Digitalmash

The reason it was familiar is it struck and uncanny resemblance to a graphic I’d created for a web site recently. “How did that get on the back of that bottle…!?” I thought. Oh, the irony.

I know, it’s not that crazy — I’m sure this happens all the time. But when you catch on to it happening, it’s a little worrying to think how susceptible and absorbent our minds are to the outside world.

Now I know they sit you down and teach you this sort of stuff on your first day in advertising 101, right after you’ve signed away your soul at the door. (People…I kid because I love). But that’s more about getting people to buy product X in the supermarket. As a designer, I’m less concerned about the brand of washing powder I buy and more about how much I just regurgitate the world around me into my designs.

Of course this makes perfect sense. And it explains so much about why being original is such hard work for most people.

I remember seeing this TV show when I was living the UK by this master mind f*cker, Derren Brown. He had a pair of guys from the advertising industry driven to his office to come up with a concept for an animal cemetery. He claimed to be able to predict ahead of time what their concept was likely to look like with amazing accuracy. Now I won’t spoil the trick, but watch for yourself.

Assuming this was legit, it’s an interesting example.

So what can we learn from this?

• You’re almost certainly an unoriginal hack.
• Surround yourself with beautiful things and you can’t fail.

Have you ever had a shocking realisation of subconscious plagiarism?

Rarrrr…Youtube isnt allowing embedding on this one, but just click the image.

—Published 25 November, 2008 ← Journal Home