* How does hiding your sources make you more creative?
It doesn’t, it makes you appear more creative. A example is some of the best students in my program, they tend to be working on a project and at the same time looking up concept to “borrow” or be “inspired” from.
The problem is the appearance can be shattered when the original artist finds out.

* When does inspiration become plagiarism?
Inspiration to me is when you see something,and are well inspired so you take one thing you like about it and twist it and tweak it and go crazy till you create a inspired piece that is not say a copy of thwe original with a few tweaks.
a example being a project I did for a class. We were supposed to be inspired by another designer, then make a poster with it.
I chose the Iranian/Tehranian designer Pedram Harby’s work. I liked how he used shapes and type in a interesting and unexpected fashion while keeping it simple.
So I took that concept, and went nuts.
The result was completely different in appearance, style, you name it. But the concept was there, that is inspiration in my mind.
Plagirism would be what another student in our class did(most of them probably) and pretty much copied a piece made by a famous typographer whose name I forget.
Plagirism can also include stealing of ideas without asking the author(original artist),which is a problem in this field.

* Have you ever copied someone’s work? Or parts of?
Yes, I admit when practicing human form for the first time I drew tons of Mortal Kombat characters from reference but I never USED them for a project. And I never will, anything I draw for reference is for me alone, I never use it or try to make money off it for it is unethical.
* How much of someone else’s idea can we copy before it becomes a copy?
I would say, roughly 30 percent.
The reason is thirty percent still makes it so the piece is still semi inspired, and it really depends on what you copy from the piece.
Like I said before mimicking a concept is ok if you twist it left and right and go nuts down your own path.
But if you say stole all the graphic images from a piece, that is copying.
* Is there such thing as an original idea?
Yes, I have them all the time it is not just me being conceited either.
I have a game I like to play called the give me a subject game, give me a subject I spit out two or three or more original ideas.

Part of this is due to the fact that I am highly imaginative, but another is because I limit my exposure to other designers work.

I think you lose originality when you are over exposed to the work of others, because I think many people have the ability to be original but for most it is very hard to do so they copy instead.

Before I attempt to give my perspective on creativity one of the most significant revelations when reading the comments (read most scanned the rest) is how much limitation ‘we’, as a society, put on every single one of us.

More revealing, is how most are influenced to the degree of acceptance by ‘words of wisdom’, quotations and advise from all types of superiors in the world. Even without an attempt to gain a little context, some self awareness or understanding.

Firstly we need to understand that the ‘words of wisdom’, quotations and advise are simply that persons perspective. Not a truth, nor a fact and in most cases not even a help. It is just the persons past experience articulated in a way to make them sound like they have learnt from it.

Often, it is yet another limit imposed on us. A guide to lead us away from self exploration, from creativity.

Be in no doubt I am not an exception, I hold my hands up and admit to my naivety to it all too. Been there, got the t-shirt, in fact worn it out.

So first things first; creativity needs to be about questioning everything, question ‘superiors’, question quotes and advise. More importantly question yourself.

I feel this is going to be a lengthy comment, apologies in advance but please stick with me.

Let me give a little background to my view on things that will hopefully give a better insight when I offer my answer. Last year I was asked to do a presentation on the meaning of design (link to creativity will come shortly) to be delivered to both designers and non-designers alike. The first and one of the most obvious reasons why their is such ambiguity about its meaning is because of too much generalisation and saturation in todays world. The word could be applied to engineers, painters, sculpters, strategists, mathmeticians etc.

So,after months of research I narrowed down four cornerstones of creativity, character traits if you will (obviously this is shorthand):

• Vision (conceptualisation, imagination)

• Design (providing solutions, answers, guidance)

• Art (expressionism, emotion, communication)

• Craft (technical aptitude, skill in production)

Dependant on the individuals degree of ability in one or more areas did determine ‘roles’ more suitable for their personality.

For example, a stonemason would, ideally, need to excel in craft and design, to accomplish a restoration project while a sculptor for a museum display would benefit by an enhanced artistic ability and could afford compromise more on design.

It didn’t stop at just character traits either, influence from an individuals past, their experiences and place in society impacted heavily on their outlook. The short example; The child of a Japanese calligrapher would have a totally different perception of the word ‘design’ than an American engineers’ son/daughter.

Which goes a way to explain not only the diversity in understanding these generalised terms but also the variety of explanations given.

So a common theme, especially, in the comments is one of originality. Even if there is such a thing.

From what I have learnt stealing work is nothing more than self development in craft, maybe a little more awareness in design and art but has no vision, so therefore no originality.

Being inspired by someone else work and develop your own take on it does give more benefits in all areas; vision, design, art and craft but if the question is about originality then the influences and limitations already set out in front of you err you away from originality yet again.

