove that from time to time, you can be really unimpressive.
People quit reading between the lines here! If someone rips you off blatantly that is wrong!!! And it would upset any body in the creative field. Read the title of the article Inspiration vs Imitation. As a young designer I love reading articles like this. They are helpful and inspiring! She wasn’t complaining or being cocky at all. And Juan it is articles like this that help young designers be aware of these issues to help avoid them. Can it be stopped no? But that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t try? Oh its impossible to stop hunger… well lets not beat a dead horse and give up trying. Clearly you misread this article. And obviously she is doing something right because I don’t think I’ve ever been to hear you speak…
Thank you Jessica Hische! For posting these articles to help the design community and for taking all this unnecessary sh*t for doing so.
Great post Jessica, especially love the guitar comparison being a musician and designer. Keep up the killer writing, stoked for the next article.
Really interesting post. The internet is a double-edged sword isn’t it. So much inspiration, but everything can immediately become a commodity.
Today I stumbled over your post. How awesome. I love your true words with this kind tone. This ‘copy’-topic is handled quiet emotional in the whole creative world. Most people feel very offended by other people copying them. And it is understandable. The only problem is, that anger doesn’t help either side. Your post shows a great way of handling such situations (and I think we should handle not only these situations but most other situations with some true and kind words, which would solve a lot of problems right at the beginning). And who knows the outcome of a nice talk. Some people would be surprised.
I saw a great interview with Erik Spiekermann, where he also mentions that topic regarding to his own design processes.
The interview was taken by gestalten.tv: http://vimeo.com/30008631
So, thank you Jessica for the time you spend on your lovely posts.
Jessica – if you aren’t pissing at least one person off, you’re not trying hard enough. Don’t get angry when people don’t agree or post some malicious comments since these keyboard warriors would never say the same to your face. They are fun fodder for the rest of us to read because some of them are ridiculous for the poor grammar and immature comments anyways. You make great points and have a no bullshit way of writing things. Somethings are never going away, better to ignore it and keep innovating because they can’t keep up with new work.
Your point is clear and well put. Unfortunately, copying is going to continue. Especially when “right click > save” is so easy. I see these “25 awesomesauce websites for awesomesauce design inspiration” lists all over these “blogs” and 23 of them look practically the same. I see this over and over and over and to the point that anything truly original stands out immediately. Some of them are so original and well made, copying is probably not going to happen.
We all have the same tools available and the same number of hours in the day. What we all don’t have are the same imaginations. Most people are just plain lazy – they want to be a designer, but realize thinking is hard and it’s easier to copy.
I once saw a kid in my class making a drawing from a trace in Illustrator in the lab at the local community college. The brochures from the art schools began to arrive in the mail, then lo-and-behold, the SAME image was in one of the catalogs. I realized that if you cheat in this business, someone somewhere WILL find out somehow. It’s even easier now with reverse image lookup that will find ripped off logos and such.
Keep up the great work, the great blog and continue pissing off the
whiners.
I have the answer to everyone who disagrees with this concept of what Jessica thinks imitation is. I will just send everything I do to you first to get your approval so I don’t piss off the design community and find myself out of work….BUT….If I’m good at what I do….well….we all know that won’t happen. Thank you so much Jessica for showing us the light. You kill inspiration in younger students by confusing them as to what is right and what you think is right..instill the fear….that’s how you keep em down…you know….let them copy and post it wherever they want, and sell it to whoever they want. Let them find the way and let the design community police it by natural selection, that’s how you got where you are…. People liked your work and chose you, if they didn’t like you they would not have. If someone comes in and does a better job for a lower price….guess what….they win no matter who they stole it from. Have you ever heard the term..KNOCKOFF. If someone comes in and dilutes your pay by copying, get better and stay ahead of the game. You should really look at yourself. There are people here who worship every word you speak. It is then when you should change it up and go with something totally different. Evolve yourself and they won’t be able to catch you. It’s good to have fans but not when the salivate over your every word.
You are not some magical witch born with the golden mouse click fingers stirring up original ideas in illustrator. I believe this to be more about money as usual as are most things. I have seen you rant of such topics before including that brilliant little cartoon you did with the brain of a designer.
