{"id":8797,"date":"2018-07-17T15:41:14","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T08:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/?p=8797"},"modified":"2018-07-17T15:41:14","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T08:41:14","slug":"your-logo-is-copied","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/designs\/your-logo-is-copied.html","title":{"rendered":"Your logo is copied"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Admit it, everything has been done\u00a0before.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWait, I\u2019ve seen this logo before. Why does it seem so familiar to me?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

After a few years in Design you eventually find out that everything has been done before. I figured out where some popular logos might have come from. When does copying become stealing? Is it even\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0bad?<\/p>\n

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Source \u201cAirbnb\u201d\u00a0|\u00a0Source \u201cAzuma Drive-In\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Source \u201cBeats\u201d\u00a0|\u00a0Source \u201cStadt Br\u00fchl\u201d\u00a0(PDF)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You\u2019ve been copying all\u00a0along<\/h4>\n

Design solves problems while adding uniqueness to the end result. That is called creativity. We are bombarded with visual messages all day. Maybe you saw a great design featured on some blog. A few months later you come up with something similar. You might just not remember why you came up with such a solution. When creating, we are recycling impressions all the time without realizing it.<\/p>\n

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Source \u201cMedium.com\u201d\u00a0|\u00a0Source \u201cMetrocraft Publishing\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Source \u201cOMV\u201d\u00a0|\u00a0Source\u00a0\u201cCTV\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Does copying mean stealing?<\/h4>\n

Some websites like calling out brands for\u00a0ripping-off\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0stealing<\/em>\u00a0a design. In many cases there is no differentiation between stealing and copying. I\u2019d like to state how I distinguish between these two terms.<\/p>\n

Stealing<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0means replicating a design end-to-end. The company wants to profit from the attributes the design communicates.\u00a0Stealing<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is sewing a Nike logo on sweaters to sell them for double the price. Design is an approach that is tailored to each instance it is applied, thereby making it hard to imitate.\u00a0Stealing<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0often involves a discrepancy between communicated message and content. Self-image and public image are not congruent. Thats why premium brands can\u2019t be imitated easily.\u00a0Stealing<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is an insidious attempt at not being discovered.<\/p>\n

Copying<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is different. It\u2019s the way we learn. Think about how babies grow-up and learn new skills: they imitate their parents. Thousands of years ago some iconic Roman sculptures were\u00a0created by casting exact copies of Greek statues. By\u00a0copying<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0we are acknowlodging the past and building upon existing knowledge. I taught myself how to program by copying code from other websites and playing around with it.\u00a0Copying<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0means being influenced by an idea and applying it in a different form and context. It pays tribute to the originator and always challenges the appropriate use for itself.<\/p>\n

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Source \u201cVon Holzen und\u00a0H\u00fcgin\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Source \u201cCarhartt\u201d\u00a0|\u00a0Source \u201cCarlo Cisventi\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A copy of a copy of a\u00a0copy<\/h4>\n

Take the concept of Flat Design. It\u2019s a style that\u00a0Googles Material Design leveraged, but they didn\u2019t come up with it. It\u2019s difficult to find out who started something. Even if you do find the originator, how do you know they weren\u2019t influenced by something they weren\u2019t aware of? Maybe they\u2019re only hiding their source? As you see, we\u2019re quickly getting into a chicken-egg-debate here.<\/p>\n

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Source \u201cKaufland\u201d\u00a0|\u00a0Source \u201cKnudsen Creamery\u00a0Company\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Source \u201cSennheiser\u201d\u00a0|\u00a0Source \u201cSeiyu\u00a0Stores\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Semantics utilize\u00a0copying<\/h4>\n

Semantics make the world better navigable for us. We take commonly understood pictograms and alter them to a brand language. Semantics mean you recognize a symbol of which you have learnt the meaning. Think about the fire exit sign, the hamburger icon or the power switch symbol. By embracing this we make our work usable for a wide variety of people. No one would call this stealing. Still, it is copying.<\/p>\n

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Source \u201cAstra\u201d\u00a0|\u00a0Source \u201cSchweizerische Zentralstelle f\u00fcr Fl\u00fcchtlingshilfe\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Source \u201cFerrero\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Source \u201cUber\u201d\u00a0|\u00a0Source \u201cCarl Christiansen\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThings which are different in order to be different are seldom better, but that which is made to be better is almost always different.\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aDieter\u00a0Rams<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While reflecting on this I changed the way I used the words\u00a0copying<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0stealing<\/em>. Copying offers opportunity to learn while stealing avoids the hard work. Stealing implicits that all Design challenges deserve the same solution. We don\u2019t have to act like we\u2019re reinventing the wheel every time\u2014 even if we might sell it that way sometimes. There are a lot of replicable parts in Design. You must listen and still strive for originality, otherwise you will end up with dissatisfied clients, a bad reputation and zero personal growth.<\/p>\n

Do you disagree?<\/h4>\n

Have you ever caught yourself copying an idea? Were you the one that was stolen from? How did you deal with that? Is anything original anymore? I\u2019d love to hear your thoughts on this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Admit it, everything has been done\u00a0before. \u201cWait, I\u2019ve seen this logo before. Why does it seem so familiar to me?\u201d After a few years in Design you eventually find out that everything has been done before. I figured out where some popular logos might have come from. When does copying become stealing? Is it even\u00a0that\u00a0bad?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-designs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietbrands.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}