Everything is already invented nowdays so don't bother yourself trying to be original because you won't be, no matter how hard you try.

Anyway check the definition of plagiarism and make good use of it. "Plagiarism is the passing off of another person's work as one's own"

I'm agree with Fer, everything is already invented, so we have created new style every day from the others, only small parts (types, pics, backgrounds) this isn't plagiarism.
What do you think??

Passing off one's work as their own needn't be overt. There can be a subtlty to it as well. And yes, everything has been done. So are we Mannerists, left only to recontexturalize? Maybe so.

I recall a very similar treatment on New Order's 1981 album cover (yes, album) Movement by Peter Seville.

"Everything is already invented nowdays so don't bother yourself trying to be original because you won't be, no matter how hard you try."

i don't believe that at all. It's such a cop-out too.

We try to be original, after that we believe us original, then we see ours pages similar to another and we say they are plagiarizing? or we see some you page seemed of does 40 years ago and we say us again we copy us of something that already was done before..what happen???

Read this: Something that came to mind while reading this entry (and recalling the recent posts about "A Nation of Lawyers" and "Wacky Packages" are two quotes I've seen:

"If there is something to steal, I steal it!" Pablo Piccaso

and

"Immature artists immitate, mature artists steal." T.S. Eliot

Were they wrong?

Posted by: Joe Moran at May 11, 2006 02:54 PM

so, what do you think now!!

I understand what you're saying Martin and I agree with the spirit of your comment, but communication moves so quickly these days, and there is a significant bit of history behind us, that it makes it very difficult to be entirely original. I'm willing to admit that I am wrong about the "everything's been done" comment if you can show me something that is truly original, but I don't think you can. It will be derivative somehow as nothing is created in a vacuum, but perhaps I am splitting hairs. I am willing to concede to a "relative" originality. With the dearth of work and information out there though I'm not even sure that one can "know" their work is truly original--perhaps it is in that persons mind, but it doesn't make it so.

Lastly though I don't suggest that anyone concede defeat. Of course you always try to be original. It's that spirit that advances any dicipline.

sure, you right now.

Different angle on this:

Steal/imitate/copy an image a design, a headline, a story idea. Maybe that makes you "lame" as a creative, maybe it doesn't.

But curious: Is it our mission to be original or is it our mission to deliver The Goods to our readers. If Atlanta ran the perfect headline for a Barry Bonds story, should San Jose be required to find/use a different headline? Do the readers care (especially if they are that far removed)?

Not sure where this thought is going. Basically, seems like two different audiences: Us (and our colleagues) and Them (our readers).

If I'm not mistaken, Dean's postings on here always seem to inject a good dose of common sense to the discourse. Yes, It seems to me that there ARE two audiences, and I think that's okay. As designers we must, of course, first consider the reader. I think that is of paramount importance. But as designers we need to satisfy ourselves as well, albeit in the background--I think it's typically done sort of as an "insiders" type thing. As creatives I think we can do that.

If, you are very well, two audiences exist, designers and readers, and we should be day to day original, but do neither we have or we know if other designer imitate to us or they plagiarize to us, but we should be quiet in our mind that we never do it (will be with our mind clean?) never we have copied none one page or a part of a page in our life? are we sure?

When talked about being original though about the definition of it: "Preceding all others in time; first" and "Not derived from something else"

We as designers use to work around well known concepts of balance, color, etc. All of them based upon how we recieve information through our eyes and interpret it with our brains. Those concepts been studied, developed and improved since the humankind started to capture their ideas on the walls of a cave until today.
So it's hard, very very hard, to be innovative and original with all that behind us.
Even the first man how drawed a mahmut on a wall was just original on the idea of painting it the way he did, because what he painted was already created by nature.

I think Picasso or T.S. Eliot were completely right, we don't have to be afraid of stealing when we talk about arts. But let's understand stealing in it's good meaning, if that meaning really exists :s
There's nothing wrong on "stealing" good ideas for the sake of improvement, what's wrong it's trying to claim originality on them. I think we all know where the limit is, and if we don't our conscience does ;)

Looking the original post read something that I think it's probably one of the most interesting things that's got to be analyzed:

JC said "Also, this topic interests me but from the perspective of appropriation. Appropriation has been accepted practice in fine art for decades now. Design has never been able to stomach it or accept it. But it could be something interesting for design to look at."

I'm with Martin on this one. COP-OUT. When we stop thinking and striving for new ideas, we throw ourselves to the demons of mediocrity. I try my damndest not use other's ideas but i'm also inspired by them at the same time.

Another useful function of "stealing": simple matter of developing and mastering a technique.

We joked a while back about sports designers and "boxing poster pages." Rip-off or not, probably every designer needs to do one just to learn the ins and outs of that look. Or a Mondrian geometric package. Or a Willi Kunz thing like shown with the original article.

That certainly doesn't mean an artist should spend his whole career repainting the Mona Lisa stroke for stroke. But there's merit to the exercise.

"If I have seen further [than certain other men] it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."
As Isaac Newton wrote about his work stemming from Galileo and Kepler, so, too, should we recognize that what we design is based on the work before us.
Does that limit us from being original? No. Newton's concept of gravity and subsequent laws of motion were fairly original.
So too were the fellas who figured out how to turn them off -- or at least delay them -- for hours/days at a time.
Does that mean that we should recognize and/or credit the original work whenever possible, even if it's just in an "industry forum" like this, NPD, or VizEds? I think so.

And after all, wasn't early Tom Petty an ode to the Byrds, right down to the jangly Rickenbacker guitars?

(Sorry, I'm not up on my Newton and Kepler -- hah!)

As brillient as they were, either Newton nor Galileo had to contend with the shear magnitude of information to consider that the average designer does on any given day.

Think it's safe to say that Fer is a crappy designer who does nothing original and is fine lifting from everyone else? I do.

"Everything is already invented nowdays so don't bother yourself trying to be original because you won't be, no matter how hard you try."

How post-modern.

Be inspired of other is not the same as to copy or to steal designs, personally I have master designers in which I inspire me, do not I copy, I inspire me, we should be original but at the same time we have to create our own styles, and the best way is to catch ingredients of different options, it but important is to have a beautiful picture or graphic we transform it into a beautiful page, what do you think?

Those who feel everything hasn't already been done, please, give me an example. I don't think you can.
I reiterate, however, "Always TRY to be original. That is the spirit that advances any discipline." I don't agree with those who say don't try. It's the pursuit of originality that creates individual flair. That's not to say that that individuality isn't based in derivation (and I don't use the term derivation in a negative sense here.) because it has to be in this day and age. Not to sound "post-modern" or anything, but what is it that we do? We take concepts; precepts, and we mold them in our image (ideally). Post-Modernism! If you want to use cultural terminology like Post Modernism, then ask yourself what the alternative is. Modernism?

I'm totally agree with you stuart.

Taking Stuart's sentence I would say that "trying to improve is the spirit that advances any discipline"
I won't say "try to be original" because I take the meaning of original as "Preceding all others in time; first" and "Not derived from something else", the meaning you can find at dictionary.com. And personally feel that desgin arts derive from many other things preceding it.

Maybe my first post sound quite extreme. I just wanted to say that designers don't have to be bothered with the idea of feeling like a stealer or plagiarist when they just inspire or assimilate others designs conscius or unconsciusly. And also notice that there wasn't any plagiarism on what happened with those two designs.

Anyway still think that one of the keys of this eternal discussion is in the mature or immature approach to assimilation that fine arts and desgin make respectively.

bert:
Discualificate the person and not trying to refute his argument doesn't put you in a very good position...

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