Breanna Rose: Inspiration vs Imitation

Breanna Rose: Inspiration vs Imitation

Hello Blog Milk readers! My name is Breanna Rose and the lovely Ana asked me to stop by + talk about a tough subject today: blatant copying and taking inspiration too far. While the blog world is full of wonderful people and endless inspiration, it definitely has it's low points as both myself and Ana have experienced before. We'll talk about all of these things and how to approach them in a classy and respectful manner.

With that said, let's cover the biggie first -- blatant copying. When you've put so much love + time into a project, it's literally jaw dropping to see it elsewhere, unexpectedly. Once you get past the disbelief, you'll either feel angry or flattered. Well, actually, most likely an intense mixture of the two. This has happened to me ( from what I know ) on four separate occasions, and each has been quite the learning experience. I handled them all differently and now have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't.

So, first things first : no matter how hard it is, please do yourself a favor and confront anyone who has blatantly copied you. If you don't take action, it will always be at the back of your mind, or worse yet, discredit your business. You can't control what others believe, so if someone stumbles across your work for the first time, copied, they may think you're the one in the wrong. Not good. But before you go about confronting, always remember that once encountered, the copier will most likely feel WORSE than you do. Sure, you may be raging mad, but they will most likely feel two times more embarrassed for getting caught. Carefully keep this in mind as you start up a conversation with them.

The best thing to do in this situation is to keep things simple. If we're talking about an obvious copy of work, the person in question will understand why they are being confronted right away and be willing to listen. You don't need to go on and on about how wrong they were to do such a thing ... deep down they already know that. Instead, focus on two things : clearly express your disappointment and request that the work be heavily changed or taken down. Nine times out of ten, the work will be taken down right away and an understanding will be met without the need for a big cage match. If that isn't the case, you may need to be more forceful in your approach or even think about taking legal actions. Never let somebody steal your work.

Now, while blatant copying is easy to spot, the idea of taking inspiration too far is where we enter the grey zone and things become complicated. For example, maybe you have a signature design detail you use within your work or on blog post imagery, and after awhile, you start seeing it pop up all over the place. The reason this is so tough is because none of us OWN circles. Or triangles. Or all those little details. All projects are made up of shapes, color, typography, and much much much.  So we own our work as a whole, but not necessarily bit by bit. If somebody is using a simple design idea of yours, it's hard to call them a "copier," per se, because their end result may look different.

So what do you do? Well, be a trend setter yourself! While there is nothing wrong with looking up to others for inspiration, try being ahead of the curve as much as possible. Are people starting to copy you? Take note and do something new + exciting. Always be one step ahead. While I don't condone taking inspiration too far, I also don't think fighting about it will solve much of anything. It's hard to prove and ends up hurting everyone involved more than need be. Of course, if someone is regularly taking inspiration from your work too far, then maybe it's time to think of it as more of a blatant copying situation, in which case you would refer back up to my first couple of paragraphs.

With inspiration comes a fine little line. Take it in and enjoy all that you see out there, but leave it at that. There is room in this creative world, no matter what field you're in, to pave your own beautiful path. Take the high road, folks. You'll feel much better about it at the end of the day, I promise!

I'm so grateful for Breanna's help and knowledge on this subject. Please leave a comment below if you wish to share your story with us or leave questions. How do you deal with copycats?