Joshuainoz. Yeah, Okay, sorry.
05/06/06 03:32 PM
Peminoz has found its way onto the likes of CSS Mania and CSS Remix lately, and feedback has thankfully been very good, a lot of positive comments. Which is nice. Someone did mention that Peminoz may have been inspired by John Oxton’s excellent Joshuaink site, which got me thinking about inspiration and blatant rip-offs. I’m aware plenty of people have ripped Joshuaink in the past and the last thing I want is for people to think that’s what I’ve done. I am reading into it too much, but it is certainly interesting to me.
As a designer (who has worked regularly as an illustrator) I feel I have (or should have!) enough ideas and skills to be able to produce lots of varied designs without the need to resort to copying off other people. You’d get found out anyway and look like an idiot, so what’s the point. Obviously you take inspiration from things, but that can be ANYthing; TV, magazines, everyday things in the street; that’s a whole other article.
So, with a risk of highlighting an issue some people may not have thought about and giving myself more grief, here are the two sites next to each other:
The similarities I see are:
- The sites both have background images as the main design
- They have a white background
- They are both colourful
- The search box is in a similar position, relatively
- They are both 770px wide and centred (like a million other sites)
- Um…
I know the comment said ‘inspired by’ but was that just a polite way of saying they think I’d copied?
I figure the best thing to do in these situations is tackle the ‘problem’ head on, so I emailed John himself to get his thoughts and to prepare myself for the possible forthcoming legal action. He very kindly responded extremely promptly (must have nothing to do all day…) and said:
The Joshuaink layout and therefore your layout also are perfectly logical solutions to a two column problem. I guess if any similarities could be drawn it might be between the colour of the links.
A top bloke, for sure. Thanks for that John, much appreciated.
When designing Peminoz I didn’t want any clear column distinction, I wanted a clean, subtle ‘divider’. Surely a background image is the most obvious way of doing this?! My original layout had lots of paint spillages and dribbles etc to do this but then I chose the Pemtone swatches (I know, copying again…).
Peminoz is actually a three column site (if you notice, the navigation used to be fixed but isn’t now) – one of the things I am currently working on is the Main Navigation column, previously it was a bit too subtle. But as you probably know, the site’s not quite finished so there will be more changes. Perhaps link colour changes!
I do know I have made a big deal out of this and that wasn’t my intention; this post isn’t a case of protesting my innocence, I can’t be arsed and don’t feel I have to. I know I’m clean, Guv. I’m just interested in other people’s thoughts: when does ‘inspiration’ cross the line to ripping off other ideas? Has anyone else been in a similar situation?
commenting closed for this article
On Monday June 5, 2006,
Steve Tucker said:
You know Stu – and this is gonna sound perhaps a little dozy – but I never once thought of Joshuaink when I browsed your site until I saw the screenshots of them next to one another. They do follow a similar pattern with pieces hanging down in and amongst the content, and yes they are both colourful. However I would not call them a copy at all. Shit, I wouldnt even say “inspired” unless I knew you had a particular hangup on the JI design. They just look similar. There are 8 billion+ web pages on the internet – isnt it only certain that some will share a similar design with others?
On Tuesday June 6, 2006,
Stu said:
Well to be honest I didn’t think about it either until someone pointed it out – I agree that surely there are only so many ways a three (or indeed two) column site can be layed out. Looking at the screenshots together, I do think, the more I look at it, the left side of my Pemtone swatches does look quite similar to the flowers. This is because that’s the edge of the wrapper div, but maybe it does need a rethink. Sigh.
On Tuesday June 6, 2006,
Steve Tucker said:
Rubbish, it’s your design. Who cares if it looks mildly similar to someone elses? Besides, if you do rethink then we’ll have to wait even longer till this site’s finished!
On Tuesday June 6, 2006,
Stu said:
Yeah I know, I’m not gonna do anything drastic, it’s just a bit annoying. Maybe I shouldn’t have highlighted it! I just need to find more slim one-column sites then I’m highlighting your inspiration!
On Tuesday June 6, 2006,
Steve Tucker said:
Curse you!