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The Place For Originality In Modern Society
Tan Ning Olivia (15913) Class: BADCN3C
20/10/2014
Why is originality such a commodity?
Paul Rand once said, “ Don’t try to be original, just try to be good.” However, designers these days as compared to the past are more preoccupied with the notion of originality, where they value the idea of being new and different from the rest. Having their work complimented as being original has become something that most designers would like to achieve. It feels as though being complimented with being original gives some sort of assurance and affirmation that they are good. These days, the “cult of individualism elevates the value of originality but at the same time blurs its definition.” (Story 1951).
That being
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Why it is impossible to create an original piece?
One way to attain originality is to ignore culture and society’s needs collectively. By doing so, it throws away the functionality and meaning of a design, because it is no longer relevant to people. A good design is more of how a designer can rearrange an existing work, element or inspiration to fit it into the concept and make it work for the consumers.
Increasingly, more ideas and designs will be generated day by day, thus achieving originality becomes increasingly rare. For example, drawing an apple would give us an apple logo, draw a black tick or swoosh and we would be copying Nike, simply drawing a yellow line would be ripping off Visa. The less complicated a design is, the more likely someone has already created it.
When Helen Keller was accused of plagiarism, Mark Twain wrote her a letter to support her, in which he stated that all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources. In the design field, we can always find some sort of trace back to a piece of work; be it in the styling, the concept or even the elements or colours used because there will definitely be some sort of familiarity and connection as long as there is an inspiration behind it. Everyone is copying everyone, sometimes even
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Dimensions of creativity. 1st ed. United Kingdom: A Bradford Book .
Foucault, MF, 1996. The Order of Things. 1st ed. France: Éditions Gallimard.
Kate Cullinane. 2013. The Original Paradox. [ONLINE] Available at: http://designobserver.com/feature/the-original-paradox/37733/ [Accessed 18 October 14].
Michael Michalko. 2011. Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.creativitypost.com/create/ twelve_things_you_were_not_taught_in_school_about_creative_thinking. [Accessed 18 October 14].
Penelope Alfrey. 2000. Petrarch's Apes: Originality, Plagiarism and Copyright Principles within Visual Culture. [ONLINE] Available at: http://web.mit.edu/comm- forum/papers/alfrey.html. [Accessed 18 October 14].
Sherri Caudell . 2014. Paul Rand’s Influence and the Current State of Design. [ONLINE] Available at:http://burnaway.org/wade-thompson-son-sons-reflects- paul-rands-influence-current-state-design/. [Accessed 18 October 14].
Steve Delahoyde. 2011. Erik Spiekermann Talks Type. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/erik-spiekermann-talks-type_b11762. [Accessed 18 October 14].
Story, JS, 1951, Plagiarism and Originality, Greenwood Press, Connecticut.
The word “original” is often used to describe paintings that have been manufactured by hand, but it is not clear whether hand-made copies of work are still considered so. When an artist copies another’s art, is his own art original now that it has been tainted by the thoughts’ of others? The poem “To A Mouse” by Robert Burns served as inspiration for John Steinbeck when writing the famed tragedy “Of Mice and Men.” Steinbeck, a Nobel prize-winning author, set many of his books during the Great Depression or the California Dustbowl, times when the future seemed bleak. In Of Mice and Men, man-child Lennie and his “father figure” George form an unsuspecting friendship, and set off into the world with their dreams of one day buying land and settling down. The characteristics of these protagonists are directly taken from the Burns’ poem, which describes similar characters. Is such a close emulation detrimental to the value of originality in the work? Steinbeck believed that “only through imitation do we develop toward originality,” a motif seen in Of Mice and Men. Inspiration is necessary for all art, but by exploiting Burns’ poem, Steinbeck bastardizes the innocence of originality.
Lawson, Bryan. How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified. 4th ed. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2006.
In the video produced on TED “Embrace the Remix” by Kirby Ferguson, he discusses the importance of understanding that “creativity comes from without not from within and that we are not self made but dependent on each other” (Ferguson, 2012). Ferguson discusses how everything is a remix and defines remixing as copying, transforming, and combining. He makes a logical sound argument through the use of logical fallacies to convince his viewers. Ferguson argues how remixing helps creativity through the use of logos by providing cases of Steve Jobs building off ideas, appealing to ethos with poisioning the wall fallacy, and emotionally appeal to the viewers through pathos with appeal to tradition.
