[...] every decent illustrator in SA has been lambasting TJDR for their expediency on SA Creative Blog Between10and5 with a particularly strong response from top SA illustrator [...]

rad

Yeah, I agree looks just like Mcbess’s style even the typography is ripped. Might have been Jupiter, they have ABSA.

Oh lovely, McBess rip off. Saw this few weeks ago in the Indaba mag. Bad bad bad. As if no one wouldn’t notice?

http://rotopolpress.de/rotopol/images/mcbess/mcbess_01.jpg

Pretty blatant.
http://vimeo.com/4130735

The Creative Director on this job should get FIRED!!!!

This is shocking. How embarrassing.
What a blatant rip of a very talented and original illustrator. The characters, the type, the shading the colouring… everything is Mcbess. sis.
And the fact that this is a associated with Design Indaba is scary. They’re basically condoning people running around and nicking ideas. This totally disregards respect for intellectual property.

http://www.mcbess.com/

The campaign is by The Jupiter Drawing Room Jhb. The 3D was done by Wicked Pixels.

I really lament the creative industry in South Africa. I can remember a time when Design Indaba stood for invention, integrity, and originality. However, this campaign, as nice as it looks is a pathetic and spineless rip off of a well recognised and prominent artist called McBess. It shows none of the principles that I thought DI uphold so strongly and I pity the agency as well for selling this to them too. Shame on both of them for promoting this blatant plagiarism. I just wonder who’s work will be pillaged next to promote a corporation and its agendas. This is a trend I cannot abide by and I hope that this campaign will serve as reminder to others in the creative industry of South Africa, you can hide your sources from the client, but we the creative public can see you for what you are. We are not idiots, we have internet too and we also see what is cool. What is not cool is trying to fool everyone by disregarding the livelihood of the people that you are stealing from. Shame on you, this is disgusting, no matter how pretty you try to make it look.

So Lame, what a rip!

I agree with everything said above. I think it’s sad that instead of using the idea (which is cool, designer vs. client etc) as an opportunity to showcase our local talent at Design Indaba to the international audience, the agency did what is so often done, find some international artists work online, and brief in a production company to copy it. We have great illustrators at home, Kronk and most of the people who have commented being perfect examples, why go abroad and steal ‘cool’.

The great irony is that this was a potentially award winning campaign idea, that through lazy execution will probably do more damage to the client, the agency, the production company and the Design Indaba than anything else.

well put Jordan and Kronk..

Def dont think it was wireframe.. maybe they placed it online.. but they don’t specialise in illustration.

Jupiter JHB and Wicked Pixels.

definately a rip , just been comparing one of the characters in the absa image to one of mcbess’s characters in the video link from matt and its EXACTLY the same. reminds me of an old quote …”good designers copy…the best designers steal” cover your tracks guys or try and be original, would have loved to have seen this in a Jordam Metcalf style … or what about theory1, not like theses a shortage of illustrators in cape town.

would have been rad to have two different illustrator going at it .. kronk vs Jordan .. straattoe vs bruce mckay .. that would be rad..

Someone must know who did this…?

i dunno if anyone has seen that local guy that is ripping NIARK too…?

what are we basically saying, that nothing is original? cause so many people are making ‘things’ their own. or is it an SA thing..

@Poltergeist: Yeah, saw that “emerging plageriser” of NIARK at indaba conference: LAaaaaamE!

@Everyone: We will squash him/her/them with our erasers and stab them with our HB’s !!!

@The internet: …

@Who illustrated this campaingn: You must be shitting bricks / You should be..

Booooom!

The illustration work and concept were a combination of Jupiter Drawing Room and Wicked Pixels done for one of Design Indaba’s partners, ABSA. Wireframe studios were then tasked with bringing the characters to life in a game that was set up live at the conference and will be launched online soon.

I find it amazing how quick ppl are to slate Design Indaba and the illustrators involved in the campaign when they are commenting on only one still image from it.

I was not aware of McBess’s work before seeing this but seeing the animation posted above (which is awesome) and seeing the animation Wicked Pixels created as a teaser for the game, I think the similarities end at a similar tonal range and hand lettered typography. The character design and execution is quite different.

McBess is undoubtedly also influenced by early animations like Steamboat Willie & Betty Boop as I assume,were the artists on this campaign. The style and pallette is clearly a 20′s gangsters film noir inspired one and I think this period reference has been used successfully across a wide range of creative media.

