yes. that NASA.

Urban Outfitters Solar System Wall Mural…

…and the original art from the home page of NASA JPL’s Photojournal site

i know this because i made v1.0 of the home page graphic of the NASA Photojournal site. i made it completely not to scale (otherwise the planets would be too small to see) and with photoshop 3.0 in the darkness of JPL’s computer labs. yeah, i know that photoshop job won’t win any awards!

the images on the NASA site are as far as i know public domain, but come on….it’s still gross and lazy, and where’s the Caltech/JPL/NASA credit?

A few seasons ago, Free People made this dress. It was fairly popular among the hipster crowd. I think I even saw it on a sitcom.

It even came in blue:

It was so popular  that it’s actually been copied not just once but twice. First, the slightly more expensive knockoff is being sold at ModCloth:

Apparently you won’t be quite as unique as they claim.

The cheaper knock off is being carried by Forever 21’s Herritage 1981 line. Like the original, it also comes in a blue colorway option.

Not that I’m really complaining… The original was definitely too expensive for my broke ass to afford, but I wonder how Free People feels.

There have been loads of copycats since this series of admittedly simplistic t-shirt designs, created by Alyssa Zukas, first appeared at Urban Outfitters in 2007. Most of the biters were clever enough to change things a bit, but not this time:

http://www.uptowngirl.tv/FrontStore/iGoodsView.phtml?iGoodsId=0026_00309

They even had the nerve to use the original Urban Outfitters product photography, AND Alyssa’s name, all over their site. The original tees have “Alyssa Zukas” and a bio screenprinted into the inner neck tag area, along with Urban’s made-up store brand “Spark in the Dark.” The oh-so-clever counterfeiters actually re-typeset everything, changed the name to “Lovely Kate,” and retained Urban’s “Spark in the Dark” logo in the exact same location. You’d think they were counterfeiting Louis Vuitton bags or something with this level of detail, not Urban t-shirts.

In case the aforementioned link gets altered in any way, here’s a comparison.

Alyssa’s original designs, photography by Urban Outfitters

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Counterfeit versions on the UptownGirl.tv website

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Nice of the ripper-offers to give Alyssa credit and all, but this was not an authorized situation, and Urban Outfitters was not granted permission to relicense the design to any third party. Straight up rip-off, through and through.

If you like the designs, support the original designer by buying the designs from her Etsy store

As if you needed another reason to hate Urban Outfitters, they just blatanly ripped off our classic Thrasher magazine design. See for yourself and judge who’s the innovator and who’s the imitator:

The “Boyfriend” is an iconic shirt we’ve been selling here at Thrasher magazine for just over twenty years now. Originally created in 1989, the “Oh God! Why can’t my boyfriend skate?!” t-shirt is one of the few designs that has never been discontinued. I know Urban Outfitters is notorious for ripping off t-shirt designs, but damn this sucks.

Australian clothing company MAMBO is currently producing (for 2009) a Tshirt with a blatant copy of essimar’s lovely ZAHA paper cutout. This particular design has been well documented on her blog and flickr account since 2007, but I suspect that Mambo saw the design in a 2008 U.O. feature and couldn’t resist putting it on a Tshirt. A very poor attempt indeed. The colorful nose and black body is an obvious give away, as is the cutout pattern along the back, but they even went so far as to include 2 small cutouts on the top portion of the right ear – a very specific feature of her designs!

Original Design (2007)

Mambo’s Copy (2009)

Shame on them!

I posted about his first art theft (to my knowledge) last year, but having checked up on him again this morning, I found two more.  These aren’t as overt as the first one, but this guy must still have my site bookmarked and he’s using my drawings.

First up is a drawing I made as a Halloween decoration back in 2004:

Here’s the shirt that stole the drawing:

Just like last time, he took the drawing straight into Photoshop or whatever and just changed a few things.  Here, the mouth, the eyes, the the text, and the color.  The underlying drawing hasn’t been changed a bit.

Next up, an old drawing of mine from 2003:

And here’s “Slim Mils” “design”:

This is the best image I could find, but it’s still pretty obvious that he used my drawing of the guy on the right, once again only changing the eyes and color.  This shirt, he says, was sold to Urban Outfitters!  Tremendous.

For a guy who keeps touting his own originality in his little bios, he sure likes to use my stuff.

I thought after I got after him last time he would stop it, but since it looks like he hasn’t, I’m going to get a lawyer involved and nail this guy.

Well in a switch of roles….i noticed a shirtt today at TopMan that looked AWFULLY familiar.

Now Urban Outfitters oringally sold this shirt about a year ago. It was drawn up by the label, Public Domain. And sold at all UO stores.

Now a year later, TopMan, the side label of TopShop, is selling this…

Now before everyone gets all uppity. YES, there are some diffrences…one has a metal band..the other seems plastic. Colors are different, etc. But coincidentally, not only are they using old-school calculator casios…but they both though this deserved to be a huge front print…and using halftone dots. Seems a little TOO coincidental. Obviously, that watch is not quite original, but the execution is definately copied.

You be the judge.

Now resolved- see here.

Sounds like Johnny is a stand up guy.

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Original post:

Remember a few years ago when Johnny Cupcakes got ripped off by Urban Outfitters? So do we. That’s why it was a surprise (and a disappointment) to see such a respectable brand fall to the dark side.

As designers, we sometimes argue where the line is drawn between inspiration and theft. After the jump, you’ll see a small example of just where that line is drawn. Last year in 2007, Onetwentysix’ own Jon Contino drew a series of lettering-based illustrations. (A link to his Flickr page where they reside.) This was nothing out of the ordinary as most people recognize him for doing just that. On June 26 of this year (2008), Johnny Cupcakes made a blog post announcing the sale of their new summer line which included a shirt that seemed oddly familiar to a number of Jon’s fans. Thanks for all the emails, everyone. We appreciate it very much!

Take a look and judge for yourself.

These are the original illustrations:

This is the illustration in question:

And the evidence:

I’m nost sure how strict people should be when it comes to electronics design, but this is a blatant ripoff if I ever saw one: A while ago I bought these Panasonic retro looking headphones. I’m very happy with them and they’re doing a great job, especially considering the price I paid for them.Yesterday I received a new copy of Nylon magazine and saw an ad in the back for Boosted new trendy mobile phone headphones. I looked them up online and found them at (where else) Urban Outfitters. There’s also an article on them here and I’m really annoyed about it, they are the -exact- same design as the Panasonic ones, the only difference is the painted over brandnames on the earpieces.  

I’ve noticed these necklaces at Urban Outfitters for awhile. They don’t exactly have a track record of being original people,

so it wasn’t all that surprising when I realized they have totally been ripping off this UK designer.

Her necklaces are really cute and handmade. Theirs are overpriced, unoriginal pieces of crap.

See for yourself:

Hers: Theirs: