I recently posted a comment (which might very appropriately be termed my most recent rant) on Clifton Labrum's newly-and-beautifully-redesigned site, the premise of which has been irking me ever since.
The conversation went something like this:
Mark 09/14/06 11:54 AM
Hey Veerle called, she wants her site back.
SaraJoy 09/14/06 12:56 PM
Mark--
I submit that any good design will--and should--present characteristics of the great designs that [should have] informed and inspired it. Any designer who hasn't taken a page from Polish posters, any architect who hasn't pulled lines from the great cathedrals, any musician who hasn't heard Bob Dylan is missing out--and is likely not half as good as they think they are.
We are influenced by everything we encounter...hopefully, as designers, we choose to be influenced by [and therefore, to some degree, imitate] greatness.
I will agree the new look bears similarities to Veerle's. But I think your comment was off the mark.
I'll likely recieve death threats for suggesting this, but while there's much to love about Veerle's design; the typography, the illustrations, the content, I have always found the layout a bit jumbled and crowded...something you certainly don't find here.
If anything, Clifton pulled the best aspects of any number of sites (feel free to find other examples among the creme of web design that resemble this in some respect) and amalgamated them into a clean, intriguing look and feel uniquely his.
I still say well done!
In the Renniassance (I hate spelling that word and don't have time to look it up--of course in the time it took to type this little tangent, I probably could have looked it up and you'd have no idea I can't spell Renniassance--oh well) Throughout history, great masters have taken apprentices for the express purpose of passing on the tricks and techniques they had devloped over years of exploration and experience. They apparently believed in what my mother (nope, no hyperlink here, she's barely figured out email) calls "generational improvement"--the ability and duty of the rising generation to gather the best of what their forbears have to offer and improve upon it.
As designers today, most of us aren't apprenticed to Milton Glaser or Paula Sher or Cameron Moll. [feel free to speak up if you happen to have enjoyed their exclusive tutelage since before you could hold a mouse] However, the unprecedented accessibility we enjoy allows us, in a sense, to be "apprenticed" to all of them! We can read magazines, we can visit galleries, we can dissect websites, we can't help but see hundreds of advertisements a day.
Anyone who, in the name of originality or otherwise, refuses to acknowledge and profit by this influence...is a fool.
You make some really interesting points, I honestly had never thought about it that way before, but it makes sense, and not only for design.
How many of todays musicians were influenced by say Bob Dylan? or filmakers by Hitchcock? Tarantino for example draws inspiration from hundreds of movies. Take a look at this site, it shows plainly where Tarantino got ideas for Kill Bill, now is Kill Bill a bad movie?
Also, here is an article by Cameron Moll, written some time ago, but still a great read: Good Designers Copy, Great Designers Steal.
I think Cliftons' approach to his new design was smart and well thought out, he was inspired by other designs (which in this case was colour) and turned that inspiration into a great design of his own.
The truth is you and I can make thousands of valid points and arguments, but we are never going to stop the knocker's and the nitpicker's in this world. Our only hope is that they happen to run head first into a solid brick wall, develop a case of amnesia and forget they're arseholes, I've got my fingers crossed.
Sorry to rant in your comments but it seems that your rant has inspired my rant.
Comments like Mark's are typically the result of a visceral, visual reaction that just gets spit out without filter or thought. That, or they're just looking for opportunities to "zing" someone.
A while back there was another designer whose new site got compared to mine for various layout/aesthetic reasons. To which I replied, "Big deal." Web design is largely derivative. We all borrow good ideas and practices from each other. Anyone looking for pure originality is hanging out with the wrong crowd.
So I'm the Mark from the snarky comment at Fusionfox. I meant to include my URL in the original comment so everyone could take equally snarky shots back about the people I've ripped off, but somehow that didn't happen. To refine my point a little bit, of course I know every designer is heavily influenced by everything, especially other designers. I can point to at least one "stolen" element in every single thing I have ever designed. It's totally natural to have your work be a filtered product of the thousands of influences. The problem is when there is an identifiable, overwhelming influence from one piece or one artist. After seeing the reaction to my comment, I pointed the site out to two other designers. When I asked them what it looked like, they all answered Veerle without hesitation. To claim "I did not copy Veerle's site. I browsed the Internet, studied what I liked, then created this design in a vacuum." is laughable. I don't think you have to be looking to zing someone to see that the sites are extremely similar. It's nice that you want to stick up for your friend, but when you have to rely on a thinly stretched analogy that involves even for a moment considering Cameron Moll and Milton Glaser being in the same league of designers, you are in trouble.
Thanks for the response, Mark. I think this kind of conversation/debate brings up valuable questions that merit consideration.
Your comment on the Cameron Moll/Milton Glaser bit has sparked some thought. I think I feel a post coming on :)
Ack! Designers in conflict! Though I'm all for originality and identity, I believe we all know that most of today's "design" are derivatives.
Seriously, the concept in question is -overall- an all too familiar idea...and let's admit, we like it. It probably just depends on how limited or broad the amount of "design" that one is exposed to that views like this arise.
I actually like the new fusionfox version better than the previous. Wait, maybe I should post this on fusionfox too. LoL! ^_^
Hi all, cool design!
Best wishes