I will say this first, I am against any form of blatant design stealing, I do not think anyone has the right to take something from a website and use it without the original designers permission. However I am all for inspiration, taking an element of a design and making it your own. Now this is not to say to recreate a site in a different colour, I mean you look at a site and like the menu on the side, or the footer being really big, or a wooden texture used in the background, then adapt that idea and create something from it.

 

But here is what I don't understand is hysteria. Now someone steals a site or graphics you have designed then yes you have a right to be annoyed, you did these how dare they steal your work!! But lets look at this in a different light.

 

Someone somewhere thought it was a good idea to use a wooden texture as a background for their site. Now someone else sees this and thinks that's a good idea, finds a different wooden texture for their site's background. Next thing you know its a trend and everyone is doing it. Now this didn't start off as a trend it started off as someone stealing someone else's idea. It maybe a different texture but it is still stolen.

 

Ok that is graphics what about layout well:

 

Someone somewhere was the first person to design a website using 3 columns, now someone else see that and thinks its a good idea that would work with their content and decides to build a site using 3 columns. Now as there is only one other site that is using this layout concept this new site has stolen that layout.

 

 

Yes fair enough my two examples are to the extreme but I wanted to just show case and point that everyone here is guilty of being inspired by graphical and layouts that have came before your site. It may not have been a web site but something inspired your design, but was it inspired or was it stolen. All you designers that follow a tend be it, shiny buttons, vector images, wooden backgrounds or large footers, is it because you were the starter of that design trend, inspired by it or are you guilty of stealing someone else's idea.

 

After all lets face it someone originally came up with these design trend thinking they were original. Then next think they know their idea is stolen and soon becomes a trend. I am sure its flattering but at the same time is it not a tad annoying to them that now their once original site is no longer original. Yes the other sites may be different but the concept is still the same.

 

So how do we remedy this? do we say once someone uses a footer of a certain height and width it can no longer be used by anyone else? Once someone uses a square blue shiny button no one else can use a square blue shiny button?

 

 

I now find it sad that there is such a witch hunt going on, someone makes a menu that spans 100%, that is black with white text and when in hovered state it turns red...they must have stolen it from this site with the same colours and ideas. Some designers at the moment see a tiny similarity in a site and it must be a copy, they must have stolen the design. Even if the rest of the site looks nothing like it, it is still stolen and we tear down that designer for having something similar.

 

 

Again I will end with this. I do not agree with stealing an entire layout, I do not agree with stealing graphics, I do not agree with any form of blatant plagiarism. I just wanted to rant about where the line is between following a design trend, being inspired and stealing.

 

 

As a side note: Any views are welcome, but please don't post sites that copy other sites here, this is for discussing where the line between inspiration and stealing is

Good Post, I agree every aspect of web design had to start somewhere, so everyone has to be copying someone else

All very good points!

 

The line is somewhat thin and very dotted. (and undulating)

 

I'm all for taking inspiration for a site and even maybe even using a small element of the design if you really must. Like dizi said, all design concepts/trends would have started off as someones original concept.

 

But when someone pretty much copy and pastes, then said line has not only been crossed, but the offender has also taken a dump on it.

 

Quite possibly, the only way to safeguard yourself from design theft, is to copyright all your designs. But to do that, your design must be 100% original, which, given there are millions of designers out there, might be highly unlikely.

I think what's interesting in both your examples is that both designers have been impressed by someone else's idea which they then sought to emulate. This might indicate a lack of confidence in one's own abilities. At the same time, there is always a natural transmission of memes in our culture, like fashion. We are a social species after all.

 

I think the problem occurs when designers seek to fit in, rather than approaching their design from first principles. They apply an arbitrary "style" to their page - be that reflective flooring under the logo, wooden backdrops, retro fonts. Ideally, we should develope styles dictated by content.

 

Of course, most of us work for a client, in which case the client might want you to rip off a site - or has no other way of expressing their artistic vision other than referencing other sites.

