In 1985, Nike held a 24-hour shoe design contest. Nike was struggling. Their stock dropped 50%. They had to lay off people. Adidas, Converse, and Reebok were all selling more shoes. So in a panicked attempt to find creative talent, Nike held a shoe design contest. The winner was a corporate architect named Tinker Hatfield. “Two days after the... See more

Graphic design, the discipline of aesthetic production, is facing a crisis as it reconciles with catastrophic effects of network technology on its profitability. Even prolific designers who produce work with a characteristic original aesthetic are quickly copied. As their work is pillaged and reproduced downstream (leftstream), it becomes... See more

I’m a designer. As a designer, I feel the need to be original. If you’re a designer, or even if you’re just interested in design, you probably feel the need to be original, too. We tend to worship inventors and originators, designers who were trailblazing and innovative. And we copy them.