Beth

If he feels you got him fired he needs to seriously reevaluate. He stole your work, passed it off as his own. Grounds for firing. Learn to design, not steal.

Dambold

In the instance of plagiarism, I think he should be apologizing to you. Whenever a designer plagiarizes they commit the unforgivable sin in the industry. it may not have been a pixel by pixel theft, but a close copy and questionable at best. He could have at least changed it up enough to make your site the inspiration, not the source.

Ray

Dont be silly, you certainly dont owe him an apology!

If this guy had the nerve to rip off a design and pass it off as his own unique creation then hell yeah he deserves to get fired. His boss will be contacting you shortly to thank you for bringing it to his attention.

Kyle Steed

Brad,

That’s a tough call man. One that definitely pulls on the heart strings. But I think standing up for yourself and defending your work is the right thing to do. So in my mind you did the right thing. And I wouldn’t worry too much about the blog post by Mr. Carson. That doesn’t describe this situation at all. And as far as an apology is concerned I don’t see why it would be necessary coming from you.

Konrad Neumann

The way you went about it was respectable. You neither bashed him, or his work, but brought to light the (very) close similarities. I believe it when ecclesiastics says “there’s nothing new under the sun”, but when it comes to design, that has to appear by inspiration, not copy. Web 2.0 gets a bit tricky (how many combos of gradient stripes can you really come up with), but especially in the world of custom illustration… such similarities should not exist. I think the designer in question has to work at re-aligning what his ethical compass might be. His rant on you via Carsonified was out of line and a bit designer bashing on its own. but those are just my thoughts.

Ryan Giglio

Absolutely it was ethical, especially since you made a point to contact the site and the designer before you discussed it publicly. A designer who passes off others work as his own deserves to be fired. If he stole from you, most likely he’d stolen from others in the past and got away with it. Hopefully this will discourage him from doing the same in the future. You definitely did the right thing.

Kennedy

Would you still feel bad if the owner tried to sue you? You did what any normal person would do.

Ipstenu

You didn’t get him fired.

While the designs are similar, and while what you described as his design-process being iffy for a professional designer, you contacted the site. THEY made the decision to fire him. And I suspect it’s NOT because he ’stole’ a design, but more that his design-process was doubtful.

The site owner forwarded it to the designer who wrote explaining his process. He had cobbled together pieces parts from other sites to create something he felt was unique.

THAT got him fired. You didn’t do that. You just went ‘Hey, wait, that’s cobbled from MY work!’ The site owner could have said ‘Yeah, so what? It looks good.’ But they went and did the ethical thing to say ‘You’re right, this is bad for business!’

Do I design like that guy does? Sure do. But I’m not a web-designer or a graphic artist, and I do my best to credit my source. I’m a writer and a tech-nerd. I know my limits. I don’t sell myself as something I’m not, though, and neither should the designer.

Sucks for him, and okay, maybe you’re the catalyst for the firing, but the reason he was fired was his own work.

holeycoww

I’m 50/50 on this. I have seen the website that brad is on about, and though I can see where he has ‘copied’ Brad’s work, I’m finding it hard to see where he has ‘ripped’ a Brad Colbow site.

(Unless, of course, images and such have been removed from this site so I can no longer see them)

But yes, you can see he has took Brad’s pic of the swing and copied it. But does Brad own the rights to the concept of a swing on top of a hill? And a swing can only look a certain way.

I think it’s wrong that this designer has copied Brad’s image of a swing on a hill, and certainly agree that the company using the design needs to be told. But I wouldn’t agree that a site has been ‘ripped’. I’ve seen much much worse cases of people’s websites being ripped.

sean jones

I am not jumping on the band wagon here as most people do in this shitty industry of greed.
He stole your swing on a hill idea. Give me a break.
Who did you steal it from?
That is the question.

You are a baby.

Jillian Nichols

Tough subject, but I think you’re totally justified in your actions. When you’re still learning the ropes of web design it’s easy to heavily rely on other sites that you like, but this wasn’t kind of a rip-off of your design, it was a blatant one. He could have easily taken inspiration from certain elements of your site and made it his own, but this appears to have been a much lazier attempt. Hopefully he will eventually see this as a learning experience…

taggart

they were looking for an excuse to get rid of him anyway.

Michael

I can understand how you might feel this way. Being fired is a big deal and a very real experience, and its not hard to feel for someone who lost their job.

