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Is imitation really the sincerest form of flattery?
Posted by Piers H Palmer on September 23, 2008
A new site has appeared on the wonderful inter-tubes, brought to us by a web design firm in Minnesota – Rocket 55 – that looks remarkably similar to ours. As designers we all stand on the shoulders of giants, borrowing ideas and concepts, using the same typefaces, colour palettes and some may say that nothing is truly original but there is a line that can be crossed where an idea is no longer reworked but just plain stolen.
I’m pretty sure that this is one of those cases. Without knowing the full facts of the story, the company may not be entirely to blame. They may have sub-contracted the design work to a third party and be completetly unaware of the blatant rip off, but ultimately they are responsible and this doesn’t go un-recognised amongst the community.
What do you think? Genuine synchronicity or steal?
ps. Thanks to everyone who made us aware of this!
27 comments
Stewart Hoffman commented on September 24, 2008 at 12:11 AM
The designer of Rocket55.com posted a request for feed back on webdesignforums.net – and has been called on the blatant copying of your web site design. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly he/she responds and changes the site.
An extra note – Rocket55 isn’t backward compatible with IE 6.0 either – looks like it uses PNG graphics and they haven’t worked in the fix for IE’s crappy older browsers lack of support for png transparencies.
Web Design Forums commented on September 24, 2008 at 12:56 AM
Hi, I’m Steve, the admin of Web Design forums (noted above). I followed this link from the aforementioned post. If you want, I’ll remove rocket55’s thread (and all links to his site) from there. I’m already in the process of banning him. Regards.
Jason Stanley commented on September 24, 2008 at 10:00 AM
I think you should be flattered that you have obviously wowed and inspired someone by your design. I think you should be angry that the said person has copied your design and plans to profit from your work.
Cameron commented on September 24, 2008 at 05:24 PM
Without a doubt, that is a blatant rip. Those guys should be sued, and then sued again! Oh, and I hate that rocket 55 font – weak.
Steve commented on September 24, 2008 at 08:38 PM
Is that any worse than putting an image of Hancock or Dark Knight on your own homepage when you had absolutely nothing to do with the movie?
chuck harris commented on September 24, 2008 at 10:58 PM
I was just passing by and when i saw this post. I?m sorry but i think what you do is not so original to be copied and stolen from others. Your site looks like a hundred ones , your colors are so standards.
I love when people do the same and do it well. And even when they keep their mouse shot when it’s nice. But when there is no originality i don’t understand when people think that the webdesign is their lordland. It’s cute but not so hot to make a big deal. Give those people a chance, everybody is free on the web. Colors are for everybody. Cheers! I’m sorry but just passing by or pissing, i don’t know if royalty has a sense!! The important is that you keep your clients!!
Dario Gutierrez commented on September 25, 2008 at 09:42 PM
Chaless!! Ahora si se volaron la barda.
Very bad, where the ideas, the original webdesign? Is just image not portfolio and clients. Regards from Cancun Mexico
David Steele commented on September 26, 2008 at 12:46 PM
Interesting article as I actually thought the text/copy style seemed to be influenced a lot by www.builtbybuffalo.com.
David Steele commented on September 26, 2008 at 12:48 PM
On the Kyan site that is.
Piers commented on September 26, 2008 at 02:37 PM
Really like the builtbybuffalo.com site – and yes a friendly and approachable tone like the kyan site. :-)
Piers commented on September 26, 2008 at 04:19 PM
Update – received an apologetic phone call from the man at Rocket 55 – he was unaware that his designer had ‘borrowed’ some elements from our site – a re-design is in the offing. Should have offered to do it for him :-)
Dan Griffiths commented on September 29, 2008 at 11:38 AM
Love the site guys – friendly copy is the way forward – why confuse people?
Austin commented on September 29, 2008 at 07:03 PM
Did a little bit of research…the “man” that called you, was Steven Ayres, the owner/”designer” himself. Take a look here: http://www.webdesignforums.net/website_ratings_and_reviews_86/new_work_done_to_site_30305.html , then google: “steven ayres” web design.
