Table of Contents
Does inspiration mean copying?
You’ve just made a copy of someone else’s art. But if you take little bits and pieces from many different sources and alter and combine them in new ways, you’ve now created something new and original—you’ve created art. Copying with the intention to steal begins with a spark of inspiration.
Do artists ever trace?
As I mentioned before, many artists throughout history have used some form of tracing to create works. Many artists today also use tracing as part of the process of creating – more than you may realize. Clearly, these artists do not feel that it’s cheating to trace.
How do you become an inspiration and not a copy?
Incorporate the ideas of others so deeply within yourself and your work that they mix with your voice and become something different and unique to you. That’s how it becomes an inspiration and not a copy. Use what inspired you, build on it, and leave something behind to inspire someone else. We learn and grow in part by copying others.
Is it legal to take inspiration from someone else’s work?
Taking inspiration from someone else’s work is therefore acceptable, but in order to have copyright in your work and avoid infringement you need to create something original by using your own skill, labour, judgement and effort. Using another’s work is copyright infringement when ‘the work as a whole or any substantial part of it’ has been copied.
Why do we use other people’s work as inspiration?
We use other people as role-models; their creative work inspires us, which in turn enables us to create something of our own. If we are inspired by other people, where do we draw a line between inspiration and copying (and, to name the ugly side of it, plagiarism and copyright-infringement)?
Should you copy when learning to design?
By all means copy as much as you want when learning or to help develop your voice as a designer, but stay far behind the line that separates being inspired by and copying from when doing real work and charging someone for it. To stay behind that line separate your source of inspiration as much as you can from your finished work.