However, someone else looked at this and decided to take action. That was their call, not yours. You had no choice in the matter.

The only thing you did do was talk about how someone ripped off pieces of your work, without attribution and though a very sketchy ‘process’. This is your right. You didn’t accuse without reason. You are able to back up such claims and the ‘designer’ confirmed this as well.

That fact that you feel bad for this person should not be confused with responsibility for their predicament, it just means you have a heart.

victor

So a hill and a swing makes for a rip-off? Even the clouds are different…

I understand if they take the whole site’s schematics, but an image is just an image, and fighting for it won’t get anyone in a better position, as it did not.

mikeo

He got himself fired not you. It was his action that lead to his termination. All you did was call attention to it. He did the copying. I would not lose any sleep over it.

.mike

Russell

While it isn’t a blatant ripoff like we’ve all seen too many times, there were some very obvious “similarities” that can’t be ignored. I agree with Kennedy’s comment. In the remote chance you would’ve gotten sued by his client (stranger things have happened), you’d be feeling way worse by having to defend yourself. Don’t lose any sleep over this one.

Joe Money

I think this brings up a good question. Are there any truly original designs? Granted, that was pretty blatant, and lazy designers are lame.

Eventually everything I do can be traced to inspiration from something else. He should have shown his boss everything he was doing to come up with it and be transparent about it. At least then it could have been squashed early on and not gone on to get him fired.

GEO

Interesting situation and interesting comments.
I agree with others here that the design was not a complete rip-off. I can also see how certain elements may have been “remixed” into the design and I see similar composure. Thus, maybe not a complete copy, but possibly a derivative work. But then what a “derivative work” is, is arguable. Thus may or may not have any claim.

In this situation I likely wouldn’t have used the main contact form to lodge a complaint. That submission would likely put the mail in front of a person who is uneducated as to the situation and possibly has no inkling of anything related to the web design. Also, your submission may have placed the dev/designer in a “guilty until proven innocent” situation with the employer. From the looks of things, the employee failed to plead his case. Did you get him/her fired? Maybe, maybe not, but imagine trying to explain a design process to someone who may not know anything about it AND has a email claiming stealing. Now imagine this all happened in a bad economy in a startup or small business. Yeah.

Also I surly hope that persons here believe they haven’t ever done what this person did at some point in their careers. We are all influenced by what we see, read and hear day to day. There is a Copyright case where a guy believed he created a new song, but was sued for copyright. Turns out, the guy had heard the song when he was a kid and didn’t even remember it, but the tune was the same…

You don’t know the developer that did this design, you don’t know his intentions or his steps in creating the design. He may have passed by this site surfing one day and later in a late-night brainstorm while flipping through iStock “thought” he came up with something. Who knows. I would say that anyone calling him out as straight copying should go back through all their designs and make sure they are not a pot looking at the kettle…

In sum, I would’ve contacted this dev directly and kept the uninformed out of it, given him a chance to make it right if need be. Yes, his actions ultimately led to his departure but your route of communication put you in the mix.

Trav

I’m stunned that people can say “yeah he copied some of your work, but that doesn’t mean he stole from you”. This never would have been an issue if the plagiarist had simply created some original artwork. End of story.

Josh Walsh

I think you did the right thing. You politely reached out to the company to talk about it. It was the professional thing to do. His boss obviously agreed with you. I wouldn’t feel bad.

grenadasu

The similarities were too close, period. I recall being stunned by the comparison when I saw the 2 sites…subject matter, style, colors. Too many coincidences to be an accident.
BUT..for the sake of the argument let’s imagine it was: if he’d cared about his customer’s brand integrity, he could have said “that was unintentional, but I should revisit the design to be sure no-one is confused about where they are.” But he didn’t care about doing the right thing as much as saving face.
Back to the point though, if he’d had a legitimate explanation he would have been able to defend it to his employers. Apparently they disagreed. You were correct in protecting yourself from liability, and quite frankly they needed to as well.
And, if he was on the right side of this, any employer who would fire him unjustly is just not worth working for anyway, so he should stop whining about it.

Don’t feel bad. He will learn from this and find better sources for “inspiration” from now on. And he got this life lesson without being sued…so in some ways he did OK.

Julio

If a designer is copying a website a 100% he is not a designer. This is just a learning point for that designer. Get fire for it is alittle over bord for me.