I worked with Wireframe on integrating the expanding site banners into the Design Indaba site (which I built and maintain) and have to say that the levels of creativity that went into the execution of this idea go far beyond one print still. The game is very impressive across the board and I think its great to see such varied creativity and boundary pushing interactivity going into a campaign for a bank, traditionally quite a conservative type of client.

Check out the expanding banners on any of the news snippet pages on the DI website, refresh until you get the Design fights banner, rollover and fight your way through each of the bad guy characters http://www.designindaba.com/news/snippets

Design Indaba still stands for invention, integrity, and originality. We have little input into what our sponsors do for their own campaigns although in my personal opinion, I don’t feel (after having seen much more than one still) that this is a “blatant” ripoff of McBess’s style.

i am not convinced at all that mcbess work was not referenced at least once!
i think we are being underestimated!!

I think McBess has probably taken influence from various sources, most artists do. The really good ones adapt these influences and things they like into their OWN style. Its like learning to write your own music by playing other peoples songs first. Be that is it may, I think that the similarity of characters and treatment is alarming, and that is the real issue here. I am not naysaying the concept and content, but the style is so clearly been stolen. I think denial of this would further underline a much bigger problem. The fact these guys just don’t give a shit and will rape creatives of their styles to make a quick buck or look cool is my biggest concern as a working artist. The concept of appropriation is much used in art and illustration, but from people who know better and have such a savvy audience, I expected much more. These are people who have influence, especially with younger creatives and therefore have a responsibility creatively, to their audience. What lesson will new creatives or students learn from things like this? Is it okay to take as I please, because the other guy has been influenced too? In short I think this is a FAIL.

it is clearly a blatant rip off, I am comparing stills of one of the characters from mcbess’s work with one in the teazer on the design indaba site and refrence is not the word, copy. Just becuase someone tries to defend this, or the cool concept wont make it right.

Hellow people , I got a mail telling me that my work was being ripped off and asking me if I wanted to say a few words about the “issue” . I can see the similarities between what I do and this (color/typo/teeth /beard..) and if I was an influence I’m glad , if I wasn’t , well , these people clearly have exellent taste . I’ve been working in this industry for a while and I have very little respect for creative agencies , this is far from being original coming from people that spend their entire life on the internet looking at design and illustration website .

My intention is not to defend the “rip-off” of another artists style, if that is what has happened here.

I just wanted to clarify that it is part of a greater campaign context and that may or may not make all the difference. Thats entirely up to you to decide.

I work for Design Indaba and this campaign was created for one of our conference sponsors by an external advertising agency and animation house. They have been invited to reply to this thread and give their side of the story but I would like to clarify that Design Indaba had nothing to do with the concept or execution of the campaign.

Thanks for commenting mcbess – I appreciate it.

I think it would be really helpful if the producers of the work (I think we’ve established this as Jupiter Drawing Room) would comment and give some clarity on the situation.

As Gregg says, this doesn’t have anything to do with Design Indaba, apart from being advertised on the Design Indaba site. It does however seem as if it’s a DI initiative with all the branding (and URL). But just so everyone knows… it’s not them. Anyone from ABSA perhaps looking comment?

Creative integrity is critical for sponsors at Design Indaba. The people that present work there, more often than not are original, or have evolved other great work in a considered, honest way. This is a photostat machine at work. There is no creative integrity. If DI is comfortable with that, fine.

As far as i know the DI is backed by absa bank,both the company which produced the work,the company which accepted the work and the DI which knows so damn much about design! should be held responsible, they had a flag flying high which only represents how much they know about this industry,that being plagarism is ok,start ripping off am i collective aswell, its all good guys. this country really is a joke.

“Gregg: I worked with Wireframe on integrating the expanding site banners into the Design Indaba site (which I built and maintain)”
Sorry, what? FAIL! -45 points.

To Gregg:

Don’t fight with the boy’s, let’s go bake cupcakes!

Love

I think WTH? is the only sane person here.

“People get influenced by different artists all the time, it’s what keeps art evolving. So sure, looks like these guys were influenced by McBess and Jamie Hewett…and Walt Disney…”

Well it’s good to be a part of such a hotly debated topic.

From the production studio side, yes mcbess was used as inspiration. But was this the only form of inspiration? No, we spent a lot of time researching/studying old 30s & 40s gangster style cartoons as well as Disney toons. And I think the full body of work can attest to that.

http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1931/index.html

Is it wrong for us to take inspiration from these old cartoons? Is it wrong for Mcbess to have done so originally? Is it wrong for any illustrator to take any inspiration from other artists?

