Visual Editors
Visual Editors, NFP was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in 2004.
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Charles Gooch
VizEds Moderator
Joined: 09 Jun 2004
Posts: 405
Location: Kansas City Star
Posted:
Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:12 pm
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There has been plenty of good discussion (I even tried to get it on it last week but I was told that I didn't have access to post in this forum).
I look at this issue like I look at the music industry.
Trends emerge in music, like Grunge, emo, techno, hip-hop, etc. Once someone stumbles onto the correct formula for popularity, a dozen bands come out on the coattails.
Think Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Mudhoney, The Melvins, etc. Who came first? Why, that doesn't even matter, because they were all copying Mother Love Bone who was copying the Pixies who were copying the Stooges and so on and so forth.
The point being: people copy for all different reasons. One band might copy because they are truly influenced and want to pay homage (Nirvana and Led Zeppelin). Some bands are only in it because the style is successful and they can make money (i.e. Creed).
In our industry, copying is a fundamental way of life. There isn't a paper in this country that hasn't borrowed a style from someone else. Just look at the typography. If we were all unique, we'd have our own fonts.
We all walk a fine line.
gooch.
_________________
"I heard the jury was still out on science." |
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martin gee
Ninja
Joined: 15 Jul 2004
Posts: 851
Location: the merc
Posted:
Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:38 pm
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lemme take a crack at this one.
you really can't plagiarize a style, shape, design element or trend. sure, one can use the same element but it's not exactly copying (like placement, headline treatment, quotes in the corners, 3 pieces of candy stacked up, etc.) but... something can be overused and annoying. look at all the trendy designs with spray paint splatter, vector silhouettes, old clip art in a symetrical design, etc. ipod ad treatments are annoying. apple wasn't the first to ever do that but it's a trend (that should stop). is using interstate and poynter considered plagiarism?
so the L shape is nothing new like the circle or square. but lucie lacava started "the trend" with her la presse redesign and then the baltimore sun. very innovative, classy and stylish. simple and clean. bakersfield took it and made it gaudy and obnoxious. unfortunately, from the la presse example posted on newsdesigner, the design seemed to have strayed from it's original elegance. what's with the dotted lines?
the virginian pilot's use of the shape is so elegant. the logo (which seems to be smaller these days) is aligned on the left side with the white and shuttle deck. love that attention to detail. i love how the shuttle and the flames go from top to bottom. great cropping is a v-p tradition. extreme verticals and horizontals.
i doubt the v-p is going to start doing this everyday. just a one-time thing with the columbia story. they're constantly surprising the reader, like with the mosquito story.
with all these examples of the hot L. i prefer the sun and what the v-p did because the surface area is less than half of the page.
it's that golden ratio (1.618) / golden rectangle where it just looks and feels right.
if you want to see plagiarism. look at the daily mail ripping off the guardian.
_________________
http://hellvetica.net |
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Melissa Angle
Juke Box Hero
Joined: 10 Apr 2005
Posts: 46
Location: Orlando, FL
Posted:
Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:59 pm
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Cox News Service pages are on topics such as books, pets, healthy living and NASCAR (if I remember correctly).
I don't know that it moves A1 pages as part of the subscription. But even if it did, the package would have (or should have) a credit line to the AJC or Cox News Service, right?
(Playing devil's advocate here:) Just because they used an AJC story from the wire, does that make it OK for the design to be the same? The recent Gospel of Judas story comes to mind ... that day, would it have been OK for every paper to have the same centerpiece design just because it was a wire story? Instead, there were some great examples of creativity that day. (The Flight 93 story the other day is another example ... wire story, great creative pages.)
***I removed the link to the parody page handout ... it certainly was never intended to seem mean-spirited or hurtful. I'm sorry if feelings were hurt. I want to keep the rest of the posts up because I still think it's an important topic to discuss, and I think it has stirred some good debate. ***
Last edited by Melissa Angle on Wed Apr 19, 2006 12:56 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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