Depends how far you want to reduce it. Keep going and you'll talk about how all matter in the known universe is the same.

Depends how far you want to reduce it. Keep going and you'll talk about how all matter in the known universe is the same.

 

essentially it is

 

 

Anyway I was just wondering due to the current posts of this site is identically to this site when really there is just a few small elements the same. Original concepts can develop into great trends and lets face it we are in an industry where keeping up with current design trends is essential, much like fashion design, graphic design and magazines, we have to keep up with what is hot in the world of design. So when is it stealing and when is it just developing on an up and coming trends?

I suppose the difficulty is, to be a leader in your field means others follow. Just from my personal view of the internet, trends seem to explode across the web very quickly. One minute it's all bevels and reflections, now it's all grunge and beautiful backgrounds.

I don't see anything wrong in designers following things like general layouts and colour schemes closely, but I definitely draw a strong line when it comes to hand-crafted graphics, coded functionality or a really, really unique solution to something (how you define that isn't easy).

Just to put this in terms I understand and for a comparison... it's like if you took inspiration from my copy (please do!) that's good for everyone, but if you copy it wholesale or take key phrases/ headings etc. I'd get annoyed!

If you're good at what you do then 'leading' is a good thing, better than jealously guarding your work, because you will always be better than those that follow and it's great for your reputation. In my view anyway, it's only when people try to short-cut the hard work by copying that it's a problem.

The best thing to do would be to accredit particularly influential sources - in an open source style?

The whole concept of "borrowing" a style isn't a new one thought. Look at some of the great art movements such as cubism, bauhaus etc.

 

All have begun as an original idea, and then developed further by another artist.

<div id="stealing"></div>
<hr/>
<div id="inspiration"></div>

I think that pretty much sums it up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with many of the comments here. I really think any designer worth his/her salt will not only be able, but want to make a site that stands out. If it has been inspired by another site/ style, the good designer IMO will always produce work that has an integrity of its own, and can not be said to be ripped off, even if some elements have some similarity to other sites.

Songwriting springs to mind here, and provides us with a great example: Oasis have a song called 'Shakermaker' which is blatantly ripped off from 'I'd like to teach the world to sing'. Travis have a song called 'Writing to reach you' which is inspired by the Oasis song 'Wonderwall', and aknowledges this fact in the lyric 'what's a wonderwall anyway?' The difference being that although Travis's song has pretty much the same chords as the Oasis song, it is an original and unique song in its own right, and the finished thing cannot really be said to sound like Wonderwall. Oasis didn't even try to hide their plagiarism with Shakermaker, let alone develop this 'inspiration' into something with integrity. And to top it all, Writing to Reach You is a far better song than Wonderwall! Incidentally, Oasis were sucessfully sued by the New Seekers, and ordered to pay $500,000. Idiots.

Interesting thread, Dizi

<div id="stealing"></div>
<hr/>
<div id="inspiration"></div>

.stealing {border-bottom: 1px dotted #c00; }

<div id="stealing"></div>
<div id="inspiration"></div>

I think inspiration borders on stealing. It depends where and how far you take it from the original.

But then there is that small percentage that it may be a coincidence. It does happen.

 

Like recently, I came up with a logo for a future project. It took ages to perfect and in the end I was really pleased with what I had created (It was a fairly simple design)

 

Then, I went on my hols in july, and whilst driving past a shop, what do I see? My logo - exactly the same. I was totally gutted, as I really liked the logo.

.stealing {border-bottom: 1px dotted #c00; }

 

I think you mean

 

#stealing {border-bottom: 1px dotted #c00; }

 

 

I definitely think there are some really good points in this thread. My site does actually use a wooden texture but i think it is done in a very subtle way and IMO is pretty original. So yea, like everyone else has mentioned I think taking inspiration from something is fine but outright copying is not.

 

I had a member of this forum ask me yesterday if they could use the layout of my portfolio page as a base for their own portfolio. I was more than happy for them to take inspiration from my design and very much appreciated that they asked.

