Caricatures Ireland

(UPDATE: the design studio in question is Gather No Moss).

Spare a thought for Hidden Eloise, a UK based artist who’s currently in dispute with Paperchase over one of their designs. Paperchase are selling tote bags and books that feature an element that’s clearly traced from one of Eloise’s paintings. I think it’s a bit strong calling it plagiarism, but Paperchase’s designer has clearly lifted the girl’s figure from the original painting, which is lazy, unprofessional and unethical. I made a gif to demonstrate the similarity:

The items were on sale on Amazon, but have been withdrawn, and Paperchase has made the following statement:

Paperchase’s position regarding the allegations of ‘copying’ made against the Company today is as follows:

Above all, we would like to apologise to any customers upset or angered by this allegation against us. Paperchase takes all reasonable precautions to check that designs we source or buy from individual designers or agencies are from reputable sources. In this case, we would like to confirm that Paperchase bought the artwork in question, in good faith, in October 2008, from a well-known central London Design Studio along with a number of other designs.

The illustrator who is making the allegation made us aware of her concerns in November 2009 and we duly responded to her in early December, since when we had heard nothing….until today. Back in November 2009, we spoke at length to the Design Studio in question and they categorically denied any plagiarism.

It is worrying that such an allegation can create such reaction and again, Paperchase apologises for any ill-feeling caused.

Well, Eloise had the painting on her blog on 6 May 2008.

Paperchase’s statement is really not good enough. Paperchase should agree an a fee with Hidden Eloise and not work with the other design studio again (I have my suspicions that “Design Studio” uses Google as a design tool). Continued denial of what’s indisputable, that another artist’s work has been incorporated into their products without recompense, will only harm them in the long term.

Tags: art, design by Allan
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Click images to embiggen.

I used to work for Macnas in Galway and in 2001 I was inspired to draft a proposal for a show based on the myth of Heracles (or Hercules as the Romans had him). I submitted it on spec and nothing ever came of it (and I mean nothing, it wasn’t even acknowledged). The written treatment is lost on a crashed harddrive somewhere but I found the designs I drew up to go with the proposal last night so I thought I’d share them here.
Macnas at the time had an obsession with The Odyssey, producing no less than 3 shows based around the epic, including a promenade performance for the Galway Arts Festival called Ollie Deasy. This had a stylised contemporary Irish setting, and had some successful stagecraft in it. I thought I’d continue in the vein, proposing an adaptation of the labours of Heracles with a similar setting, and came up with The Tasks of Harry Cleese.
At the time I’d just come across Julie Taymor and was exceptionally turned on by her approach to puppetry and performance, and had met and worked with Michael Curry in New York the previous year for the Millenium celebrations. Also, Irish production designer Tom Conroy had given several of us a crash course in designing for the stage and street during the year. Those influences are very apparent looking back on these drawings.

From the story I submitted I seem to remember that the drink was Harry’s demon, and that his wife had left him, taking the kids with her (Heracles in the Greek original had killed his own children during a bout of madness), and the tasks were a feverish penance in his own head to right his wrongs. So his own home was laid siege by the Hydra in the form of a tree (see above), mocking him every time he looked out the window. [Read more →]

Tags: design, greek myth, hercules, proposals, theatre by Allan
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Round about this time last year I bought a Dell Studio 1735. On the experience of that purchase I’ll never buy Dell again: this badly designed, unresponsive piece of plastic has expunged me of any trust in any other Dell products.

Firstly, the keyboard has the most dreadful action of any keys I’ve ever pressed, including toy mobile phones from a Two Euro shop. It squashes down in the middle when you’re typing, and it’s got the clackiest keys, sounding like the spokes of a BMX bike in the 80s. Recently the F4 key just popped off the board. I secured it again, but I use secured in the same sense that the Beverly Hillbillies “secured” their belongings on the back of their car.
Some designer decided that the touch sensitive controls for DVD playback should be invisible too. They do become visible once they’ve been touched, but if you want to adjust your volume using them you must first run your finger along where you think they are so that some will light up, and you can remember the one you want once you’ve closed the DVD programme that springs open even if you just brush of that part of the keyboard.
The soundcard is dreadful. Sound playback even on external speakers clicks and hisses the whole way through. If I want clear playback I’ve to use a USB soundcard, then it works fine, but I shouldn’t have to shell out more money for something that should work in the first place.

It came with Vista installed, which isn’t really a hardware issue, but the whole thing packs up if I try to use data CDs and has to be rebooted, and then I have to eject the disc before Vista boots fully. I put this down to shitty Vista conspiring with shitty hardware.
The touchpad is about as sensitive as bark on a tree that died from an overdose of anaesthetic. For some reason it’s set off to the left rather than being placed neutrally in the middle. You might think this would be to the exclusion of left handed people, but no, it would be a more comfortable experience for a lefty; right handed users will find it takes a lot of getting used to, at least, once the cramps have passed.
No, I never returned it to Dell. The reason is the same one that most people would have: I had to buy a new computer because the old one packed up, and once I had it, I had no window in my work schedule to send it off for in indefinite period for repair.

Or to put it simply, you can’t repair bad design.
UPDATE: looks like Pat’s having Dell problems too.
UPDATE 15/03/10: Now the screen’s getting loose and shaking. The volume control lights flash on and off after Vista updates. What a piece of crap.

Tags: computers, dell, design, ireland, laptops, notebooks, technology by Allan
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I honestly thought I’d got a letter from Firefox this morning. The stamp is massive and every time I glance at I see the Firefox logo.

It’s a thing in design that sometimes when you get that click in the brain that says finished, it’s actually saying, this is sufficiently similar to some good design I’ve seen before to satisfy me. I’d a similar thing a few years ago when I designed a stilt costume that was a silver flightsuit with mechanical wings. The very same costume was in the Bond film Octopussy. I’d obviously been carrying it around in my head since I’d seen it as a kid.
Anyway 2008 is the Year of Planet Earth according to the stamp. I went there once. The locals were very unpleasant; they threw rubbish everywhere.

Tags: design by Allan
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At least not if you’re getting letters from the UK Office of Government Commerce. From BoingBoing.

Tags: design, innuendo by Allan
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