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I should create a new category here called “Rips,” I’ve been covering copycats so much lately. A link to this article was sent to me yesterday by my boss. The Adfreak piece says that the new Apple video iPod commercial featuring Eminem is a rip-off of a 2001 ad for Lugz footwear . It indeed looks strikingly similar in terms of style and feel. The executive of the agency that produced the Lugz ad said in this article that his firm isn’t planning to “make waves” so this probably means Apple (and TBWA) are safe from litigation.

Related article: Washed Up Superheroes, a post I wrote in 2003 where I wonder whether Steve Jobs is losing his creative originality. The Incredibles, although derivative at many levels (it’s even got a little bit of Spy Kids in it), proved, as you all know, to be light years ahead of any prior works that share the same subject matter.

Update: There’s going to be a lawsuit after all. Lugz itself is coming after Apple.

Quark revamps its identity. Its old logo is gone. A green, stylized “Q” takes its place. It’s already been done before, however. Check this out.

On a personal note, Quark XPress 4.1 is the only reason I have OS 9 classic still installed on my laptop. I’m one of the few holdouts that haven’t upgraded to the later, OS X-compatible 6.5 version. Quark should be glad though that I’m not one of the multitudes who have switched to Adobe’s über-cool InDesign.

via CreativePro

Designer Lucille Tenazas tells us how she handles typography in the latest issue of Adobe Proxy. Download the PDF mag here (8.3 MB).

Tenazas’ cover design for the 1994 book The Body, as some of you may recall, was blatantly ripped off by the guys who did the movie poster for the Razzie Award-winning flick Showgirls.

Update: According to this, the photograph used in the book cover was by Tono Stano, and MGM acquired licensing to use the image (albeit an altered one). It’s clear though that the main inspiration was Tenazas’ cover design because her cropping of the picture was copied to a tee. The original photo includes the woman’s entire head.

Over the years in Hollywood, competing studios have managed to release movies dealing with the same subject matter simultaneously. For example, in 1985 we saw Weird Science, Real Genius and My Science Project - movies about teenage nerd scientists - come out around the same time. Then when The Abyss was shown in theaters, The Leviathan was released shortly afterwards. Another example is the Bug’s Life/Antz fuss where Pixar CEO Steve Jobs, no stranger to being copied, accused former Disney executive Katzenberg of stealing his idea and bringing it to his new studio.

Well, Steve Jobs may be learning a thing or two from idea nabbers with his very own The Incredibles set to be released in late 2004. The movie’s trailer, which was first shown on opening day of Finding Nemo, hilariously depicts a retired superhero desperately trying to get his belt around his now portly belly. To me this was something I vaguely remember seeing before. Captain Sturdy, a cartoon revolving around an aging superhero and his obese sidekick, has been airing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim for quite some time now. In addition, Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi’s The Ripping Friends, another cartoon about wacky superheroes, is drawn in a similar fashion (big torsos, tiny legs) and has been out for a couple years now.

Oh well, this may well all be a coincidence. I could chalk it up to some sort of “collective consciousness” that produces similar ideas for several people at a given time, but somehow I also have this nagging feeling that some people will always copy others (whether from inspiration or for outright lack of originality) and manage to be dangerously close to being slapped with a copyright lawsuit.

Update: How could I forget? The cartoon Spongebob Squarepants also features aging superheroes: Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy. Mermaid Man is a pink-slippered Aquaman look-alike. Barnacle Boy is his cranky sidekick in a sailor outfit.