This subject isn´t new, however, today I came across with this scenario and decided to write something about this :
Looking at the image, you should already know what I'm going to write here.
The company in question is a Portuguese engineering and air conditioning company.
I didn´t know the existence of it until the day I stopped behind this van at some traffic lights and I came across the logo of this company that has many similarities with the steemit logo.
As an "apprentice" of graphic design, I find myself searching through the most varied sites specialized in the subject and suddenly, it becomes very evident that a little of everything has already been done before, and I end up discovering the origin or influence behind some very interesting works, but in this case I want to address some logos well known to the general public.
I can verify that in many cases the final product is derived from a copy, and the question is about if these copies may or may not be considered a theft, or whether there are a distinction in the process that origin the logo who allows us to identify the brand!
With each new day, a new confirmation that the copy has accompanied us in the most diverse creative processes.
Regarding design, as I mentioned in an earlier post, it solves communication problems by creating arts and designs, in a nutshell, is basically the process of communicating visually.
Design is present everywhere, manifested in the most varied forms, and we are influenced by your messages throughout the day, all days, unless you aren´t leaving the cave lately.
Now imagine that you are a graphic designer and that you saw a great design somewhere. A few months later, during a creative process, you end up producing something very similar and without realizing why, or the origin of this creative choice.
Now, the question is:
This result could be considered a theft?
In many cases, there is no differentiation between copy and theft, when the process is to fully replicate a design in an absolutely conscious way, just like a copy-past in the case of an article.
Many companies or individuals do so intentionally in an attempt to profit from the attributes of that brand and in this case it´s not a simple copy or influence, but a theft.
I understand copying as a learning process, the influence of an idea, recognition of the past, exploring into existing knowledge and applying it in different forms and contexts.
You don´t even need to be an autodidact to know exactly what I am talking about, and this can be applied in any area.
In fact, it is difficult to discover who initiated something as a rule, a trend, a fashion an absolutely original design, and to know how this originality was not influenced by something already existing. Who came first? The egg or the chicken?...
Darwin theorists, not now please ;) not the moment.
All this to conclude that there is differentiation between copy and theft.
While one offers the possibility to improve and explore new concepts, the other will simply save you some hours of hard work and will not offer anything new to the design.
To finish as it started:
Once a little of everything has already been done, work from there with what you have, explore, learn, experiment, create freely, because your influences, many of them have been transmitted to you subliminally, so when you create something original, most certainly you are copying something unconsciously.
Life is made of layers just like the design in my PS ;)
BTW, I'm not leaving without share with you some more digital cuddles 😉
In addition to the dividers used in this post, I've created some more for you to freely use if you wish and like it.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by aleister from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
Hats off man, that's an amazing research you have done. I didn't knew some logos could match other logos so closely. I always though big companies always have totally authentic logos. But, it seems that we all think in sort of a connected way, and can't be 100% original, no matter what we do!! And thanks for these page dividers. I already use some of them in my posts. My favourite one is surely that rocket one. Cute little rocket!!!
Thanks man, as i said, this subject and discussion is an old one between designers community, however, we must understand the difference between copy and theft and especially, how easy it is to do something very similar to existing things, and we have the explanation above ;) and this is crazy, imagine that you don t use nothing as influence to produce something new, something original.... Guess what, probably you will find something very similar that was done before your creation, and the worst is that you can find this only after create something... That s the logic, first you create, and then find that your art isn't very unique lol
Wow
I didn't know these logo's existed in the past.
Probably they sold their copyright?
Hey, @aleister
I'm a graphic artist...
I'm now following you, Please feel free to follow me back...
i would love if you encourage some of my posts by upvoting them.
Thanks for stopping by :) Don t know about the copyright, but in some cases is more about the influence than a copy. Btw glad to see graph artists around here. Keep the good work and the followers will come after you ;) Steem on mate
Now you should understand why musicians are always getting bent out of shape and copyright lawyers are always swarming over any new hit song.
At least with the written word there are many great tools to detect intentional plagiarism. For images we now have Google image search. For audio and video you upload to YouTube and wait for the DMCA copyright take down notifications...
Yes, nowadays we have some useful tools to detect plagiarism. But this is different, this is about the difference between what is a copy and a theft, and why :)
Got it - I was trying to point out that intentional and unintentional copying or "derivation" is everywhere but people may not realize it, they may not even realize they are doing it, even if intentional. So if you're sensitive - because it was your original work that got re-used, or because you are incentivized to find copies (lawyers) then you will probably see copies everywhere.
I think at least one example you gave - the Dodge Ram vs. School Ram clearly has an almost identical if not actually identical image that is common. It could be that there was a stylized ram image that is in the public domain or licensable and they both used it. Or someone from the school intentionally copied the ram not thinking anything of it (I'm almost certain Dodge would come after them if the find out) or someone cut the ram image from the Dodge logo and posted it online without attribution - maybe with a creative commons license to boot.
There's actually a story about the Dodge logo here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123781334 - it never mentions who created the logo originally but even seems like they actually knew it was the same already.
On point :) and probably something very similar already existed before the Dodge and school logos ;) thanks for sharing the story :)