Back in late 2010, the Food and Drink festival TASTE : Williamsburg Greenpoint had approached me about their visual identity, and we began talking rebrand. Working with designer Ferris Caldwell, Ferris and I created an exploration of visual metaphors we could create/borrow from for a Brooklyn food festival that would communicate "community, a containment for the many unique and ethnic foods representing the neighborhood, and something that felt classically Brooklyn." We landed on the idea of a bodega. Our client was very satisfied with the results, and we're excited the 2012 evolution of the brand in 2012. Until we saw this ad in the subway, just this Saturday.
It looks as though there is another, larger food festival launching a year later using the same design elements, concept, colors...even the typeface is the same families that we chose for our client. It's certainly not unheard of for 2 different designers to come up with the same concept when solving a design problem. It's also quite fair that style (especially a style that's borrowed from the bodega vernacular) is borrowed as well. But for something like this to be developed in the small world of Brooklyn food festivals seems to be quite a coincidence (all you have to do is search "Brooklyn Food Festival" in google), and since TASTE's advertising budget and size is significantly smaller than "the Great Googa Mooga", it's at TASTE's expense.
So: Have you ever felt blatantly ripped-offed? If so, how did you approach it? In your opinion is this just a coincidence and one firm's inability to research other Brooklyn food festivals? Should we send an invoice (ha, jokes). Or is it all in the game?
It looks as though there is another, larger food festival launching a year later using the same design elements, concept, colors...even the typeface is the same families that we chose for our client. It's certainly not unheard of for 2 different designers to come up with the same concept when solving a design problem. It's also quite fair that style (especially a style that's borrowed from the bodega vernacular) is borrowed as well. But for something like this to be developed in the small world of Brooklyn food festivals seems to be quite a coincidence (all you have to do is search "Brooklyn Food Festival" in google), and since TASTE's advertising budget and size is significantly smaller than "the Great Googa Mooga", it's at TASTE's expense.
So: Have you ever felt blatantly ripped-offed? If so, how did you approach it? In your opinion is this just a coincidence and one firm's inability to research other Brooklyn food festivals? Should we send an invoice (ha, jokes). Or is it all in the game?
Keah Fryar said on May 16, 2012
Yes, yes and YES! Had an incident in class just this semester. As exhibition designers we have to present our ideas to the class multiple times over the semester. For our final presentation, I recognized a certain component that I had researched and built for my exhibit, a component that had been in my design concept since the project began, in another fellow student's work. Felt hurt, betrayed, backstabbed. Especially since this student seems to want to copy my ideas the whole semester (when I wanted to use the lobby, she used the lobby, when I gave advice to a student, she gave the same advice).
Gave my teacher a call and talked with him the other day. He says EVERYTHING is up for grabs in design. A tip of advice I am going to take for next year (can you guess who I might steal from? (that is if her ideas are good in the first place)).
So steal, steal and STEAL. But in my honest opinion, if you're going to steal...do something different with the theft. Don't just copy, copy and make it BETTER. Thanks for this, wrote about it in my blog as well. Good luck on your process and brainstorm for ideas how to make yours BETTER!