Go down to wall street and ask an economist about capitalism and pure competition. You will be copied, get over it, it’s going to happen. It has been happening for far longer than you have been the voice of the design community and will happen long after you’re gone. There is nothing short of boring and stressful legal
battles that will ever deter this. You friends in the design community and the supporters on this blog will never be able to do anything to change that. People generally go with the best value for the right price…sometimes even a brand name like yours…but there will always be Payless shoe store right down the road from Jimmy Choo, and Payless was there first. Competition is war and you are at war….there will be people angry that i offended you with my heavy words…those are the ones that don’t know they are at war. It is survival of the best.
on getting credit…..Marconi did not invent the radio..he stole it from a man in Kentucky who killed himself penniless in a shack.
Edison did not invent ac….Tesla did….he died penniless in a small apartment….Edison also did not invent the light bulb or anything at all for that matter..he was a business man and people worked for him invented all of it.
and 1000 other accounts where the originals did not receive money or glory for their originality.
Tell me direct copying and putting out a product on the backs of others will not make you rich and famous and the original artist get nothing but poverty.
You are out of step.
Love your work….I should copy it and sell templates and business cards the people fresh out of school….get it. I bet i could get away with it…hows the design industry going to police that. It will be Harvy the Rabbit Designs…like the Shawshank man who only existed on paper….but better.
To the newer artist or the one who has a hard time finding original style…..
go out of your house….look at the street..Study it….take little cues from its make up…look at the color..look at the texture…. draw out some font and apply all the cues you witnessed…..then look at
every thing you see anywhere you go…or anything you have ever seen…take cues or hints from anything….mix them up and base something around those cues. You never have to look at another artists work….ever…everything is around you already…
My art work comes from 40′s aircraft…I look at the flow…the decals..the rivets in the sheet metal….the propeller…the burned metal by the exhaust outlet…the details….the colors…Then i take those details and apply them to anything i want….I can draw a coffee pot that has styling like a wwII airplane and it looks cool…and it sold for a lot….or a plant with airplane propellers for leaves. They say it is imagination….it is observation that is the key to imagination..
OR…..a certain magazine cover….lets take font…..what would a team of interior decorators and construction crews do to font as large as a house or building?…..they would use a crane to dot the lower case i….and pour the foundation for the letter g with
a concrete truck……..asking question out of the ordinary can give you a style….what if that semi truck could turn into a robot….how would we design that? We all saw transformers….
YOU NEVER HAVE TO LOOK AT ANOTHER ARTIST…THE WORLD IS ALL AROUND YOU AND HAS EVERY THING YOU WILL EVER NEED…..if you want to look at another artist….hell…go ahead……….that’s how it’s done.
I do have to jump on the bandwagon here, although late. Many things already have been said, and you include some interesting points. However as Juan above says, the ability to copy has been part of mankind, even the creatives. From the moment we learnt to draw on a cave wall. In our creativity we are slave to our tools, be it the broad nib or the bezier curve, so where do we start to call it a copy? The tool? The composition? Colors? Back when Illustrator and Coreldraw were entering the scene there were people saying they were being ripped off just by the usage of vector tracing.
You say you know when you see it, but it’s a fine line. It’s even quite bad with entire websites just dedicated to pushing out all the work ever made in the design industry, and people taking their pickings. People can’t remember where they got their inspiration because our image culture is so available.
You say a musician learns to play imitating and then starts off as his own. Sadly that didn’t prevent the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin stealing everything they could get their hands on to make it world famous and accepted by everyone. But from that they did sortof create their own style. So the question then would be: When do you allow it or not? Was it just a learning curve?
I did enjoy your piece, you really raise some valid concerns, so this isn’t really meant as an attack on your main artice, but more to all that see it black and white.
And well, if they keep on copying bluntly, I wish them luck. Copiers just won’t be able to get any enjoyment out of it because they never will know better.
…Well instead of enjoyment they will probably get world fame/domination, fanboys/girls, paychecks. Ah what the copied give up…
Being upset about mimickry of style is open admission that the only substantive thing about your work is its style.
Well put.
I think they are great examples of how to apply concept to reality in type design, graphic design, web, what have you. I think once one realizes inspiration versus imitation, it is a triumphant moment because you know what’s been executed is yours. And there is a lot of value and pride that comes from those moments, which should make you hold yourself to high standards.
For instance, let’s say you want to create a crest type of logo. You do your research, keep your brief at hand and dig deep. Once you find something that is worthwhile. Understand what is appealing about it. Is it a pattern, color, shape, type? Push it, and the answer will come.
Thanks Jessica, this my first time here and I really love your post.
As a someone starting design I find a lot of tips in here as to how to start out.
It takes a lot of practice and a lot of it.
I’m glad to hear that and its scary to read “you’l spend hours alone”…and sure that’s how every great Success is;often folks don’t see the countless hours of practice/preparation, all they see is the performance, and the ‘wow’ness of the Design.
