I thought they had at least added some dimensionality to the design, but it turns out they just traced an image of a sculpted version the original artist had also created. (That lacks the lid on that side, has the wheels, etc.) Ooof.
Nope, because they didn’t use the original cartoon version - they used the sculpted version, above, for their “new” design. All the details match up (e.g. the specific details of the flame). They didn’t even bother to draw their own version based on his design, they unmistakably took a photo of it and awkwardly traced over it in Illustrator to make the t-shirt image.
If I hadn’t been told that’s what the “D” was supposed to be, it never would have occurred to me.
Hey, they took a picture of his sculpture and traced over it in Illustrator. What more do you want? That clearly required minutes of work.
Look, if they were going to have to do that much creative work, they might as well come up with their own design, sheesh!
The optics you refer to did – eventually – get noticed back then. At the start, it seemed to be more about the plagiarism. I don’t how things finally settled, but the “artist” back then insisted that he used a photo of a real live model for the meat poster. Artists. Ya gotta love 'em. But sometimes…
I see no link to the shirt for sale, I have been to the Shapiro store many times and never seen this shirt. Now maybe this shirt was for sale, but if you are going to accuse someone of ripping off an idea for sale, I would like to see evidence he is doing so, because I am very suspicious this is a bs claim to slander Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire.
Amazon took down the product listing and The Daily Wire deleted the tweet promoting it after they got called out on it. Here’s a screen grab of the now-deleted tweet.
I have seen similar situations (probably more like 10-20%); I have also seen designers produce mood boards and have the client say, “ooh I like this let’s have that one” – which leads to awkward discussions on the nature and purpose of a mood board. And then there is the situation where the designer, asked to produce a dumpster fire t-shirt design, has googled “dumpster fire icon” and bingo, deadline met, client none the wiser and invoice posted.
I should clarify that I have no idea who Ben Shapiro is so I do not know if he has a track record for this kind of thing. But ethics in the fashion and design industries can appear distinctly “optional” too.
Hey, anyone ever notice how extreme right leaning folks seem to think there’s a conspiracy going on all the time more than other politically leaning groups? Is this because people who tend to have those beliefs also tend to believe conspiracies more, or - what I think - these folks are exposed to so many lies from the media outlets they visit that they don’t know what’s true anymore?
