I was going to post on your sub but I didn't want to bash your design on your submission page. I read quite a bit about copyright laws - US and German copyright. I think I have to be interested in copyright. I always use tons of pictures and photos as a reference or an inspiration for my own designs. I look at hundreds of images, take bits and pieces here and there, see ideas and get new ideas and I try to create something new with it. But I want to make sure in don't violate someones rights by doing this. I also want to know my own rights and don't want to get ript off by others (I haven't been ript off yet but other designers here on Threadless have and maybe that is why people give you a hard time with this design). Even with all the effort you put into this and the new elements you added I wouldn't consider it an original or derivative work. I think most people when looking at this design the see first or just the Mucha (as far as they know Mucha's work of course) and don't recognize you and your work in it. Vectorising a Mucha's painting and limiting the palette to eight colours is a lot of work but it doesn't change the lines and the main composition at all. You haven't turned Mucha's piece into something new and it doesn't look different - at least not different enough. My opinion stated.

So you've basically traced it and added some vector swirls?

It would have been nice if you'd created your own piece of artwork in Mucha's style - using a photo of a friend or even worked from a picture of a model.

Regarde

What fatheed said.

You say copyright lasts 50 years from death but in America and a lot of other countries (not Australia where it is 50) it lasts 70. Mucha died on 14 July 1939 according to Wikipedia so maybe you're in the clear on that front anyway.



At any rate, even though you may avoid the legal ramifications, there's little artistic merit in simply vectorising a painting and putting it on a shirt. You haven't created anything new, you haven't put it in a new context, you haven't made us reevaluate the original or used it to comment on something current, you've just put someone else's work on a t-shirt. And though it may technically be copyright free, you haven't really done anything yourself.



If someone takes cues from an artistic style, or movie posters if everything they create is unique, then it's different to what you've done which is really just tracing. Or you'd be welcome to use that work and add something to it that changes it. Like that Mona Lisa print with the scribbles on it. (Not a great design IMO but still.)



And seriously what was Branagh thinking casting Keanu Reeves in Shakespeare?

You might be interested to read some of the comments here, on another design "inspired" by Mucha.

The Mucha foundation owns the copyright to Mucha's work nowadays.

i probably should have seen this blog first so i'm just going to copy paste what i said on your design seeing as how the discussion is mostly in here:





it's a rip fucking plain and simple.



it's not a homage, it's not an inspiration, it is a cheap copy.



you may be out of copyright range but i don't think you deserve anything above a zero, let alone 2000$.



to be honest, even before i found out that you just copy pasted part of mucha's work, i still only gave you a 1 because it looked like you were just copying his aesthetic anyway.



when you're making an homage or generally getting inspiration from an artist you should be bringing something NEW to it, and not just riding on someone else's coattails.



it's disrespectful.

CKid - -you're a gentleman, thanks.



All - Thing is, I didn't try to pretend that it was my own painting, and I'm not trying to make a picture of a woman and Mucha's was as good as any. I wasn't trying to render an idea in Art Nouveau style. I'm trying to make a composition of Art Nouveau stuff for the Pre-Loved theme. So my design is supposed to BE Mucha used in a design. In hindsight, it might have been better to be Mucha-like,but that wasn't really the point.



What does one do if you want an actual VW Beetle in a design? Do you need to 'reinterpret' it before it becomes valid? Is it wrong to want a well-rendered car on your shirt as part of the design? It might be a little low on creativity, but surely that's not evil?



As it is, I thought Mucha and the period were fitting and beautiful, and I thought I'd try to capture that. I never pretended to be doing anything else.

Ah, I saw this blog after I commented on your design.



My opinion is... Threadless won't print this. Again, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm positive they won't.

What does one do if you want an actual VW Beetle in a design?



The comparison can't be made. A VW Beetle is an object, and not a unique one. Sure, use a Beetle in your design, you're not replicating an exact image, or something one single individual created. A specific piece of art is one of kind.

I think the point would be to do something with the original image or idea, rather than just replicating the same design.



This one, for example, takes a very famous image as the basis for its idea and composition, then turns it into an original idea.







Your design is indeed lovely, but it is not more lovely or different from the original, which is why people are wondering why you bothered to do it in the first place.

I wouldn't call this a rip, I think some people have been too hard on this.