Thanks so much Jessica and am sure to come back some other time.
Season’s Greetings!
1) People are being too harsh with Jessica.
2) She’s an immense talent, works inhumanly hard, and deserves all the praise and accolades she receives. (I went to design school with her and was witness to her tenacity and ferocious work ethic, so anyone who says she doesn’t live and breathe typography and design are full of it)
3) I don’t completely agree with her position. The point has been made by other posters, but I feel that this issue just isn’t such a big deal. I think that most people start off copying, then gradually find their voice if they love what they do… Or they just go on copying and never reach their full potential. So what’s the big deal? Why does this need to be such an important and divisive issue? I for one have always designed for a particular task at hand, each assignment being its own unique journey, and as a result never developed a distinct style. This approach can be a good thing, but at time’s I have felt almost envious of young designers who have borrowed heavily from a particular style (or person), and made it their calling card of sorts. I don’t think heavily borrowing from even one particular source is always a bad thing for any designer. A lot can be learned from the process itself, and in some cases, the person doing the copying can even improve on the original. I think Jessica’s position comes partly from the fact that she does have a very distinct style, and I’m just offering a different point of view. Also, I don’t agree that its a always a bad thing to throw all of your work online. The nature of the web is an open forum, so I really don’t think treating it as a virtual studio environment is a bad thing. I think people can learn in different ways, and if creativity is the ultimate goal, then everything is fine. The grey area here is massive. The only exception to this is the case of malicious plagiarism, which I think we can all agree is wrong.
Oh Jessica, what did you get yourself into? Haha!
Before anyone jumps down my throat, not everyone with a dissenting opinion is a hater — only the ones who commented with short, rude remarks and obviously didn’t take the time to actually read the article thoroughly.
I love your post, and I have a hard time understanding how so many people misunderstood it. It was clearly written and your points were well-made. Even in the FIRST paragraph, you state you get a warm, fuzzy feeling when you’re the inspiration for an artist — meaning you’re okay with inspirations, as long as it’s not a direct copy. I’m not really sure how you could state it any clearer… and almost every single comment by someone who says you’re greedy, or egotistical, or what have you, reads as being extremely jealous. They took a very, very small part of your article and blew it up to be the whole meaning. The jealous focus on what others have that they don’t.
And the people whining about how nothing is original aren’t really talking about the same original as you were, I think. Your idea of original came across as something not 100% unique, but something where the artist took influences, and took ideas, from around them and combined them into something original and creative. The other commenters make originality out to be something where every single bit of a work has to be previously uncreated. I disagree with that assessment, and agree with yours. We as humans learn from history, and we go from there. The same is true in art. We take what was done in the past, and look at it from a perspective of the present. We tie the old with the new, and through that create something refreshing and unique.
Don’t let the haters get you down. If they honestly supported their opinion and had no qualms about it, they’d have posted their websites
And to poopface who said “Is John Williams acting unethically when he copies the compositional style of Wagner for instance? I know that Wagner is long dead – do you think that makes or doesn’t make a difference either?” you seem to not really know a lot about John Williams. He’s not copying Wagner’s style — he’s blatantly mimicking it. Just like when death is a theme of part of a film, it’s common to hear the Dies Irae theme played as part of the score. It’s not copying because the composer is by no means trying to pass the work off as their own. They’re attributing the past into the present, tying that “style” for the theme into their own work. It’s also helping the audience understand what’s happening, as it’s incorporating something they already know. This is a common practice.
You do an excellent job in your work and are an inspiration to many, Jessica. I look up to you both as a designer and someone in the field with a level head and valid, honest opinions. Thank you for what you do.
I know exactly how you feel Jessica, it has happened to me also. We all copy others while we are learning, and it is such a shame that some people believe it’s ok to publish plagiarised works. I have admired your work for a very long time and have, quite unabashedly, attempted to learn your style. I’m also quite happy to admit that I’m rubbish at it, so you have no fear of being ripped off by me
Jessica, is imitation not the sincerest form of flattery?
Originality is a lot like evolution, isn’t it…..
We start off with whats already there. Then the circumstances, our work and our intentions shape it something new. The difference in our approach will also increase over time and over time our work will start looking original…
Best of luck to all those people producing original work out there and also those with intentions of producing original works.