When it becomes a nit-picking contest on who owns the rights to what features, we’re stepping into a very grey and dangerous area. Mcbess likes to place the eyes on his characters extremely far apart; does that mean other illustrators can’t? It’s a difficult point to argue.

At the end of the day we designed a total of 12 characters (of which one bares a similarity to mcbess), 4 orsm animation sequences and one buck fully 3d game. I’m proud of the work we put in and also thankful that we all of us are able to draw inspiration from the wealth of different styles out there.

ok honestly.

everyone is ripping every one off, and most of these artist that rip other artist off are quite well known in the industry, and I am talking about local/SA, and I am sure we can all make lists and lists of examples. so, should we all go ahead, ripp people off to be known? we all think it when we see work that looks like work that we have seen before, but we only think it and just keep going.

so what now? will this thread keep going and at the end it will just be OK for things like this to happen?

i.e. the above campaign will continue as is…

?

It definitely looks like an illustration done by McBess however, before concluding its a ripoff has anyone bothered contacting McBess about it?

He has made a comment already.

Andrew – we will be more than happy to showcase the rest of the work if you send it in to us. submissions@10and5.com is the address. We normally do between 5 and 10 images, however I’m sure we can feature more of the work if you send it in

yeah, it’s getting crazy. Art builds on itself by drawing inspiration from what has come before. Very few artists in the world could claim absolute originality, nor should that be a prerequisite for credibility.

A director who doesn’t watch movies would probably suck. There is a subtle but important difference between someone like Quentin Tarantino who makes work eclectically influenced by genre films, and a movie where the director is told to make a “Tarantino” film… (which could be argued as being influenced by the same originals etc. but amounts to post rationalization more than anything else)

I think the problem here is the original intention was for the characters to look like McBess, it was in the brief, I know this because I read it.

Funny how riled people get when an illustrator’s style is ripped off, but when a site’s style(sheet) is ripped they go ‘oh, it’s a platform issue’. Odd.

In the spirit of transparency and lifestyle audits. The influences in my “earlier” work are there to be seen. This being said, this work comes from ’08 and since then I have developed and transformed my personal style quite a bit. I am constantly in conflict with myself whether my style is unique or memorable enough and I strive every day and on every project to get this right. I do not, have one specific style, but rather a set of styles that pertain to the client or my needs. For example, the stuff I do for kidrobot, amicollective, nike or myself varies. I do however try to retain my integrity by being original and experimental, that is why people commission me. Not because I have the ability to copy real good.

These two examples are interesting BTH. The Stook character brief did reference the Gorillaz stuff, but the main character is not a duplicate of 2D. I also didn’t go and photocopy Jamie Hewlett’s sketchbook and claim it to be my own and I didn’t steal his colour palette while I was at it.

My work is not what I came here to talk about, but thanks for the kind words. Bottom line is this looks like a clear cut copy and everyone can see it that has commented here. Gregg, I am sorry you are getting dragged into the firing line, but you are the only one brave enough to chat openly about this issue. I am always angered to see this kind of thing happen.

Wow…you give one guy a beard and all hell breaks loose! Talk about making the Himalayas out of a mole hill.

Jokes aside, we’ve been alerted to what’s going on here and we’re somewhere between shocked and pleased!

Like ANY creative team we are absolutely influenced by the world around us, how can you not be? We won’t even begin to deny that McBess was an INFLUENCE, along with many, many others.

To put some things into perspective for you, even though your minds are clearly already made up on the subject, our illustrator, Karl at Wicked Pixels, is the splitting image of the character causing all the fuss. He worked so tirelessly illustrating the entire campaign, we honoured him with his own character. That character is called “Kerning Karl” and yes, he has a beard and funky hair.

The monochromatic look and feel of the campaign was inspired by 1920′s cartoons like “steam boat willy” as has already been mentioned above in other comments.

The typographic treatment is hardly unique to anyone really. The hand drawn typography was in fact influenced by an old T shirt I was wearing the day we briefed Wicked Pixels.

Lastly, we ask you not to judge an entire campaign of 12 characters on 1 look-a-like, which was honestly born as a result of multiple influences.

What we had been hoping to achieve was a game genre everyone would recognise, IE, street fighter/tekken/mortal combat fighting style but with an illustration style that was unexpected. And I think we did pretty well.