In all due fairness, you really have attempted to make something in honour of the artists work, rather than just ripping it off. You said in the description who you took this from and named the piece accordingly. A rip would be somebody trying to pass someone else's work off as their own.



Unfortunately I don't think you've brought enough of your own creative input to the piece to make it what you want.



I think redrawing a similar image on your own would be both more interesting or more original.. Prehaps the lady from a different angle? I dunno.



Good luck!

*and more original

@Ginette. I'm not interested in a long distance spat. Sorry for offending you.



You do need to learn that there is a way of passing comment without being a buttface, regardless of how you feel. Your status as an alumnus does not exempt you from common courtesy. And I will say again that before you pass comment on the worthiness of another design, remember that your payday came from a piece of school homework that took maybe half an hour. There is much humility to be learned in that, yet you seem to be going the other way.

oh, cry a fucking river.

hehe C kid will never be a gentleman bec she's a girl :)

the whole alumni shield envy thing is really ridiculous. it's hardly something i need to hide behind to speak honestly about designs.



whatever i have done that you dislike doesn't change the design you made, stop trying to blame other people. your design had really lame execution, get over it and make something else.

It doesn't seem like you brought anything new or creative to the art work. Kind of lazy if you ask me. You basically auto traced the original art work, slapped some swirls in the BG and made it look worse.

Sorry, CKid, you're a ... hmm ... what do we call the female variety... a fine human being?



@...sigh...Ginette: rudeness and honesty are not the same. Your critique was not very constructive, and countless other people have made the same points, better, and in a way that doesn't treat me as though I'm a naughty child.



@Malcolm: Yes fine. But 'laziness' is not the word. 'Misguidedness' perhaps. This autotrace took me about 50 hours or so.

the amount of work you put into something doesn't make it automatically worth anything. it's a lazy concept more than anything.



and honesty can be rude. honesty isn't inherently kind. yes i'm harsh - deal.



and it's funny you say i'm treating you like a naughty child when that's how you've reacted.



love the responses of people on this site whenever something negative is brought up the accused always goes whining 'yeah but you did blablabla and it sucks!'

I'm sure you could have come up with something more original and better than this with the 50 hours it took to autotrace this. :-(

When you look at your subs the one that did best was this:



http://www.threadless.com/submission/197622/Must_Love_Dogs/showmore,designs



Why? Because while it was a concept we've seen before it was orignal enough and well executed. This is what you should be trying build on. You kinda have to let this one go and put it behind you. You're not without talent.

No prob calling me a gentledude. With my profile name and my pic people always assume I'm a guy. :)

Sorry.

Ckid - Your sloth design not printing was heart breaking BTW. I still shake my head over that one. I so wanted that shirt.

In the end, who cares? If this gets printed then everyone will insert their foot in their mouth and you'll be happy and $2000 richer.



If not, try again.

See your sub for my thoughts... also Fatheed is dead on... homage still has personal style. Reassess your vision of what makes YOUR ART worth buying... figure that out and you'll get Much(a) Love... hahaha

Yeah, people were far too harsh on you. Because what you've done isn't wrong, since the image is apparently public domain. It just lacks any artistic merit beyond what it was given by Mucha, you've just reproduced that.



You probably shouldn't argue with people on your actual sub but.

reminds me of this one a bit. if you're gonna rip off a design/pay homage, the least you should do is credit the source. even if they've been dead for an age.

@Squatterjohn. Thanks.



Yes, my design does lack artistic merit. I wasn't aware that people considered all that's on threadless to be art. Some of it certainly lowers the bar for what deserves that illustrious title! I was just going for a pretty design. But lesson learned.



I also had no idea that the sub comments were sacred somehow. I was treating it like a forum. I always figure that one has the responsibility to defend oneself if one's being unfairly represented, but I'm probably then making a serious etiquette mistake. So many unwritten rules to burn us outsiders...



I suppose I'll have to bake everyone a cupcake to make up for my impropriety. Free cupcake to everyone! Hooray! Please enjoy.

Thanks, you're right. I'm busy with three.



Nice Cervantes reference.

Hi. Everyone who rightly gave me grief over this one, could you help me make sure that my next sub is up to speed:



http://www.threadless.com/critique/48304/Cat_Love



Thanks!