All Things Open 2014 - Day 1
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014
Joseph Gagliari
Web Designer and Frontend Developer for University of West Georgia
Design
Great Artists (Designers) Steal
11. Jobs vs. Gates
• Influence pervades
• “Fair Game” has
many meanings
12.
13.
14.
15.
16. Problem:
While development can be deemed open and thus
benefit from a diverse community of contributors,
design has always inherently been open in nature.
17. Questions:
1. Is borrowing permissable?
2. How can we borrow, but still innovate?
3. What should our attitude be toward those who
borrow from us?
4. When does borrowing become theft?
18. Design verses Development
Development
- Needs collaboration
- Values efficiency
- Behind the scenes:
self-value ethic
Design
- Seeks independence
- Values originality
- Center stage: judged
by all
23. The latest incarnation of Oedipus, the
continued romance of Beauty and the Beast,
stand this afternoon on the corner of 42nd
Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the
traffic light to change.
Joseph Campbell
The Hero With a Thousand Faces
26. Why do artists steal
- Familarity
- Memory Mapping
- Conventionality
- Cameron Moll on
foundations
- Efficiency
- Artists as curators
27. Benefits of Familiarity
• Two systems of decision making
• Concious vs. Unconcious
• Our culture functions primarily on instant impressions
Daniel Kahneman
Nobel Prize-winning researcher
• Design decisions fail when they do not
leverage their predecessors
Dr. A.K. Pradeep, study of GAP failed logo launch
28. “Designers are often reluctant to take advantage of them
(conventions). Faced with the prospect of using a convention,
there’s a great temptation for designers to reinvent the wheel
instead, largely because they feel (not incorrectly) that they’ve
been hired to do something new and different, and not the
same old thing. (Not to mention the fact that praise from
peers, awards, and high-profile job offers are rarely based on
criteria like “best use of conventions.)”
Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think!
29. There are more than a billion pages on the web - for
your inspiration
Seth Godin
30. Great Design Ships
• We are not always the gatekeepers
• Stand on the shoulders of giants
Nina Paley
Iterations on accepted and familiar patterns
have a better chance of making it to market
and of being accepted
31.
32. Types of theft
• Not all theft is conscious
• Theft differs from
appropriation, iteration,
and improvement
• Fork designs, push changes back
to help others
33. Ethical Theft
- Steal inspiration instead of outcome
- Reverse engineer final products
- Always cite, Always give back
- Make designs available to others, give credit
34. One of the surest of tests is the way in which a poet
borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad
poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into
something better, or at least something different.
TS Elliot
35. Goals and Best Practices
- Curate intentionally
- Work within community
- Continue to innovate
- Great design sets the bar higher
- Look outside your comfort zone
36. Where to steal from
- “if you’re designing for the web, why look at loads
of design portals that show loads of web sites that
essentially all look the same? […] Surely they offer
too narrow a view to be really inspirational.”
Brendon Dawes, Analog In, Digital Out
37. Protection from Theft
- Notriety protects from plagiarism
- Edison and the patent clerks
- Use tools, know your rights
- Read copyright laws http://www.sitepoint.com/the-web-designers-copyright-crash-course/
- Always have a contract
- Document everything
38. Summation:
- Theft Happens:
- It’s at times involuntary
- It comes in many varities
- It’s part of designing
- Steal Better
- Follow ethics, follow laws, copy inspiration
- Stealing is good
- Stolen products often work better
AG: My childhood masterpieces were rendered on tracing paperMy imitation was made obvious by my iteration - Years later.. I saw a documentary on Disney animators flipping tracing paper
This isn’t a mandate - it’s a confession-Let us become aware of it, and intentional in it- Apply standards- Understand it more fully
Film: homage
writer: research is fundamental
The development community needs to set the tone
Openness makes creation and problem solving easier
Stealing is good
Steal is going to happen, even if it isn’t good
Expectations for presentation - open ended question
UWG- Browsers- TinyMCE- Wordpress- GitLabs and github repos - Google Applications - DriveMoving on to context in design community
Expectations for presentation - open ended question
Current Event: Apple’s Jony Ivy has accused Chinese phone manufacturer of stealing Apple designs.
http://readwrite.com/2014/10/13/jony-ive-apple-copying-stealing-vanity-fair
-Patent wars are becoming ridiculous - like the “zero-length” swip == click argument- Apple has a history of borrowing/copying- Many Apple features in i0S8 are ported from AndroidThis extends Ivy’s mentors clash over “theft”
Jobs v Gates story
Design does not exist in a vacuum. We’re all influenced by each other.
-Apple’s stuff has been seen elsewhere - HTC, Samsung- Their software seems ported from Android
It’s important to classify design as a language - a communicative currencyIf language were a currency - and royalties were due- Drake would be richOr maybe, the true incepterhttp://www.businessinsider.com/xiaomi-to-jony-ive-try-our-phones-before-you-accuse-us-of-theft-2014-10
Carpe Diem I borrow Colin Quinn’s analysisAt what point does the derivation of an element no longer owe its existence to the creator of its parent element?Ivy, Jobs, Gates, Lin Bin - all clashing over their genius, we should look to true genius
Jobs - guilt over putting stuff togetherThis is key - we are curators, using our perspective to create
Old Steve vs. Young Steve
Steve Jobs famously said great Artists steal. The GUI was lifted from Xerox, but when Google released Android, Jobs called it a stolen product and promised to go thermonuclear war on it. What changed?The developmental methods were completely different - languages, tools, teams, objectives - and even the dogma of the OS was entirely different - “Welcome to the walled Garden” vs. “Hey here’s our kernel, go HAM” (picture of dog exposing belly)Design was what offended Steve as having been stolen - the way the product works. It was his genius - his intuition for how people interacted with objects, data, and interfaces. He attempted to have doctors redesign his breathing apparatus. It was who he was. So he felt that, in lifting the HOW of the design, Google had taken part of himself they were not entitled to take. Design though is inherently imbued with parts of ourselves - so it takes a reinvention of our interpretation of self to say, anything created with help from my creation is also imbued with part of my identity, and is therefore part of my design lineage.
