This was “caught” the other day and it reminded me of how easy it is to “strategically borrow” (or straight-up imitate) design online.
The problem is when it’s a complete rip-off. Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery or is theft just plain theft?
In ministry it happens a lot as well with logos, designs, and even complete websites. I’ve seen it all.
How have you handled it historically? What do you do? Is this a moment of grace or a moment of justice?
Love to hear your thoughts.
Jared Erickson says
I have had a lot of clients come to me asking “we want it to look like apple.com” and they mean to the pixel. I stay away from these clients for a couple reason.
1. was I able to produce anything creative, or I would be proud of?
2. They are always going to want “like this persons” .. and get frustrated when their success is not the same as “that design”
The Christian Market field is the worse. We should be setting more “trends” and inspiration for the world.. sadly we rip off what is “working” or “cool” and brand it for a small circle of believers.
Adam says
That’s because:
1) We’ve devalued creativity in the church for so long, that we’ve lost some of our most creative talent. We’ve either never brought them in and led them to Christ because we’ve been ignoring them, or ignored them out of our congregations.
2) We’re generally led by a generation that doesn’t value creativity. Where it’s not valued, it’s not brought out.
Eric Dye says
Amen.
Meghan says
Wow. Sad to see the church stealing like that. I mean, I get being inspired by someone, but completely ripping someone off? That’s awful. I don’t blame you for steering clear of people who want to have a look exactly like someone else’s.
Drew says
A couple years ago, our Youth minister decided to name a new youth program we were starting, “Digg”. When I was making the logo for it, I had an idea in my mind of what it would look like… (for the younger crowd I thought it should mimic the social network scene… However, after I made it, it looked retardedly similar to the Digg (social network news?) website logo… which I had never even heard of at the time. I didn’t copy the logo, In fact, I made the logo right in front of the Youth Minister (made a custom font and everything) it just ended up very similar to the original… We ended up changing the logo after we found this… It’s just weird how sometimes subconscious (i guess?) influences can affect your work.
Jesse J. Anderson says
I created the website http://www.newworshipmedia.com over a year ago – Sep 2009.
A local church (who was a subscriber to my site) recently launched their new website – http://www.timberlakechurch.com
John Saddington says
whoa…………. … um……..
Jesse J. Anderson says
Just as an update to this – they did send me an apology email and have now changed their design.