Recently, I stumbled upon a site belonging to an individual (www.xomox.cn) and discovered that my entire design portfolio has been stolen and copied word for word, to use as his own. I don’t think anyone has ever experienced this kind of blatant infringement before. I knew him long ago in New York City through a girlfriend as she was dating him. Let’s just say this has never been someone that I trusted, although we were in the same field of graphic design, I had advised him on many design and career path matters. Almost 10 years later, I discovered that he stole my work – he’s located in China so I can’t really pursue this legally (or could I?). He was wishing that I would never find out but it’s the web, so you can find anything. I called him and he promptly took it down, realizing that he’s in for a lot of legal drama. His explanation was that “my hard drive is down and I had to show my prospective clients some inspiration of work so I just borrowed yours and was going to call you for permission and now that we are clear, can I borrow your piece on Ann Taylor just to show my client that this is the direction I want to pursue?”. (As if I should be flattered) No, this guy didn’t credit my name, the companies I worked for. Even the project description and sizes of images are identical.

The images below show MY work on the left column, and his exact replica on the right. On his client list he listed all my clients verbatim.  They are completely identical. How can we protect our work so this doesn’t happen?

I hope this never happens to any designer out there.

jennyng.com (owner) vs. xomox.cn (copier)

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted to this site. That’s because I’ve been busy blogging about animal advocacy. Not that people really visit Life + Design, not getting that much traffic anyway. But if you’d like to see more, let me know. I’ll continue to add a post here and there about great design and art. My priorities has just been elsewhere lately.

I’ve finally sat my ass down long enough to start a blog about animal welfare. Check out http://animalsmatter.wordpress.com/ 

Can’t help this but her face must simply be shared. Special creature – our cat that is 

The identity and website project that I designed is finally live. Go have a taste of the best and palatable selection of fine international wines now!  Visit site 

The robot Keepon (developed by Hideki Kozima and programmed by Marek Michalowski) dancing to the Spoon song, “Don’t You Evah.”  This robot was designed to help improve autistic children and their interactions with the world. It’s not for sale – not yet anyway. Right now it’s only for research purposes only. Each eye costs $2000 (video camera) and the nose is about $1000 (audio sensor). 

It saddens me to see the new redesign of Lucky.com. I was just starting to lose interest in the ever bombarding you with expensive shopping print publication, and thought maybe the online experience would be easier to navigate, so this is disappointing. The site lacks structure, hierarchy, elegance and screams at you from all directions, not that the previous version was that much better. www.luckymag.com

A few friends of mine, who created Green Building Blocks, a site that educates, informs and provides resources on everything eco and environmentally friendly, has just launched BlueEgg.com. To quote BlueEgg’s welcoming message: “We suspect that you, like us, are trying to be more mindful of the environment—without sacrificing style, comfort, or convenience, and without spending a lot of extra cash. As we celebrate attainable sustainable living, Blue Egg eagerly explores new ways to live well without taking a toll on the planet.” Check out BlueEgg.com now and start taking action!

It’s only about time that the power of the internet is leveraged to save lives, the lives of cats (with the will and help of animal lovers) in China. How else the web can do good for? Well, think Darfur.org, for one, and among many others.
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So there you have it, UK’s Olympic 2012 logo designed by Wolff-Olins. It’s universally rejected. As a designer, it’s my duty to evaluate with a fair and balanced view. Sure, it looks kind of old school retro, a bit unbalanced, awful color choices, and even a bit childish. Ok ok it’s ugly. HOWEVER, it is British, it has a certain explosive energy. The concept is sound but the execution can be much improved by a designer with a keen eye for sophistication (clean up the shape, better fonts, colors, etc.) But who cares what designers think?!

If the world hates it, the world shall get another logo. Afterall, the Olympics is about the world.