Battling Visual Plagiarism

As a graphic design educator or practitioner, battling against visual plagiarism can be frustrating and daunting.I typically begin each semester with the mantra, “Art is work.” This is reinforced by showing students Ira Glass,’ “The Gap,” where he talks about the creative process and the importance of continuing to make work. I follow this up by showing Kirby Ferguson’s, “Everything is a Remix.” This usually leads to a lively discussion about visual plagiarism, appropriation, fair use, and copyright.Visual plagiarism is a complex issue at best. Most design educators require students to do visual research, just like most designers do. If a students doesn’t do research, they often say it is because they didn't want to be influenced by someone else’s work. In my experience, this is a euphemism for not wanting to put the time and energy into doing the research. We spend our time reinforcing the value of research and how important it is in the design process.After stressing the importance of looking at other people’s work, it’s necessary to follow this up with a discussion about visual plagiarism. My battle against it typically begins by reading our college’s plagiarism policy as stated in the course syllabus:Plagiarism, i.e.: the use of words or ideas of others, whether borrowed, purchased or otherwise obtained, without crediting the source…I next discuss in detail how this relates to visual plagiarism and show examples. I explain that penalties may include failure and further action if the incident is reported to the Dean of Students. I discuss reverse image finding sites like tineye.com and let them know that I will be checking their work here and they should be pro-active and take a look at their own work here to prevent inadvertently taking someone else’s work.Despite these efforts, every semester work is submitted where the “remix” looks more like a “rip-off.” This happened a few months ago when the offending student didn’t bother to look past the screen of the student sitting right next to him and proceeded to present a design that looked very familiar to his classmate. Of course, it presents an excellent teachable moment. In this case, I waited to see if the students themselves would bring it up, which I was happy to see that they did. It’s important to note, that I honestly don't think the student even realized that he was doing anything wrong. We assume when we say that visual plagiarism will not be tolerated, students know what that means.Earlier this week I participated in a workshop about collaborative learning where an English professor discussed using memes as a required assignment. Meme’s are all about the remix and the rip-off. Memes have become a ubiquitous part of our culture. When students grow up in an environment where memes are part of our dialogue, visual plagiarism becomes more complex.It happens all the time and our tools make it easy. The ability to outline fonts, image trace raster images and then make slight alterations to the vector art makes it simple. A few high profile cases include John Williams and his company Logo Garden and Modern Dog’s fight against Disney. William’s position was that he was within his rights to create many of the logos offered on the site because the logos were new vector drawing with slight alterations. In Modern Dog’s case, Disney claimed that the drawings were technical and not creative, so the issue of copyright infringement did not apply.Don’t even get me started on appropriation…In Mark Johnson’s book, Moral Imagination, he discusses how important our imagination is in our ethical deliberation. This makes sense to me and I try to incorporate it into my lectures on visual plagiarism by using the “walk in another man’s shoes” proverb. As much as we would like to believe we are wired to be good and have impeccable ethics, most of us aren’t born that way, but rather develop into ethical people with imagination playing a key role.I’m looking for ideas; as designers and design educators, what works best for you in making sure you, and those you employ or instruct, avoid visual plagiarism?

Fashion Week: It’s Complicated

New York Fashion Week kicked off this past Thursday, and with it some complicated topics graphic designers are very familiar with:

Design Plagiarism

High fashion brand Saint Laurent is showcasing a dress with graphic lipstick prints that retails for $3,490 - but looks a lot like a dress from Forever 21’s 2013 collection that sold for $23. Saint Laurent is most likely safe from being sued for copyright infringement because copyright law prohibits the protection of a design if it can only be depicted in a limited number of ways— tubes of lipstick may fall into this category. However, it doesn't protect them from being called out for it.

Social Awareness

As New York Fashion Week Live reports, “one of the great ironies of fashion is the disconnect between the beauty of the products, and the way the materials are often sourced.” Consumers are increasingly demanding more humane treatment of animals and people, as well as the use of more eco-friendly materials. Fashion designers are responding and young designers like Max Gengos, are embracing the concept of “responsible luxury” when deciding on which materials to use and the conditions in which their products are produced.

Sustainability

We live in a culture of disposability. This extends to “fast fashion,” where cheap garments are produced quickly to keep up with trends. America buys 20 billion garments a year, 1 item per person per week. This results in 12.7 million tons of clothing thrown away each year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that textile waste occupies nearly 5% of all landfill space and 85% of textile waste is not recycled. Ultimately this leads to overtime, overcrowding, and unsafe conditions for overseas workers employed to keep up with the demand.

Cultural Influence

Celebrities like Emma Watson and fashion designer Stella McCartney are speaking out in campaigns like this recent one for British Vogue on Fashion and Gender Equality, demanding empowerment for women and a better message for women of all ages and sizes, allowing them to feel good about who they are.As we enjoy the glamor of New York Fashion Week, we may also do well to consider the complicated relationships surrounding beauty and image.Sources:http://newyorkfashionweeklive.com/http://www.thefashionlaw.com/https://www.notjustalabel.comhttp://www.ecouterre.com/http://www.elle.com/http://www.weardonaterecycle.org/