"Dieter Rams’ Good Design versus Jony Ive’s Bad Design." Http://voxelfab.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
In the early twentieth century the Modern movement of architecture and industrial design came about. This movement was a reaction to the change within society and the introduction of new technologies. The ever changing world and technology meant artists to evolve alongside the changing world and this kind of ‘industrial revolution’ that was happening. Modernists ideas have seeped into every form of design especially architecture and design. Although most modernists insisted they were not following any style in particular, their work is instantly
The act of creating art is rarely, if ever, a truly original action. The literary scholar Harold Bloom coined the phrase anxiety of influence, which describes the belief that there is no such thing as an original poem: “new poems originate mainly from old poems; that the primary struggle of the young poet is against the old masters.” The same is true
A recent debate tackled a particular aspect of creativity studies that focused on whether creativity studies should be included in the core curriculum of education or should be integrated into existing courses. Though some colleges and other institutions have already implemented creativity studies programs. The question of whether this is the right decision is yet to be answered. Many professionals and authors have made claims regarding this issue of creativity studies and have provided effective arguments. Since each one of them has different assumptions about creativity studies and agree only on few aspects of the
One main item that could affect design is the concept of liability. In today’s day and age, organizations are quick to lay blame on an individual instead of looking at process improvement. For example, a manufacturing organization that identifies how to improve processes to avoid/correct seeing defects would strengthen the loyalty of its workers vs. one that identifies individuals to blame. Most new design is reviewed
Many do not consider where images they see daily come from. A person can see thousands of different designs in their daily lives; these designs vary on where they are placed. A design on a shirt, an image on a billboard, or even the cover of a magazine all share something in common with one another. These items all had once been on the computer screen or on a piece of paper, designed by an artist known as a graphic designer. Graphic design is a steadily growing occupation in this day as the media has a need for original and creative designs on things like packaging or the covers of magazines. This occupation has grown over the years but still shares the basic components it once started with. Despite these tremendous amounts of growth,
Jonathan Lethem analyzes the way that various artists across all mediums rip off other artists in his essay “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism”. In his essay, Lethem defines “plagiarism” to mean artists using other artist’s work through “mimicry, quotation, [or] allusion” (61). Rather than word for word copy and pasting of someone’s work, the word plagiarism will be used to describe the use of someone’s work as inspiration for other art in this essay. Lethem does not view this form of plagiarism as a heinous crime, rather, a “sine quo non of the creative act” and in fact, a badge of honor for the one getting “plagiarized” (61). In other words, it’s impossible to be creative without quoting and alluding to people and their works. Using an example of an Iranian filmmaker, Dariush Mehrjui, who used J.D. Salinger's work as a springboard for his work, Lethem asserts the filmmaker “had paid [Salinger] homage” by using it and in doing so, a...
Hegeman, J. (2008). The Thinking Behind Design. Master Thesis submitted to the school of design, Carngie Mellon University. Retrieved from: http://jamin.org/portfolio/thesis-paper/thinking-behind-design.pdf.
When it comes to designers and their work, within the aesthetic theory they usually perceive themselves as originators and will forever avoid being a follower. On a critical writing essay by Chuck Byrne and Martha Witte about understanding deconstruction they state, “most are loath to admit that they are influenced by much of anything other than their own inner creative resources.” (Bierut, Drenttel, Heller, Holland 1995: p115) Designers today and experimentation, what advantages do they have now that they couldn’t before? Chuck Bryne and Martha Witte also state “Today, the technological changes taking place in typography have been brought about by the personal computer. Relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use desktop publishing equipment and software have given those designers choosing to take advantage of them direct control over typographic arrangements which were previously dependent upon expensive typesetting techniques or laborious handwork. The ability of the computer to allow variations at low cost gives the designer the freedom to experiment until the page seems “right”, whereas previously, tried-and-true formulas were necessary in orde...
‘You cannot hold a design in your hand. It is not a thing. It is a process. A system. A way of thinking.’ Bob Gill, Graphic Design as a Second Language.
Creativity is a way of bringing new idea into existence or to come out with a product through an imaginative skills or ability. With this, there must be a preexisting idea that will serve as a platform to act. All innovation begins with creative ideas. Creativity is the foundation of innovation.
...But however some engineers often love to challenge themselves by making plans that balance functional value of aesthetic appeal. In communities they emphasize contemporary design structure, engineers often renovate or rebuild more creative structures where older, more traditional structures once stood.