Don’t Copy a Design — Steal It
Copying someone else’s work will only give yours a chance to become as good as the one you’re copying — and that’s the best case scenario. A copy will usually never be as good as the original because it always remains one step behind. Even worse, at the hands of a novice designer a copy could end up looking like a cheap imitation, lacking the finesse and flair of the original.
No — don’t copy that design. Steal it.
Wait… let me elaborate.
When you look at an inspirational design you should be inspired. Take your time to examine its aesthetic and construction in detail — look over all the nuances and intricacies of its structure. See how the creator did this and that — extract the essence of what makes this work great.
To steal a design you must collect all the pieces of the puzzle and figure out how it all works as a whole — why did the artist use this color, why these lines, why this typeface?
Stealing design is an intellectual activity — you must be able to digest and absorb the essence of an inspirational design. Stealing gives you the real gold — it gives you the knowledge to create the work in question. Expand your arsenal of design techniques through learning instead of copying.
Once you’ve assimilated the principles and ideas employed by a designer in their great piece, you can use those ideas in your own work. You’re not going to copy them — you will instead use these tools only where they make sense, and only where they will work well — that’s because you understand exactly why they were employed in the first place.
Knowing the technique, knowing how to implement it, knowing why it works and where it works are all the things that will let you build on it. Take your inspirations and create something better — create something which works for your site or application. Adapt your inspirations to the function of your work.
There is a great method used by Cameron Moll to design websites, which he calls nodes of inspiration. It involves browsing the web, finding exceptional sites and picking an element from each that you really like and you think would work in your project. Of course you shouldn’t just copy these elements — you must implement them in a way that will work in your context, and add a flair of your own.
So in essence, what I’m advocating isn’t imitation or plagiarism, my version of stealing is one that expands your knowledge and understanding of design. Being inspired is a good thing, and being able to take on those ideas and build on them further with your own twist and perspective will produce great results that are unique to you.
one of the ways I learned to design was to ’steal’ designs. I would find a website I liked and then copy it exactly into photoshop and then code it out so that it matched. It was useful in learning PS and how to code. I would compare code at the end (or if I got stuck).
good tip especially for beginners as they usually just copy and wonder what went wrong.
Most of the great artists, designers and coders steal ideas just like the quote you gave at the start. You have just exposed their secret :P
hi there! im new in css and i love your advices! thank you very much!!!
so true!
Beautifully put! I think that’s the misunderstanding that some people might have taken at first regarding viewing other people’s work and trying to implement into their own design. As you mentioned, it’s not “just” about copy and pasting a technique but having it tailored to our work, so that it can gain fundamental purpose. Great post!
It’s the best way to learn if you are more of a hands on learner.
Good post.
Interesting topic, and in a way I wouldn’t call this stealing. Stealing I think is where someone takes your code, and takes your graphics.
What you talk about is more “re-constructing” a design element, which myself I have no problem with. Although a lot of the times you’re going to want to change that element to your own needs anyway.
This article wow’ed me. I’ve been trying to interpreting my own version of that Picaso’s great quote in the recent years.
And then, your article really explains what’s the juice behind the quote. Nice!
The only way I ever learned CSS was to steal a few designs and massage them into what I wanted. It’s reverse engineering.
Thanks for the positive comments everyone.
liam: This is my interpretation of what people like Picasso and Eliot meant by their quotes. Besides, “stealing” ideas just sounds cool :)
John Todd: Not quite what I meant by my post. What I think is important is to understand why a great design works — is it the color combination? The whitespace? The typefaces? etc etc.. usually a combination of different things make a design good. Once you understand how those things work you can take this idea and use it in your own work.
Steal ideas, not their implementations.
Very well put, couldnt agree more.
Excellent advice - I think I will now go look for some design elements to steal for my next project.
Thank you for such an inspiring article. I’m a drummer and sometimes I steal drum grooves and make it my own. This concept really works on to expand your toolbox on whatever that you may do.
great take on design inspiration and the difference between copying and stealing designs.
well written and gr8 advice for designers. Thanx a lot!
Great article. I hope you don’t mind me quoting you in my recent blog article (in comment section)
http://www.8164.org/conformity/
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Great post, I really agree with your opinion.
Excellent advice for beginners that just copy and paste the existing original content in their design.
It is always better to study, get the ideas and then create a beautiful professional design that suits ones needs.
Thanks again for great post.
Hey Jin, that’s a really good article — I’ve left a comment on your blog.
Great post - a real inspiration :)
THANKS FOR POST THIS….