Hiding your sources does nothing more than divert accountability when things don’t work even if it is just in your own mind. If all works out well you can divert it back for acknowledgement and pat on the back just make sure the sources are well hidden.

Plus hiding sources has the added benefit of allowing you to create your own personal ‘shortcuts’ by producing stereotypes (trends in our community) for production. Good for deadlines and getting paid, not so much for originality.

Originality can happen though! First a thorough understanding in psychology both individually and culturally (past, present and comprehending the future), add an in depth knowledge of all your personal and experiential influences, limitation and hindrances. Then, when you have all of that together. Ball it up, throw it out of the window and lose yourself in your imagination and question everything. Learn to forget. Creativity is not born out of restriction and neither is originality but it isn’t an impossibility.

I promised myself I wouldn’t end with a quote but here is one from our old friend Einstein:
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

A little indirect to your direct questions but hope it helps all the same.

Oh and remember, as I mentioned right at the start, this is only one perspective. The difference is it just happens to be mine, wink!

Right, now to back to designing off a website template…

The same is true in the Graphic design and Web design industries. The question is where is the line between fashion or inspiration and straight out copying?

I think copying is OK BUT subtract from that copying the idea of the design, and it is ALWAYS crystal clear when an idea is being copied. Sometimes it is hard to think of something unique for a project, the more people who think so the more valuable a unique design will stand out from the crowd, and such design is the one I’m talking about that is not permissible to be copied. A good example: https://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/logo-planet-wrap-greener-way-gift-36408 and a good example of impermissible copying is ofcourse Mr.Ubuntu figure no matter how much you twist, turn, squeeze’em…etc

Realigning elements in a design, rotating, scaling…etc are ofcourse considered copying but it still depends on the project you’re working on; take for instance coming up with a logo design for a social media company, I consider thinking of speech bubbles a “common way of thinking” or a “common starting point” through out the brains of the designers (out of subject: just don’t be cliche by stopping at that starting point and just place it there without something creative added to it, stopping there isn’t illegal copying but it isn’t creative) so that is not illegal copying.

As a further example, see my entry (humbly) #353 here http://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/creative-director-hoping-starts-good-logo-54892 , it’s actually ALMOST similar to the same tail in another withdrawn entry that had just the tail in a circle as an icon and FoxWalk beneath, the big zigzags of the tail in that withdrawn entry gave me the idea of using the tail as a “W”. i.e I copied an element (No one has the copyright of a fox’s tail right?) but came up with an idea. This is what I consider fine.

I am now thinking someone should come up with an article called “A copier’s guidelines to legal copying” :) I see copiers as a bunch of chimps who just act what humans outside the cage do (excluding eating bananas :) So be unique, don’t eat the banana…eat the peal ;D

found this interesting little article

http://ezinearticles.com/?Everything-Has-Been-Done-But-Mine-Is-Better!&id=163834

cu,

Ruben

I’d think it is true to say that every artist needs a ‘Muse’

There are 6 billions of people today and it is unavoidable to have some kind of repeating. Our DNAs differ in less than 1% but each one of us is still unique. If we copy nature (as we always do) then only small percent of differences is what makes creativity uniqueness, and originality. Thieves are something else.

I would beg to differ about saying we are all the same. On similar note, why can some people draw as a child and some others not? Is this what we call talent or is talent something that we need 10,000 hours to work towards?

I do however believe what else you have said is correct.

Bensky,

Research is a critical part of the process and is also part of the inspiration however I don’t think that “every designer instinctively knows just how much they can use as inspiration from existing work before it crosses the line and becomes stealing” and that is what I believe is the problem, knowing where to draw the line.

When I ‘bite’ someone’s work, it never comes close to whatever they’ve done, because I start adding my own touches to it so it changes almost instantaneously.

I don’t think hiding sources makes me more creative. I may appear to be, but thats a false image being projected.

The only time it becomes plagiarism, is when you copy something almost exactly and try to pass it off as your own. But if you take bits and parts of things you find. Thats just using something you’ve seen, just like the person that created what you’re looking at was inspired by something that they saw.

RebelDesigner,
Had a chat to you on Twitter about it!

Christian,
And did you know that nearly every song in the top 30 consists of four chords?

Maciej, Andris, Frederik,
Another nice quote, thanks!

Callum,
I suppose it is natural in some sense and part of the process.

Brandon,
Thanks for the quotes from your professor and some interesting points you bring up, never really thought about it like that.

“You’re only as good as your reference”

“There are no new ideas, only new combinations of old ideas.”

What I’ve taken from that is that it’s not so much about being original and unique, as taking solutions that others have already come up with, and making them better and work for your client. If we had to re-invent everything every time there’d be a whole lot more poor design out there, and we’d all be broke after spending months on every little job that crosses our desk.