Comments on: Too Small a World

By: saim

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By: A Manifesto: The Five Types of Idea Killers « The Timid Marketer

A Manifesto: The Five Types of Idea Killers « The Timid Marketer — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:56:22 +0000

[...] 2. To “FILL IN THE BLANK’s” Point. I have little or nothing to contribute. I rarely do. You have ideas and I’m going to steal them. Whether they’re mere drivel or solid gold, I’ll take them for my own. Why? Because I pilfer blindly and can’t distinguish between good ideas and bad ones. 3. On Leveraging. Corporate-ese 101. Let’s consult the dictionary on this one. According to Dictionary.com, leverage means “to improve or enhance.” If you’re walking into a meeting with an example from a competitor who gets it, you can’t reasonably expect to improve or enhance it. Why? Because you have no new ideas, that’s why you had the gall to walk into a meeting room asking to “leverage” something that was never yours. And because you don’t get it. And you’ll muck it all up in your effort to swipe everything but the logo. That’s called stealing. It’s also a sign of intellectual torpor. Here’s a test: fashion your copy into a weighted cement block and attach it to your feet. Locate the nearest ledge. Will you fly? Will you soar into the marketing heavens on high? Would Seth, or Brian or Chris be privileged to occupy a locked room with you? Probably not. Stop running your creative department like a production mill. It’s too small a world. [...]

By: stephanifinks

stephanifinks — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:36:55 +0000

As the design director of Harvard Business Press, I accept this criticism. That said, I do want to offer an explanation.

These two covers were not done by the same designer. And although similar, the fonts are actually different (Grotesque on the left, Din on the right). No intentional stealing occurred.

The "people" icon has been used on countless covers to convey genderless, ageless, race-neutral people. As some of the responders mentioned, it's not easy to come up with a unique universal symbol for people and thus, we designers often default to the true and tried generic stick figure, if you will. It's not out of laziness - it's out of a need to quickly convey meaning through use of imagery that is instantly and universally recognizable. Most readers don't spend too much time contemplating a cover. It's our job as designers to capture their interest and give them an immediate sense of what this book is about.

And for what it's worth, we have an intense jacket review process at Harvard Business Press and we partner with our authors on every level, including jacket design.

It's been enlightening reading all the responses. Not all were easy to digest, but I applaud the dialogue and look forward to continuing the discussion.

By: stephanifinks

stephanifinks — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:34:25 +0000

By: danitaleotta

danitaleotta — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:50:26 +0000

What's got my head going nowadays? Primarily the power of passion and harnessing that energy in online environments. There seems to be a search for innovation for its own sake but I'm looking to innovate in ways that fuel existing passions in groups of people. Fear and apathy are the greatest enemies of innovation in the current age.

I'm now fortunate to be surrounded by people who are highly motivated and organized and are just lacking the know-how to them fused to the proper social networks. I've been waiting for this for a long time. I'm excited!

By: rickhardy

rickhardy — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 05:02:44 +0000

Chris, I understand frustration with copying done with designs and ideas. But in this case, I guess I'm OK with it. I think a number of people are coming up with graphic representations of the impact of social media, and these human icons are a natural way to describe it. Furthermore, though all of us who read your post probably get it at least to some degree (as we are all trying to figure out where this is all going), most others do not. These graphic representations, some using human figures like the two book covers, communicate in ways words do not. Each time I see a graphic representation of social media, I contemplate further what's going on. Seeing uses of similar or same icons reinforces previous messages for me.

By: Mark Pack

Mark Pack — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 22:25:59 +0000

Is it really too similar to be coincidental? The idea of using colour to pick out one or a small number from a crowd of icons or pictures is one I've seen used regularly over the years. Add to that the huge number of new book covers designed each year, and it seems to me quite believable it is coincidence that two designers should have ended up going for a similar riff of a previously used graphical device.

Indeed, given all the different ways in which book covers might be similar and the large number of pairs of new books covers to compare, it'd be pretty remarkable if there wasn't a passing similarity between any.

By: Kendra Kellogg

Kendra Kellogg — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:40:08 +0000

Bravo. Thank you for a much needed post. Most designers struggle to reign in their personal creativity to satisfy the client. I am thinking the designer instructed to mimick the other cover needed a post like this to have their client read.

"The Power of Unreasonable People" is right up my alley- thank you.

My big dream is a social site that helps track corporate, business and government trade relationships. This would allow people to create and share boycott plans on a global scale. Embargos would also be in the hands of people.

Thank you for a great post.

By: countzeero

countzeero — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:22:33 +0000

These are not “ripoffs” but rather just a bad use of “stock”. I would go so far as to say that these are typical of the kind of work being produced by “crowdsourcing”.

As a designer I would price the work on these covers with no more than 60 minutes – from “concept” to “pre-press” including the time taken to research and download the stock…

poor concept and shoddy execution…

By: pijushkantimukherjee

pijushkantimukherjee — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 08:28:52 +0000

Definitely it can be a true rip off or may be inspiration.

Its more refreshing to the author as well as to the audience if the matter is original.

However some one say only person(s) who are plagarist were Adam and Eve .

Otherwise everybody else after them are!!!