Development becomes this inherently open process where collaboration is required - and the tools common to the development community are often shared, as are best practices, trends, and helpful tips (shot of snarky stack overflow conversation)But in design, things aren’t always so open. Probably the most high-profile piece of proprietary software commonly used by any of your teams is being used by your designer. That’s not to say there doesn’t exist community - but that’s exactly the point - it springs up in spite of trends.
We are modern mechanics, artisans, engineers, and painters, writers, poets, and filmmakers. We present stories, characters, and information fluidly, in a variety of contexts, suitable for digestion across myriad platforms. It’s important we see ourselves as the continuation of a proud tradition of expression and storytelling. The story does not lay flat on page, page comes alive, story surrounds, and audience IS a character, many times, the antagonist, prompting change through interaction, whether fluidic or fraught with struggle. As such we should understand the historical context of our skills and objectives - every major communicative medium endures the growth pains the web now faces, and navigates them in their own manner.
As Artists, We are ThievesArtist reflect, interpret, modify the world around us. We can only do this through our lens, our perspective, with our toolset.Once we’ve rendered something, it is forever imbued with our perspective.So if our collective perspective is lacking, we cannot accurately see the world, let alone reflect it, and answer its needs. It is important for us to steal - or borrow - the perspective and pangs of others to better answer questions we have not thought to ask, and solve problems we have not ourselves even struggled with.This requires we remain tuned into those around us, and that we translate ourselves into walking surveys, walking sociological and psychological studies on the mechanics of our interfaces, information ,and craft - to better improve, iterate, and invent.
Expectations for presentation - open ended question
A positive side-effect to copying is conventionality - similar foundations - layout and IA and therefore it becomes “intuitive” to use a product and familiar, comfortable, appealing.We often don’t have time to painstakingly create anew. This isn’t an excuse, but its a consideration.Steal from yourself - in iterating, you will create things you’ll never use, so revisit them! (See bottom: resources to steal from)Picasso meant great artists are great curators - great collectors of otherwise hidden sources. It wouldn’t do them any good to steal well known material - but to bring lesser known designs to the masses helps them become a trend and appeal to more people - works them into the collective lexicon, the design language of all people - and achieve maximum impact. Nokia had an example of the iPhone 15 years ago but never did anything with it. Great designs, if kept private, do not achieve the fundamental goal of great design: to empower, influence, enhance, and enrapture its audience.
Development becomes this inherently open process where collaboration is required - and the tools common to the development community are often shared, as are best practices, trends, and helpful tips (shot of snarky stack overflow conversation)But in design, things aren’t always so open. Probably the most high-profile piece of proprietary software commonly used by any of your teams is being used by your designer. That’s not to say there doesn’t exist community - but that’s exactly the point - it springs up in spite of trends.
The best solution is probably already out there - the question is how to find it, and how to make sure its the best. This is because many designs arise to solve similar problems. Ask yourself why you’re embarking on a certain path!
A lot of times, designers are not the gatekeepers - so standing on the shoulders of giants and iterating is the best way to get something into the market - it mitigates the risk for art directors and project managers and assures them it will work, it will deliver, it will achieve its end. This also highlights one of the great things about being stolen from - maybe your gatekeeper held something back, but this process can be subverted by openly sharing design and ideas, content can still make it to market through alternative channels. Impro by Keight Johnstone argues when improvisers strive for originality they fail. Instead, be obvious - specifics become and seem universal, and what’s obvious to you isn’t obvious to anyone else - so even if you and ten other designers steal from the same piece, you won’t steal the same things.
Not all Stealing is Conscious We are stewards and curators of design trends and techniques, and so quickly become repositories for new methods.We don’t always mean to steal, sometimes we think we’ve invented something when really we’ve seen it somewhere else before, or we’ve merely appropriated something common.Even when we do iterate in cases such as this we must recognize we are standing on the shoulders of giants. Rather than shying away from comparison, or seeking to undo this subconscious borrowing, we should go down the rabbit hole, seeking to understand why things work, why we want to steal them in the first place - so we can transplant similar rationale to our other solutions and discoveries.
Copy the inspiration - not the outcomeSort of like wikipedia - look to the footnotes, seek to understand why something works, or where it came from in order to work from a common ancestor - don’t copy the outcome verbatim, that’s in bad taste, and also doesn’t achieve what design is meant to in that it does not set your product or creation apart. Design is your creation’s identity - don’t let it be a mere echo of another identity.
vGreat Resources to Steal FromScotch.ioCodePenMaterial design - GoogleCoDropsDribbblePinterest
Edison - patent office racesEinstein - afraid his work would be presented by collaborator before he could make it known (build out solution slide with this information) Build out - contact information, UWGHistory repeats itself - how we got from Model T to todayCultural aspects - China (borrowing or enhancing?)Highlight big words (words of importance)Refine timing - know where you are in the presentationwrite entire word for versusRemove abbreviations Revisit roadmapRemove unused slidesAdd more information about WHAT you’re saying to stealVisit how state ownership works as far as your employmentAdd more information about copyright ins + outs + how to defend against theftEnlarge slidesEnsure all citations are very well documented on references pageDon’t switch slides without switching topic - info should
Roadmap - don’t go through everythingInvolve people by asking rhetorical question - then answer via slide transitionConsolidate some slides into lists - be aware of what next slide will be
Include definition of steal