I've just copied someone's design

[chris_bcn]

Arghhhh! I've just finished the first draft of a comp - fired it up into firefox to see it in context and though - "That looks pretty good" then a split second later "It looks very familar though".

Eventually dawns on me that it's remarkably similar to a design I saw on cssvault when I was looking for idea. I must have liked it - stuck in the back of head and then just recreated it.

DAmn! back to the drawing board then. Just wanted to vent spleen. Thanks for listening

[DesignerScott]

That's the worst,
Damn subconscious thoughts.
It happens to me all the time, but especially with music!

[ecsyle]

All art is just a copy of what someone else has already done. You just have to twist it up in your own way. So do not feel too bad about copying. Just be sure to add your own unique style to it.

Unless of course, you ripped it off 100%. Then you need to start over :)

My personal site (not live) looks way too similar to one of my favorites, so I will have to come back to it with some fresh ideas.

[jimking]

George Harrison wrote the song "My Sweet Lord" except he didn't. He got sued and lost because someone eles wrote it. Musical similarity with The Chiffons' hit "He's So Fine" Harrison said he didn't realize he'd heard it before and just put it in the back of his mind. :rolleyes:

[chris_bcn]

it's not a complete rip, but it is similar enough that it would always bug me. I reckon I play with the basic idea and come up with something unique (more unique anyway!!). We'll see

[jimking]

The trick I think is to maybe use someones Idea only as a template and from there change it completely to fit your style. Artists both visual and sound are known to do this.

[balou]

If every time you design something, you can come up with a brand new idea no one else has used before, you better be making like a gajillion bucks an hour! And I'd go to the hospital to check and see if I was actually a human and not an alien. :D

[chris_bcn]

very, very true. Never going to come up with something totally unique

However, when I put the two design side by side I reckoned I could well find myself on pirated-sites.com

Time to start again, and take essence of what I liked!

[balou]

Yeah, if you're practically seeing double, major tweaking ahead for you.

[chris_bcn]

well, enough to make me change. According to a co worker that don't look all that alike, but it still doesn't sit well. Maybe I'll post it later

[carter the artist]

In art history you learn that a lot of the master's would rip off each other. One of the biggest things they would do is take an element, such as a person's stance and mirror it, so that you wouldn't really notice that it was copied, but you would get a feeling of familiarity.