In yesterday’s DCTH, someone asked the question “Is it really true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? (copyright, plagiarism)”. There were a lot of answers, with designers coming down hard on copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is wrong, period, but I’d like to go more in depth regarding the fact that designers take inspiration from each other every day, whether this “borrowing” is right or wrong.

The Good.

“Paula Scher studied at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and began her graphic design career as a record cover art director at both Atlantic and CBS Records in the 1970s. In 1984 she co-founded Koppel & Scher, and in 1991 she joined Pentagram as a partner.” She is both a renowned artist and graphic designer.

She also parodied Herbert Matter’s 1934 Swiss tourist poster (left) in a 1985 Swatch poster (right). The poster is still controversial in the design community years after its inception. It is also taught in design school today as an example of retro design and borrowing from the past.

The Fad (or movement, rather)

Piet Mondrian is known as the father of geometric abstraction.

Theo van Doesburg is known as the founder of De Stijl, an art movement in the early 1900s.

Mondrian helped found De Stijl with van Doesburg in 1917. The style is so specific that almost everything from the movement could have been created by one artist.

The Ugly.

If you’ve been involved in the design community online in the last few months, you probably remember the name Jon Engle. To sum it up, Engle took art work from StockArt.com, incorporated it into various logos he “designed”, was sued by StockArt.com, then drummed up outrage in the design community claiming StockArt.com artists had stolen the work from him. A good summary can be found at The Logo Factory. It was an obvious copyright violation.

Design inspiration vs. copyright infringement

There is a hard line between inspired design (the good, the fad) and copyright infringement (the ugly).

If a creative creates his or her own work based on someone else’s work and puts his or her own spin on it, this is not copyright infringement – despite how blatant an inspiration it may be.

If a creative takes someone else’s work and claims it as his or her own, this is copyright infringement.

Is (blatant) inspired design ethical?

It depends who you ask. It depends on the situation. Pablo Picasso said “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” Paul Rand said “Don’t try to be original; just try to be good.” Jim Jarmusch said “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.”

Finally, to steal a quote from another blog post, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
—T.S. Eliot

So…steal?

In Annelys de Vet’s The Right to Copy, Alice Lo summarizes in an epilogue, “the only difference between an amateur and a professional is the thinking and the knowledge of the context.”

The point is that designers and artists can take a rough idea and make it better, make it powerful, or give it a new meaning. Theft is theft, and copyright infringement is nothing to trifle with. The challenge with inspired design – blatant or otherwise – is only to start with the initial idea, but turn it into something new and different.

“Make sure your work will be copied. Stimulate your own imitators. Copy. Appropriate. Imitate. Assemble. Mimic. Use. Fuse. Misuse. Don’t be shy about it.”
—Annelys de Vet

Just don’t be ugly about it.