So if you follow me on Twitter, then you will know by now that I recently had some of my work plagiarised. My friend found this rip-off on someone's Facebook and I thought that was the end of it, but I Googled it and found out that the image had been reblogged 25,000 times! I am a bit annoyed, the worst thing is the font is HORRIBLE, it's randomly about tits, and whoever made it (I haven't got to the bottom of it) literally just slapped their text over the top and didn't even bother to make it look like they'd done it themselves.
I'm well aware of the issue of plagiarism in illustration, what with the recent Urban Outfitters hoo-hah, but unfortunately I don't think that there is anything I can really do about it, and if there would be any real point in taking action anyway, at least the person hasn't profited from it (to my knowledge). I'd rather be concentrating on making new work and enjoying the summer weather. And it's a pretty First World problem anyway.
Hi, I too recently had a friend email me about a piece of work she had seen featured on the pikaland blog that was a rather close match to something I produced last year... it was your ice cream pattern, which I'm sure you'll agree, bears resemblance to mine... (http://wellillbedarned.blogspot.com/2010/05/meltdown.html)
ReplyDeleteOf course I appreciate that absolutely anyone can drawn a few ice creams and repeat them as a pattern, but it has been playing on my mind, and I felt I wanted to say something. Please forgive me if the similarity is completely unintentional, but I suppose this is something that only you will ever know.
Apologies if I am speaking out of turn, and I know its not as direct a copy as the one you mention in this post, but as a fellow illustrator, I'm sure you know how easy it is to get protective over your own creations.
Best wishes,
Laura
Hi Laura,
ReplyDeleteI had to go onto your Flickr to find the image because the link didn't work. Yes, I'll agree that my image is similar to yours, but I can completely assure you that I've never seen it before and certainly didn't try to rip it off! I understand what you're saying and why you commented, but my ice-cream pattern came about after I was experimenting with an ice-cream van theme for a competition for Mambo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennisparks/5469098176/in/photostream where you can see the text written in ice-creams. I then decided it would be a nice pattern.
Anyway, I really like your work and I hope that's cleared things up. :)
Jenni x