Jessica’s post made a big difference in how I think about copying. Thanks…
Thank you for this blog post Jessica, what you have said about most things has really inspired me to adapt the way that I work slightly. It seems really silly now but I’d sit at a piece of work for hours and it wouldn’t look right and I’d be hard on myself that I don’t have my own style, my own voice and everyone else’s work was looking great. I realise now that it all takes time, a lot of time, and practice, a lot of practice (and it seems so obvious now). I guess that most creative graduates think ‘ahh I’ve done all of my training, and now I am a professional, I know everything’ – ok, maybe not those exact words, but along those sort of lines. Thank you for the great advice and also thank you for the ‘today is the day’ planner, I keep it by my side every day and wouldn’t be without it!
Thank you for your well written response to this problem. I just came across my first imitator and I sent her a link to this post.
I may be another one of the very few needles of dissent in this haystack of praise.
I completely agree with you Jessica and Hoefflers addition, that people should not be ripping off work and selling it just because they haven’t found their voice yet.
That work, which is developmental work, should be kept private, ever seen the movie Finding Forrester?
That said, I think to gripe about being ripped off while working in a very overdone style puts the hip in hypocrite. I mean hasn’t everything been reference or already done to some degree? Who’s to judge? Especially if you are choosing to work in a stylistic manner that has been so heavily done by many others, I just find it a bit mind-blowing that you’d think you’re work is original enough to warrant this ‘constructive’ outburst.
You don’t see any designers who reference the swiss style balling about being copied, and if they are they should be put in their place.
To me it doesn’t matter if you make your cursive type look like it was made on a computer with obvious gradients, or hand painted, or like it’s an actual old cookie tin from a 1915 general store, it’s all referencing the same same starting point, and is to me, boring because of it. Finally, these are not concepts, they are stylistic executions, there is no concept in any of this, it’s the same trope slightly tweaked so as to not look like you’re totally copying yourself. If you choose to practice design in that way then you have to be prepared to be referenced just the same as you have done with your inspirations. The fact that you’re just digging as far down the chain of reference as you can does not magically make the work any less referential or any more inspiring.
Focus on the idea, the concept, the why, and the form will come. It’s much harder to rip off an idea and a process necessitated by the parameters of a certain project then it is to swipe the end form of it.
I see so many creatives who feel that they alone possess originality, forgetting the shoulders of the giants they stand on. The line between inspiration and theft is anything but clear.
No one designs in a vacuum – design is a language that requires shared visual experience. If you find a visual method or tool that works, you use it. Every designer does this – some are just more honest than others.
When you develop something “unique” you can almost guarantee someone else, somewhere, has found the exact same visual solution to whatever problem you are facing.
There is no moral issue here at all – simply a legal one. I think much of this problem comes from artists/designers looking for validation in being different or unique.
Do you think an engineer facing a problem says “Well, we could solve it this way, but that is how I saw another engineer solve that problem. THAT SHALL NOT DO!”
Nope.
Your concern is “Is that process patented, and if so, how do we side step the patents.”
Anyone who confuses law with morality is in for some rude surprises in life.
Talent Borrows
Genius Steals
Shit Copies
Apologies for the late thread-hopping
@Ian touched on a good point noting the differences between concept and execution.
If popular designers or artists have an imitable style, it’s inevitable that amateurs will emulate their idols and create work in a similar vein. It’s no different than when I was in school in the ’90s and saw a fair amount of Neville Brody- and David Carson-esque work pinned on the corkboard every week.
Now, I’m under the belief that an artist/designer of any medium cannot “own” a style. They are simply acknowledged for the genesis of a style, the most masterful of that style, or have a unique take on a style. Consider blues and early rock musicians who riffed on each others’ work.
Jessica may not be the first to create flourishing vector type, but I respect that she’s found her niche. There is a pleasing honesty to her design (which was a Bauhaus fundamental), that merges her personality with the client’s message.
I would argue there are hundreds or thousands of designers who could produce Hische knockoffs, but I can’t say their personality would be present in the same way.
I enjoyed reading this post, however, I feel as though the “Everybody knows each other” point may be a big reason why people are ripping off illustrators in the first place. While researching all kinds of present day illustrators I find the “style” that is most popular is pretty black and white. It’s like… cool looking girls done in pastel shades with noodle arms and accessories. And the leaders of these styles all know one another.
So as a new or fresh illustrator, it’s like you have to make your style something completely different even if you don’t like it, to avoid looking like these people. And if you DO, your work won’t even make it because your girls might not have noodle arms. And noodle arms are in.
It’s just a really frustrating aspect of the industry, that everybody knows one another and yet they draw almost identical to one another. It’s like grandfathering a style based on popularity of that artist.