Great post, but I can only think to myself, how difficult it would be right now for me to sit here and design an entirely unique website. If right now I open up Photoshop and start on some spur-of-the-moment design, it would most probably contain elements of the pretty websites i've recently seen, for example True Presence's PSD to CMS site, and also the cool colours on the logo from MrGizmo.se.

 

Therefore, I believe that unless someone has literally taken an exact screenshot of your website, and, as if using it as a template, has maybe changed some padding, swapped some images, changed the logo, and the text on the navigation (for example), then it is purely semi-conscious inspiration.

I think we all know where the line is: inspiration is okay. Seeing something and thinking "that's a nice idea. I'll recreate the effect and modify it for my site and use it" is ok.

 

Recreating the entire page design, or taking too much inspiration from a page isn't acceptable. Whether too much inspiration has been taken from a site is a matter of opinion and depends on circumstances, e.g. if a site designing pottery looks similar and has clearly taken ideas from another site selling pottery, that's a bad thing. If the other site is selling apartments in Spain, then it does not matter so much that the two websites are of similar style and share characteristics, as the content and visitors will be different.

 

Copy/pasting or using images that you haven't created yourself is never acceptable IMO, unless permission has been given of course.

I think you mean

 

#stealing {border-bottom: 1px dotted #c00; }

 

Bugger

http://www.usabilitypost.com/post/7-dont-c...design-steal-it

I always worry about that line as well - even when I consider using an existing framework or CSS layouts that are freely available (I mean just the architecture of the elements is designed in the CSS, meant for the very purpose of people using it to build their web design from using their own colours and graphics) I cringe at the idea of whether I'm stealing or being unoriginal. I suppose there's only so "original" you can be. And considering all the inspiration sites out there, it certainly seems to be ok to get inspiration and follow trends. Still, it's an icky line to look at sometimes.

1. I think there is a very grey area between inspiration and theft of design. I have read posts where someone has complained about a site design having been stolen, posted the URLs of the two site, and when I check them out, found it very difficult to find where the similarities were.

 

2. No matter how hard we try to be original, I think it is impossible not to be influenced by everything we have seen and experienced, even other websites. So we have to be really careful when we design our own, to use that influence to help us learn what works and what doesn't, but not to let it subconsciously creep into our own work too much ... a very difficult thing to do.

 

3. I find when I design a website without mentally referring to other sites on the web, and put it up for review, the comments are invariably like "it looks very 90ish" or "it looks old-fashioned" or "you should follow the popular trends more". I cannot design a website that is original, and yet fits in with the current trends. Maybe that is my inexperience showing, but I think sometimes there is too much emphasis on what is in style right now, as opposed to what looks good and is useable and functional, regardless of what trend is happening right now. If there is not so much pressure to be trendy, maybe there would not be so much copying.

 

Just a few thoughts.

I suppose the difficulty is, to be a leader in your field means others follow. Just from my personal view of the internet, trends seem to explode across the web very quickly. One minute it's all bevels and reflections, now it's all grunge and beautiful backgrounds.

I don't see anything wrong in designers following things like general layouts and colour schemes closely, but I definitely draw a strong line when it comes to hand-crafted graphics, coded functionality or a really, really unique solution to something (how you define that isn't easy).

Just to put this in terms I understand and for a comparison... it's like if you took inspiration from my copy (please do!) that's good for everyone, but if you copy it wholesale or take key phrases/ headings etc. I'd get annoyed!

If you're good at what you do then 'leading' is a good thing, better than jealously guarding your work, because you will always be better than those that follow and it's great for your reputation. In my view anyway, it's only when people try to short-cut the hard work by copying that it's a problem.

The best thing to do would be to accredit particularly influential sources - in an open source style?

 

 

AIIIIIII...aiiii....AIIIIII

 

Spot on Sir - nailed on, FACT, exactumundo.

 

I salute you.