Feb 22

On plagiarism

design, musing No Comments »

As I’ve said before, a lot of my work tends to involve producing things based on pre-existing things. Typically, somebody needs a leaflet in the style of a pre-existing poster, or a range of publicity based on a logo that’s already been designed. Or something along those lines.

A while ago, I was doing some work for an organisation who were in the middle of choosing a new logo. They’d narrowed it down to two different options that had been mocked up by an unnamed designer (thankfully, I don’t know who it was). Knowing that I’d be producing some publicity for them, I put together quite a few designs based on the colours and elements within both logos. In the end, one was chosen and the other discarded.

Only, the following week, I saw the discarded option on the packaging for some Nintendo Wii accessories. A couple of weeks after that, in a stationery shop (as opposed to the moving kind) I saw a clipboard whose entire design consisted of just this image. And it keeps coming back to haunt me; recently I saw the same image in the background of a website for a printing company.

Please don’t take this as a criticism of any of these services/products; I presume the image involved is from a stock library, and that they’re using it entirely legitimately. What I object to, though, is a designer claiming to have produced this as a bespoke logo, for an organisation who would have no way to tell that this wasn’t the case.

I was prompted to write about this because I recently experienced almost exactly the same thing, again. Once more I was working on some material for an organisation who’d already had a logo designed by somebody else. I tracked down the font that they’d used – and, lo and behold, it turns out that the graphical element of this logo was nothing more than an abstract character from the font itself. Furthermore, an entire poster had been designed using a graphical pattern that just consisted of these characters.

Again, perhaps this was entirely legitimate; the font, after all, is available on a Creative Commons license. But again, my problem is with a “designer” (and yes, those were quotation marks, darn it) who implicitly claims to have produced these things, as a bespoke idea, for a client who has no way of knowing otherwise. More than anything, it’s an honour thing.

I’m experiencing something similar to that other great realisation we all go through: the fact that other people tell lies on their job applications, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ve never lied, or even particularly exaggerated, anything on a job application or a CV, and I’ve gradually found peace with the grudging acceptance that this puts me at a disadvantage compared with those who do. I guess this is similar.

But I don’t have to like it.

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Feb 04

The iPad and the Casio

hardware, musing No Comments »

I’ve been following the stream of announcements, discussion, reaction, praise, criticism and ramblings, following the announcement of the iPad. A lot of the more positive commentary focuses on the notion of its being “a computer for the rest of us,” suitable for non-technical-Grandma to use. A lot of the criticism is based on its lack of features: no camera, no Adobe Flash, no multitasking, very little wired connectivity, and so on. Some have said it represents computing finally evolved into what it should be; others have said it doesn’t represent computing at all.

I was reminded of this when, the other day, I spent about 20 minutes attempting to set my Casio digital watch. It’s a great watch and I love it, but attempting to work the damned thing pushes me to the brink of insanity. I can design magazines, make websites and wire up a home theatre, but – even with the instructions in front of me – I have met my match in the good folks at Casio. It occurred to me (perhaps because I’d just been reading The Apple Blog) that so-called “normal” people, who’ve never willingly touched a computer, have been managing to operate these confounded wrist-mounted contraptions for decades now. So what’s going on?

I think most commentators are guilty of framing the level of “simplicity” of a device such as the iPad as though it says something about the skills or intelligence of those who are inclined to use it. To my mind, the Casio effect gives the lie to that. People in general – yes, even the proverbial “grandma” – are not on the whole too stupid to interact with technology. It’s a matter of inclination. They’re not unable to do it; there’s just little incentive to force themselves into a mindset in which to learn what’s going on.

A watch is utterly useless unless you’ve forced yourself to set it to the right time. And telling the right time is useful. That’s an incentive. But where’s the incentive, to someone who’s managed so far without it, to learn to use a computer operating system? And having learned, where’s the incentive to actually do so?

That’s the justification for the iPad. It’s for those contexts where you don’t want, for whatever reason, to use a computer. That’s why I can completely imagine using one myself – to show holiday photos to my parents, to find pictures of lemurs on Google Images, to read newspapers, and to find out the answer to the perennial question: “Who’s that bloke, and what have I seen him in before?” I don’t want to boot up a computer when I’m lounging around in the evening. I don’t want my wife to notice that I seem to be starting up the computer yet again. I don’t want to be notified about software updates or asked to restart my machine. During the day at the desk, yes – but not during the evening on the sofa.

Sadly, I have to admit that, for financial reasons, I probably won’t be acquiring one myself. But I can entirely see why somebody would – and it’s nothing to do with their age or technical skill.

Jan 20

The golden rule of fixing things

hardware, musing No Comments »

The wi-fi on my Acer Aspire One had inexplicably stopped working.

I tried flicking the switch a few times, waiting a few seconds between each. I’d rebooted the computer. I’d looked through the Jolicloud settings/admin area to see if there was anything that might be controlling it, or might give me a clue as to what the problem was. Finally, I was at the stage of examining the underneath of the computer, seeing where the screws were and how big they were, reasoning that I could probably get a replacement wi-fi module second-hand from eBay, and planning to dismantle the thing tomorrow to remove the offending item and determine its model number.

My wife then asked whether I’d turned the computer off and on again.

I hadn’t.

It worked.

I really must learn to be less technical sometimes.

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