Dani McDaniel

It is hard coming up with original work, but I would more feel sorry for the guy for not being creative enough rather than accusing him of anything… He didn’t “steal” your work, he borrowed an idea which wasn’t original to begin with… its definitely a tough call but being that you are obviously more talented and creative I probably wouldn’t have worried about it…

Christopher Burd

Writing to the company president to accuse an employee of unethical behaviour, is not “politely reaching out”. It’s a very aggressive action, and if it’s the sort of thing you do frequently, you will get people fired or get a black mark put on their record.

You really want to think twice before doing stuff like this. Whatever he may be guilty of (two doodle-like graphics of a swing on a hill… who’s to say?), the punishment was draconian. No, it wasn’t you that made the decision to fire him. It was someone much stupider than you, at least when it comes to design issues. Noblesse oblige.

Steven Clark

As an aside, several years ago I was developing a very simple website for an artist and it was not behind a login but was in a deep subdirectory. The site was hand coded static XHTML 1.0 Strict.

So I noticed in the stats the day after it went onto the client’s domain there was a link back to a “famous” person’s site. I followed the link and it was THE CLIENTS WEBSITE – not similar it was the site. In the footer it had this person’s copyright, too. And a new site title. So I emailed the guy politely – he just said he had grabbed it for the “beautiful palette” and I was gobsmacked. Then he put it behind a login. Now that is being ripped off.

The said guy who I won’t mention because I’ll get my ass sued… he speaks at conferences about usability and user interaction. Big name. Writes books.

I use that example just because there is a difference IMO between emulation and outright theft.

But no, I dare not name and shame. Which is also a difference when the other party is a nobody versus a brand in themselves.

Jacob

Dissenting opinion: you should feel really bad.

With all due respect, a swing on a hill isn’t that unique. Grass is green. Skies are blue. Beyond the general concept and a vague similarity, he didn’t “steal” your work. Sure, you can see where he got the inspiration, but I’m positive nothing you (nor I, nor anyone else) have done is 100% original.

The guy probably isn’t that strong a designer (I’m guessing), no need to punish him. It’ll work itself out. Stop worrying about who made what first and get on with making things. It’ll free your mind and you’ll find you do better work, I bet.

Sorry, but I stand adamantly by this view.

Christopher Burd

OK, I’m back for another bash at poor Brad (whose writings and graphics I enjoy). The problem here was not so much your ethics as your judgement. Look, I get over-attached to my own ideas and sometimes get over-reactive. Heck, in your shoes I might have done what you did. But it would have been bad judgement for me too.

First, your site didn’t get “ripped” in the sense I understand the word: meaning, someone’s hijacked your code or graphics or something (the way that Chinese summer camp hotlinked a graphic off my site – ah, who cares?). Someone just imitated a drawing of yours, and not a close imitation either. Proportionality.

Why write to the company at all? Have you lost financially? Were you just ready to pitch that company with your cool swing-on-a-hill concept? Of course not: your reaction was purely emotional. Dude, it’s business. Keep emotion out of it. That’s just good advice.

The idea that you were risking legal problems by not complaining is fantasy. No one expects you to be a lawyer, but to be any kind of professional you need to have some common sense about legal matters.

OK, end of lecture.

Christopher Burd

Thanks for the reply, Brad. Let me apologize for phrasing things as harshly as I did.

Kean

I think in regards to feeling your work had been stolen you did the right thing and didn’t go too far. You just highlighted the issue and the other people involved took the actions of firing him, that is their issue not yours.

Personally I can’t see enough in the screenshots above to say your design was ripped off, the only apparent similarities appear to be of the swing/hill image which to me doesn’t seem enough to call foul.

alyssa

Yeah, it IS a rip-off. I feel for him, too, though. I’m learning graphic design, and I don’t know enough about creating my own vectors. But that’s something that REALLY gives me the freak-outs… I’m deathly afraid of the copyright issues. I want to be SO careful not to copy something. I have a TON of downloaded digital scrapbook materials, songs, you name it… I have so many, I don’t know what ones are free for commercial or NON-commercial use… same thing with fonts. How do I keep it all straight? How do I site the sources if I make something? Believe me! I’m terrified!

Levon

By the way: what is the URL for the other guys site, need to actually see the site to make a 100% judgement, wouldn’t be fair to bash the guy beofre seeing the actual work…