So, a BIG thank you to McBess who took time out of his busy schedule of being awesome to give a thumbs up to the style. You are an influence and we tip our hats to you kind sir!

To the rest of you, we apologise if you feel we have managed to destroy all that you believe to be good in the world… like the Design Indaba, because really, you should all know better! When all is said and done there is still no peace in the middle east, the recession is still happening and Martha Stewart is making bazillions of dollars with glitter! And if any of you can honestly say you are truly original and that you have never been influenced by those around you in your work then we tip our hats to you as well. You’re one in 6 billion!

That background tile is so totally ripped. I’ve seen it like millions of times now.

Totally off topic, but I find it quite ironically funny that the name of the campaign is “Design Fights”…

:B

I’m growing a beard in protest…

I have put name out there and said my piece. If you wanna get catty, put you real name up and open your porty to this forum. I wanna see your work too. I want you to put yourself out there, have people comment on and dissect your work. Lay your integrity on the line and face the world. Gregg, I salute you for defending your position. That shows guts and integrity. Really? and BTH, I have no more time for you. I did not come here to make this about me, but the discussion has veered in that direction. I have work to do, see you later.

Note we will be moderating comments that are not relevant from now on. Keep it on form guys.

Eish… things are getting a bit personal here.
McBess was one of the first names to pop into my mind, but really dont think it’s a blatant rip off of his style. I totally agree with what Andrew said. We all take inspiration from great artist’s, cause face it, not every one can be famous for a specific style.
I think we blowing this whole thing out of proportion.

Dying to see the game now… is it live? Anyone got a link?

I take my hat off to an awesome diversity of characters by the creators.
The Mcbess-ish character and the blatant type rip (there’s no denying that the type is a rip) is a bit of a let down on a large campaign like this, but i also think the other characters are quite different to Mcbess’ work. Look past the grading, and consider the body make up – limbs especially.
I also get that the eyes on some of the characters are a bit Mcbess, but these eyes were coined by Disney before he was born.
Big up to Matthieu for commenting!

Well said jam master jordan!

absolutely. well said jordan.
it sends a very sad message. i should just give up my search for my own voice right now. cause clearly the clients don’t want it. local is lekker? pish. hypocrites.
as for this greg fellow… look, i really appreciate that you are trying to defend your standing here. you’re sticking to your guns, and well done for it. i appreciate a person who battles on.
but by this point you must realise that this work that was created to woo the creative industry has left us with a very sour taste in our mouths. rattle on all you like but remember: we’re creative, not stupid.

Why didn’t they just hire Mcbess for the job? Whats stopping an agency from just ripping a local illustrator and saying it was “referencing” them. This kind of “borrowing” devalues our industry.

I’d like to see the game, when that is live. Uno – you going to cover that? Wireframe’s got good game.

die ding ruk mal !!!!

whahahahahahahahahahahahaha …

I think we need a Union of sorts to actually take these big agencies to task … take this shit to the streets! fuck arguing on the internet! doen iets!!! break something! write on a car!!!punch a suit!!!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!

AMANDLA!!!

FORWARD COMRADES FORWARD!!!!!

If you look at the amount of quality illustrators that have commented here, the real problem becomes apparent. This was an opportunity to showcase a fresh, local style and instead the bank did what banks do – They went for the safe option, the internationally approved one. It’s not detracting anything away from the guys that executed the project, they were on brief. It’s the brief that irritates me. Somebody thought they saw a cool gap & forgot that we all have the interwebz – swak.

@john72 & anyone else commenting under anon – please have the courage of your convictions and attach your identity to your comments. Everyone else commenting does, it’s one of the ways the guys at 10and5 ensure that this doesn’t become a ‘sies’ pool.

ryno – brandt is awesome.. i dont think anyone questions whether Jupiter has the talent.

Wow this debate seems quite similar to something that I saw on the net a few months ago. Digital Kitchen was criticized for being overly inspired by a documentary called “Searching for the wrong eyed Jesus” when they animated the title sequence for “True Blood.” http://www.liftingfaces.com/2008/09/the-wrong-eyed-concept/

Alas I think it is easier to criticize than it is to create, and in the age of information an original idea is as hard to find as the Holy Grail, and as difficult to hide as your hot 16 year old daughter.

Tough call this one. It seems everyone has a point in this one.
I wonder what the situation would be if the style was referenced a few decades down the line as mcbess and then later wireframe did?
Nice work though, rip off or not.

