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The date is October 29th, 1947. Van Meegeren has been charged with collaborating with the Germans, supplying artwork to Göring. Shockingly Van Meegeren’s defense is that the picture he delivered was not the original, but a forgery of his own making. More shockingly is that the quality of the forgery had convinced the experts of the originality of the work. Top prove his claim Van Meegeren will spend two months locked in a room with a police guard and witnesses to produce another forgery.
Imitation is often said to be the sincerest form of flattery. The apparent reuse by Google designers of a Yahoo web design certainly suggests that, when it comes to web design at least, Yahoo is the reigning artist.
Or really? The designs are essentially the same (although Google’s markup is much worse). The graphics have been recycled, it is evident from the bad photoshop removal of the Yahoo Y logo. To the fact that the design was copied, eh. Its a good design, it is clear and says the right information, with the right weighting. I don’t blame Google for using it as inspiration (or even, as they appear to have done, directly copy).
Not all design needs to reinvent the wheel, and with the exception of truly unique (at least initially) design styles I would be hard pressed to get too worked up over some minor theft of a fairly basic, although effective, design. As to a guess on why this happened, I would imagine that the page wasn’t intended to end up on the web. Many designers grab starts from existing sources that they like or meet the requirements. Lacking genuine inspiration, manufactured inspiration can get a lot of work done. In this case the copy that went live never evolved from its starting point.
The most striking thing about the page is how terrible a copy job has been done. The copy is nearly identical, there are no structural changes at all, and the same image was used after being badly photoshopped. I’m all for stealing ideas, but how hard is it to get your own image of a tilted browser window and put the Internet Explorer 7 logo on it?
It’s a forgery alright, but no art.