10e20 Blog

After reading this posted on a flickr I couldn’t help but ponder the idea of originality, specifically as it applies to design but also in its entirety. The designer was creating a logo when he came across a site that had a ’similar’ concept.

I feel that the designs are related, yet both are distinct in their execution, style and handling. The concepts both could have been created at the same time with out knowledge of the other. I am sure if we all pooled together we could collectively find icons, symbols or logos that looked oddly similar to them both. Also, with so many websites being created every second- a lot of them need a logo. For the logos in question being so similar is it because it’s an obvious (good) idea or because the familiarity, ubiquity of the mark has been embedded in our heads? Lets leave that one to the philosophers…

Merriam-Webster define original as this:
1 archaic : the source or cause from which something arises; specifically : ORIGINATOR
2 a : that from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is made b : a work composed firsthand
3 a : a person of fresh initiative or inventive capacity b : a unique or eccentric person

Bad artists copy. Great artists steal.
-Pablo Picasso

Now we can all agree that Picasso new what he was doing (yes-I know he wasn’t a designer), and even if he didn’t he was doing things right. This quote, I believe, refers to the need to push existing ideas and methods and filter them through the individuals subjective mind and personal experiences.

In the early 20th century originality did not play a role in the relationship between Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso as they pushed the ideas of cubism and collage. Both of their works of the time were very much like the others, some were almost identical. A specific artist that inspired Picasso’s and Braque’s early experiments with this flattened space was Paul Cezanne, but they pushed this distortion just a little bit further.

When this image of a bunch of web 2.0 logos came out a few months back, the color schemes are obviously very close with a high majority of them being blue and green. This could be considered a design trend which is the process of getting others to follow, of their own free will, your actions or style.

Trends are important because the set the stage for the next innovation in design, or what have you, to come along and show how it is different and new. We have all seen the assortment of cell phone designs and technologies that have been sprouting up, but when the iphone came out- it was exciting because it was fresh and new in several ways- it is still just a fancy phone.

Originality is the art of concealing your sources.
-Benjamin Franklin

Originality is closely linked to creativity and thought of as the result of the creative process. Originality can vary from culture to culture with more emphasis on this ideal or that one. With so many people do so many similar things, how can there be anything original anymore? Well we all are all so different for starters, but maybe an anthropologist can better articulate and answer that one.

Anything from singing, dancing, painting, photography, gardening to cooking can have elements of creativity that are based off of an existing idea. If I am cooking a chicken quesadilla, I pretty much have to have chicken, cheese and tortilla but I can add my own touch of creativity by the way I arrange those elements and the extra things I add in as well as the way I prepare and present the food. How about tire design? Nobody is making a rounder tire, but there are innovations with production of the tire, the materials used and the craftsmanship in general.

I do not feel that the designer on flickr was erroneous in anyway even if he did reference the other sites logo for inspiration. If the logo looked to much like the other it may come down to who had the strongest brand recognition and then viewers would say ’symbol y’ looks so much like ’symbol x’, because the are more familiar with x. If it was a direct copy of the mark I am sure it would be a case for the courts.