Design Fights – life imitating art!

Without steering the conversation away from the topic at hand, I’d like to draw your attention to this blatant bite: DsTV ripping off one of the most well-known ads of all time.

Here’s the original:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUfH-BEBMoY

And here’s the bite:
http://www.bizcommunity.com/OrnicoAd.aspx?l=196&c=11&ai=724

any sign of the game ? .. AMPED to see it .. if wireframe is involved i have no doubt its great

The game is now live at: http://www.designindaba.com/designfights

Strangely quiet here all of a sudden! I guess everyone is hooked playing the game

@Uno – All’s I was saying is that people should leave their names on there comments to avoid just ranting. People tend to think a little bit more about what they say once they’re accountable.

Seriously though, this is one of the best conversations around design that I’ve seen in a while. The whole should you stay local or copy international, how much influence can you take before it becomes mimicking etc.. & kudos to everyone for caring about what’s going on in our industry to have an opinion about all of it.

What is happening more is the assumption (by SA creatives) that South Africans are not exposed to the source material – this is everything from illustration to writing to photograhpy. With popular culture all over TV and the internet nowadays it’s pretty much unforgivable to foist your half-baked crib onto any market, esp one that is actually far more savvy than you give it credit for (ooba?).
It’s also tragic that the young up and coming guys out there, who ARE researching illustration and who ARE already familiar with the Taxalis and Burermans and Hewletts of the world, are now more or less encouraged to ape the popular ‘style’ of the day. I see far too many local guys who are doing precisely that, and are getting exposure in the ads etc, because that’s what art directors want, perpetuating the culture of plagiarism – which is becoming pretty serious lately – are all South Africans really that lazy?
Yet it’s nothing new, been happening forever. I’d argue that the Bitterkomix guys were heavily influenced by Raymond Pettibon, as an example. The few illustrators mentioned here are also guilty of this. My work as well – I make an effort to creat unique stuff but I’m sure there are several ‘graphic assumptions’ an informed viewer could make about my influences.
You are meant to draw inspiration from everything around you, but ultimately make it your own by lending some personal creativity and honesty to it.

I suppose it’s up to the integrity of the artist and the creative team to punt local art, concepts, talent. Will be a nice change from the watered down, hackneyed and BADLY copied crap out there.

My advice: go and play the game…

You people are whining like little girls. There was undoubtedly an immense amount of creative and original work that went into the creation of this and despite their source of inspiration and their proximity to McBess’ work, I’m sure he’d appreciate the calibre of it and probably laugh at all you getting bent out of shape.

Often the best artists are the most humble and would rather live and let live than have a hernia when someone takes inspiration from their work, which you people are doing.

I might get flamed here, and I’m not defending The Jupiter Drawing Room or anything. However I don’t think it was a total rip-off of McBess. The drawing style is very 1920′s Disney actually – think Olive from Popeye, Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse, Pluto and son. The pose they have is very Marvel and DC like. McBess has a very lion like style with the long eyes with the canine teeth made prominent and nose more like a cats/lions.

The ad isn’t a rip-off of McBess but actually a bad implementation of 1920′s Art Deco/Vintage cartoon illustration style. Which McBess and a few others have done as well but very well.

The cat in the ad has a very felix the cat look…

Anyway my point… this is not a McBess rip-off… but I can see why one would think so.

I have a final statement on this. I just read a post on Shawn Roos’s site (http://www.shawnroos.co.za) where I made this comment “I don’t want to be a stickler but Shawn your Sinutab illustration and design (http://www.shawnroos.co.za/2009/08/31/sinutab-blocked-up-campaign/) looks a lot like some of Bromind’s work (http://www.brosmind.com/) he did a project Excedrin which is also a medicine company (http://www.shawnroos.co.za/2009/08/31/sinutab-blocked-up-campaign/). Just thought I give you a heads up. Now even if you didn’t copy him you would still be seen as guilty. ”

The thing is there are people that live by “Good artists copy, great artists steal” which I think is a very misunderstood statement. Being able to embrace someone else style, or concept and make it your own is fine. If you understand the style or concept and can extend it with value then I am happy to say it is your own unique work influenced by {x}. However if it really is just a carbon copy then you my friend should become an account because now you are just a graphic jockey and not a creative.

I don’t think Shawn nicked this from Bromind but he may have drawn inspiration from it, but I think he embraced and understood the concept and style very well, well enough to extend it and make it work in his design.