you thought we wouldn’t notice

I have been looking around, trying to see if Hot Topic made a deal with Nina Ricci about this or anything but I have found nothing, so I brought it here to see what you guys think or if anyone here knows anything to clear this up.

THIS is a picture of Nina Ricci’s original fragrance, “Nina”:

and this is the Twilight-themed perfume that Hot Topic is releasing:

Source: http://nowsmellthis.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/12/28/4038097.html

As you can see, the bottles look pretty much exactly the same. I know the fragrances are not the same though. The notes in Nina are mostly fruity and floral, there’s citrus, apple, some vanilla, peony, moonflower, etc. You can find all the notes for Nina here: http://www.nina-parfum.com/

The people in the Now Smell This link pointed out that the notes for the Twilight one are Lavender and Freesia (apparently they’re written on the box, perfumes never do that.) I’ve also seen comments in other places saying it smells more like PineSol than anything else.

So, what’s going on here?

The Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand unveiled a new logo recently which has more than a passing resemblance to the existing Seagate logo.

Original Seagate logo.

New Otago Polytechnic logo.

I’m not too sure of the designer/designers who “created” the new Otago Polytechnic logo, but it was developed in conjunction with some of the senior Design teaching staff, and input was also sought by design students.

A few students pointed out that it was very close, possibly too close to the existing Seagate logo, but this was obviously not taken into consideration during the final logo selection process.

I think a responsible attitude (once alerted to the similarity, as they were) would have been to look at the Seagate logo and if it was too similar to the logo being designed, then it should be changed to prevent unfavourable comparisons, even if only to prevent the idea that the designer had deliberately copied.

I find it hard to believe that someone involved in that design process hadn’t seen this before.

I read an earlier post about a Mexican film festival blatantly ripping off Justice’s D.A.N.C.E. video.  You know, the one with the shirts

Now, I’m not too much of a fan of the original, but I can certainly see why the idea is catchy.  Apparently Playstation wanted to get ins on it, too; I just recently saw this Playstation commercial and couldn’t help but notice something…familiar.

1st: www.pixelnatural.com (Luckily they realized what they had done and removed off internet)

2nd: blacky.us (They also removed the design due to an internal designer who was working for them that copied my site)

3rd: http://cirut.pl

Now my personal site is: www.neftysworld.com

Am hoping this 3rd company will also due the same thing as the rest of the other companies have done so! Its embarrasing.

TwilightShades, registered on Etsy.com, ripped off Locher’s. Etsy is a site strictly for handmade items (that is, items that YOU made that YOU want to sell) and vintage items (that is, OVER 20 years old or older, not antiqued items that are under 20 years old). In TwilightShades, she says that she antiqued it herself. She didn’t mention usage rights, either.

Original:

Rip-Off:

I just noticed today while browsing around LiveLeak.com that the site added a new icon to it’s design and being a long time Mac OS X user the icon caught my attention. LiveLeak seems to be using the same icon as the one used in OS X for the Activity Monitor Application…

I searched the site to see if I could find a mention to the use of this icon without any luck.

You can see it here.

British Shitsters Kaiser Chiefs seem to be scraping the barrel for inspiration lately. Their latest single “Good days bad days” sounds very similar to the nursery rhyme “5 little speckled frogs”.

Exhibit a)

and

Exhibit b)

The Originals - From The Hundreds Winter 2007 Line, Artist: Electrik Suicide

http://www.thehundreds.com/store/collection_07winter.html

The Questionable - Norma Jean and Breathe Carolina 2008, Artist: Electric Zombie

Here

and Here

An artist here in Miami, Veit seems to be ripping off the style of an artist in Paris, C215. She’s slowly making a name for herself here but I doubt she’ll ever reach the caliber of C215. They’re not exactly the same, but it’s close enough. Even her myspace is the same as C215. Although when it comes to the layout it could just be a template you can download for your own use. But why would you use the same layout as the person you’re copying?

Here are a couple of examples

C215’s myspace

Veit’s myspace

A piece by C215

A piece by Veit

The line style is similar and you can tell that Veit is trying to accomplish C215’s style in her paintings. C215 has more personality and range and his work seems more mature than hers.

What do you think?

Here are the links to their pages:
C215: http://myspace.com/c215
Veit: http://myspace.com/namesnotdave

In the competitive world of t-shirt designs, similarities often crop up. But are some too similar?

Here is artwork for Goldfrapp’s 2003 album Black Cherry:

Another version of this appears on the back of their album with black and white socks…kind of like this design from Design By Humans:

The shirt was designed for a competition for Von Zipper, a sunglass retailer.

Is this flattering inspiration or obvious copy?