Thanks for this article. It’s a great insight into one of those areas of design that are just not talked about because they are considered too controversial.
It was honest though and very carefully written. Love it!
Nice post. Love it
Totally agree!
I work for the largest online retailer in our country, as their lead website designer.
I find that the majority of our competitors copy our.. well my work constantly.
Originally, I did find the copying pretty upsetting. Then I came to a realization.
I wasn’t as much upset about the fact that my work was copied. It was the fact that my work was copied and utterly mutilated.
Now days, I have the philosophy that if your going to copy my work, steal it, whatever.
Do a better job! Push my idea further and make me a &^$% why didn’t I think of that!
Anyways guys, thought I’d add my two cents! :)
Good article btw mate! Keep it up!
i think to learn something from stealing you need some basic knowledge e.g. in design theory.
it will make it easier to understand why someone designed it in a sepcial way
Thanks for the positive comments everyone.
Markus: Definitely — which is why many people simply copy stuff and we end up with so many cheap imitations everywhere :) Even if you don’t know design theory, and you’re copying something — at least take the time to understand why it’s good and why it works. Once you do, you may not even want to copy it because you’ll realize it won’t work in your context.
I think the design of a site or an app should have it’s own feel and soul — it should mean something. Oftentimes however we see web 2.0 styles slapped onto the UI for no apparent reason and so the whole interface ends up looking generic and lacking meaning. This is because the elements don’t work in that context and different styles should have been used.
Design thievery = following “best practices”. ;-)
This is especially true in information architecture.
Why?
Because end-users WANT us to steal from each other so that they don’t have to learn different words for the same concept.
In information architecture, the trick is not to find a *new* unique word to describe a function, but to use a word that the target user is already using.
A simple (absurd) example would be an Email client that had a “Deliver” button because everyone else was using “Send.”
So as you say Dmitry, the key is to copy EXACTLY — and learn why they did what they did. Great post!
Any creative activity requires stimulation, so getting ideas from a variety of sources and blending the best of them makes good sense.
This post raises some fascinating points. In a recent edition of ‘Scientific American Mind’, Robert Epstein proposes there are four core competencies of creativity:
1. Capturing (Info, Ideas, etc.)
2. Surrounding (Mix with inspiring people and things - environment)
3. Challenging (Taking on tough problems)
4. Broadening (expanding your knowledge)
-all of which apply to the proposal of ’stealing’ design ideas.
I’ve stolen some great ideas from this page. Thanks!
Hey! Did you steal my name?
Very thoughtful article!! Thanks for sharing.
Nice article, def something that all skilled web designers practice(overtly or covertly)
Okay, I’ll use an example here, knowing I might get a lot of negative comments, but still.
I was looking for a new blog design for my personal blog and was looking for some inspiration around tubes. I came across this really cool site that I thought had a great idea (http://www.mattbernstein.co.uk/). So I used it as inspiration for my own blog and if you look at my site(http://www.elisanobe.net/blog/) there’s a lot of similarities but I made it my own, I think.
So I wouldn’t consider it so much straight up copying as just getting inspiration from others’ work and molding it and changing it up and putting my own flare to it.
I never really look at the source code on the websites, just the overall look and I like to hand code it myself. I just usually leave it at visual inspiration rather than straight up copying code line for line.
that’s so helpful thanks, may i translate your article and post it at my blog?
[...] Don’t Copy a Design - Steal It [...]
[...] Don’t Copy A Design - Steal It . [...]
[...] et des limites entre inspiration et plagiat pur et dur ( visible ici ), figurez vous que le blog usabilitypost.com a sorti un article traitant comme par hasard du même sujet, extrêmement intéressant [...]
[...] Don’t Copy A Design, Steal It - A much more positive article than the title makes it sound. [...]
Thank you for this post…I’m still struggling with inspiration to this day, but getting a lot better, especially with articles like this.
[...] came across an interesting article relating to this however, the idea of “stealing” not just [...]
[...] http://www.usabilitypost.com/2.....n-steal-it [...]
[...] 6. Don’t copy a design - Steal it [...]
[...] Here is a great article on Web Design and getting inspiration. http://www.usabilitypost.com/2.....-steal-it/ [...]
Very thoughtful article you got here. Found it on twitter and the title grabbed my attention. Nice read
Good One
I would rather say: collecting inspiration.
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А можно вам вопрос задать, если текст c вашего сайта копировать, ссылку куда лучше ставить прямо на эту страницу или же на главную страницу.