Lucy commented on September 30, 2008 at 03:54 PM
Chuck, you obviously don’t understand the issue here. There is a difference with someone using some of your so called “colors” but the site stole the entire style of this site. It’s using the same font, links, background, navigation bar. I guess YOU wouldn’t care if someone stole YOUR work that you spent hours developing and getting published. Don’t give your opinion if you can’t put yourself on someone else’s shoes. Also you have no idea how much works goes into developing a site. If you did, you wouldn’t have said that this site looks like every other sites out there. So I disagree that this site looks like a hundred others out there. It was “original” until someone decided to copy it. This has nothing to do with free on the web or colors. It’s doing what is right.
Gavin commented on September 30, 2008 at 05:59 PM
Update – When I asked the guy to take the site down he sent me back a four-letter word filled email saying he hadn’t broken any laws and then followed it up with a threatening phonecall. Way to go champ.
Lucy commented on September 30, 2008 at 07:02 PM
Very classy guy. I guess he never bothered to research that US Government has written a law,The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Here’s a handy site that can help you deal with this mess. http://www.timeforblogging.com/2006/12/10/how-to-protect-your-websites-copyright-when-someone-steals-your-content/
Stuart commented on October 01, 2008 at 08:19 PM
To return to the question posed in your headline, yes, it totally is. It’s also the cheapest form of free publicity if this nifty little thread is anything to go by.
Maybe we should instead be debating the age old advertiser’s motto – “Beggars borrow, geniuses steal”?
Gavin commented on October 02, 2008 at 01:01 PM
Maybe it is Stuart, Cameron Moll had something to say on the subject a while ago.
We are all informed by design and fashions from all over the place, not just the Web. But if your inspiration does come from another website at what point is it a worshipful homage and when is it a direct steal?
Gavin commented on October 02, 2008 at 01:02 PM
Cameron’s (somewhat aged) article:
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/copy-great-designers-steal/
Martin Majling commented on October 05, 2008 at 11:13 AM
How to make nice web in 5 min by Rocket 55 :-)
step 1 (step time 3 min)
go to design gallery and find nice design
step 2 (step time 1 min)
make “Save as” form homepage and second page
step 3 (step time 1 min)
change text and run it
now you have nice web. Take it easy :-)
Soh commented on October 06, 2008 at 05:16 AM
Loving your website, great job :-)
Ryan commented on October 06, 2008 at 04:35 PM
This guys apparently has no shame. Check out his “portfolio”... Take special note of his client http://www.stevelydon.com/. Look familiar? If not, check out http://www.barackobama.com. You guys shouldn’t be the only ones suing this guy. Based on the direction this guy seems to be going, you will probably have enough people for a class action pretty soon!
Alek commented on October 07, 2008 at 07:42 PM
yes, you should be flattered, cause clearly your design is impressive and others want it. You should also let them know how lame they are and urge them to change it. That is just ridiculous. They didn’t even attempt to make it different!
Krissy commented on October 07, 2008 at 07:54 PM
Well, I checked out http://builtbybuffalo.com/work/cruvee/ only to find a site that uses the same colors, stylistic type of icons and even has a similarity in the name to Garyvee (of the awesome Wine Library.) Oh well. The other day, I designed something for a product not yet out, and then a new product launched and I checked it out, and they had something similar. We haven’t copied them, and there’s no way they’ve seen my stuff, so we just both had the same idea. Not uncommon in this web 2.0 look-alike world. But in this specific case, the color and the imagery are identical, and that’s just not cool. Theirs has to be changed, end of story.
fosco commented on October 11, 2008 at 06:35 PM
Ryan: there are other ironic things on the Steve Lydon and Barack Obama “similar” sites: look at the bottom of the pages, the Obama site shows: “Powered by Hope”, while Lydon’s: “Powered by Rocket 55” !
Steve commented on October 31, 2008 at 09:54 AM
First – beautiful site guys. I love the typography and fonts so much I figured out how you did it :) I don’t think your friend went that far looking at his version of your site.
Words fail me when someone can blatantly rip off someone else’s design. And that’s what this is. That guy should be taught a lesson.
Timothy commented on December 04, 2008 at 01:15 AM
Looking at New Edge, the design layout is exactly the same, down to the top nav, the 3 images, etc. Nice colour scheme though. As they are an agency in their own right, I’d love to know how they respond.
http://www.newedge.co.uk/
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