Home » Design and Layout » Design Principles » Page 1 2
 

Cameron Moll

Cameron Moll Cameron is the Creative Director for IDI, a publicly traded Web applications provider located in Orem, Utah. Specializing in homepage usability and design, his award-winning work includes such clients as Tupperware and Shasta Beverages. Visit Cameron at CameronMoll.com.

Cameron Moll has written 2 articles for SitePoint with an average reader rating of 8.6.

View all articles by Cameron Moll...

Good Designers Copy, Great Designers Steal

By Cameron Moll
June 9th 2003
Reader Rating: 8.6

Pablo Picasso, the first living artist to be featured in the Louvre, influenced the artistic world in a uniquely original way. So why is he known for saying “Good artists copy, great artists steal”?

It’s true. Picasso really said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Or at least, since his death in 1973, everyone believes he said that.

But why? Why would someone as original as Picasso say something as ironic as that? And what did he mean? Google Picasso’s quote, and you’ll find plenty of opinions and interpretations as to what he really meant.

My intent here, then, is to uncover one possible interpretation. This interpretation involves three levels of design, each of which:

  1. involves some aspect of copying or stealing,
  2. shows increasing design maturity, and
  3. adapts Picasso’s quote to modern graphic design.

Three Levels of Design

To help you understand my reasoning, I’ve segmented this interpretation into three levels. Are these the only three levels of design? Of course not. They’re only a guide to help improve your design maturity as related to copying and stealing.

I’ve included short case studies to effectively demonstrate the primary concept at each level -- at least, that’s the intent. You be the judge as to whether or not they’re effective examples.

Level 1: Copy, Don’t Create

I'm all for being as original as possible, but a beginning Web designer (or any designer, for that matter) should start out by copying other well-created designs.

Gerry McGovern, Web copywriting guru, makes the same argument for writers:

One of the simplest tricks that professional writers learn can greatly ease the process of getting ready to write: look for a model of the kind of article you need to do, then dissect it, analyze it—and copy it. . . . Novice writers often make two mistakes: they think they need to be entirely original, and they think they need to wait for “inspiration.” Take it from the pros: for most kinds of writing, originality and inspiration are overrated.

Replace the instances of “writers” and “writing” in Gerry’s quote with “designers” and “Web design” and the message is the same: copy, don’t create.

Surprisingly, there’s a positive side effect to copying: conventionality. Building on the same foundation as other sites -- specifically, layout and information architecture -- often leads to intuitiveness and familiarity for the end user. By no mistake do BarnesAndNoble.com and Amazon.com have similar navigation structures.

Additionally, if your career is anything like mine, you hardly ever enjoy the luxury Michelangelo relished as he expended four long years completing the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Often, we have only four months -- more likely, four weeks. So, in a commercial art environment such as Web design, copying is almost mandatory, given the time constraints and budget limitations we face.

Case Study

The source:

1150_1source

The result:

1150_1result

IDI’s corporate Website, created over two years ago, exemplifies Level 1 design very appropriately. Most of us working on the project at the time -- including myself, the Art Director -- had less than two years of Web design experience. We needed a polished source to act as the foundation for the layout of our site.

After hours of searching, we found that Nike’s Canada Website was the perfect fit. The design style was technically appealing. The layout architecture was simple, yet strong. The only thing lacking was additional text to draw visitors in.

So we took Nike’s design and ran with it. You don’t have to struggle to see the adapted result is close to the original source.

» Page 1 2
Print-Friendly Version Suggest an Article Link to this Article