I clicked on the link suspecting some spam site has picked up my RSS feed and when the web page loaded I sat there for a moment stunned and very confused because the home page that I just downloaded looked very much like my own but it had a few things missing.

It Was a Complete Duplicate

My company logo and header graphic were gone and in their place was Raj Creatives, Multimedia Designer, the title tags no longer said “Graphic Design and Web Design from Durham Region” but “Graphic Design and Web Design from Rajasekaran”.

WTF?

Because I was still waking up the first thing I thought was that my WordPress site got hacked, but a quick glance at the address bar soon put those fears to rest for another day and as I began to look at the site much closer I immediately saw that it was an exact copy of my hard work that some bush league graphic and web designer, sorry “Multimedia Designer” ripped off and is using it to showcase his shoddy portfolio and other works he is trying to take credit for.

This isn’t the first time I have been a victim of plagiarism, it is the third and funny enough they all have been this year but this Mr. S. Rajasekaran is by far the worst offender that I have caught. They say that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery but this guy has still got my content on his front page, my copyright, legal notice, and link to my old website and XHTML strict compliance.

I have been freelancing in the design business now for almost ten years and most of the last decade has been really tough, the internet bubble burst just before I finished college, there was absolutely no industry employers when I was coming out of school and studio jobs were nonexistent because most of the advertising and online marketing companies folded or cut back and all the experienced designers started taking all the freelance work.

I Know How Hard it is

I am pretty understanding and I know where this guy is coming from but the more I looked at what he did to my work the more angry I got. What if for whatever reasons his pilfered version of my website takes months or even years to be deleted from the Free Web Hosting Area servers (where it rests at the moment) and a potential client looking for me finds the stolen page, it does contain a lot of my content and what if they think that I do lousy work?

Original Website and My Bread and Butter

This isn’t just my blood, sweat and tears, it’s my livelihood and something I take very seriously. I don’t mind in the least that you copied my website to your hard drive, I do it quite often myself as it is the best way to learn. But when I get down to creating I come at it from a different angle, build it from scratch and try to do it better, I don’t steal.

The difference between you and I is that I always want to improve my skills by knowing how things work so I can offer a better product while you just take and then put your name on it hoping to make a quick buck, its people like you that devalue this profession, have no respect for intellectual property and make many clients so distrustful of us.

Two Great Quotes to Think About Mr. Rajasekaran

“Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”
Pablo Picasso.

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”
Albert Einstein.

The website in question(I don’t know how long it will be available so I have some screen caps and would you believe that this guy has actually watermarked some of his own work with his name and phone number …lol )

Now Since I got all the business out of the way I would like to thank you for providing me with the unexpected opportunity to once again utilize my blog to practice search engine optimization techniques to better position my keywords by allowing me to talk about my graphic and web design company Digital Deceptions.

On the front page of my website I have a link to SlideShare where you can download the presentation I did at WordCamp Toronto 2010 on how to use WordPress and Social Media to Win an Election, on your version of my site you have your resume …lol.

Once a Thief, Was That a TV Show or a Movie?

I read your resume and even all your experience is a lie, judging by the bang up graphics butcher job you did with my work there is no possible way on earth you could have designed the web pages you say you did, plus all those sites you supposedly designed have got the design companies names on the bottom of them. Who do you think you are?

The Best is Yet to Come

At the bottom of Mr. S. Rajasekaran’s resume he has a declaration which reads:

I, hereby declare that the information furnished above is true to the best of my knowledge. If given an opportunity to work in your esteemed organization, I can perform to the best of my capabilities in a way that is satisfies the organization’s need and my career thirst.

Isn’t That Just Priceless?

Well if anyone is interested in Mr. Rajasekaran’s Multimedia Design services you can give him a call on his mobile at (988) 425-1897 day or night, mail or stop by his flat if you happen to be in India, he can be found at No.18, Seevaram 2nd Street, Perungudi, Chennai – 600 096 or you could just email him rajasekaran.gpcp@gmail.com. And yes ladies he is single as mentioned in his resume and if anyone does happen to contact my friend Mr. Rajasekaran don’t forget to wish that asshole a happy birthday, he turns 23 on May 27 which is next week and please do tell him that Duncan sent you.

Borderline obsessed today with all this? Yes maybe a little but it just happens to be Canada Day May 24 long weekend and I’m going to chalk it up to timing because I usually don’t have this much time on my hands 8p

The truth of the matter is that without a web site potential clients question your professionalism, commitment to customer service, and long-term stability of your company.

The Internet is the Search Tool Consumers Use

The popularity of the web means that when potential clients find out you don’t have a website, the reaction is similar to how they would feel if you didn’t have a place of business. They either wonder why and you lose credibility or you can attract a very undesirable type of customer.

A professional website says that you are on top of your game, you have a sound business plan for the future, and that you want to make the customer’s experience with your company as positive as possible.

My Business Doesn’t Need a Website

I have spoken to business owners in many different industries and have discovered that in some markets there is a feeling that a website is just not useful for “their type of products or services”, and that no one could possibly buy their “product x” or “service y” online, so why even bother with a website?

Well a website is about more than just selling products and services. It is a tool that can give your latest news and contact information. It announces expansions and new products or services. It can boast about your good reputation, a long standing presence in the industry, or positive client testimonials.

It can also find you employees buy accepting resumes or be an information resource for customers, a way for potential clients to take a look at your facilities or equipment.

At the very least a website should be there to assist your prospective clients and existing customers with your location, mailing address, hours of operations and what holidays your company is closed.

When phoning around, many consumers will look elsewhere the instant they call and get a busy signal, voicemail, or are put on hold for too long. But your website is always on, and always there working for you.

It is ethical practices like these that will dictate the longevity of your freelance career, by having principals alone (either right or wrong) creates a structured consistency that is needed in order to do business professionally no matter the industry.

World Wild Web

As the internet matures and more developers adopt web standards I don’t ever think that there will be away to police the World Wide Web, it is like the Wild West out here and almost anything goes so it is up to us web designers to govern ourselves and our clients.

Unfortunately because of the privacy that business is usually conducted in we never get a chance to really see any of the inner workings of how others ethics play a role in how they do business so it was very interesting for me to come across a little incident on the Photoshop tutorial website PSDTUTS.

I am not only a big fan of the site but also the company behind it Envato. They publish many other fantastic websites all carefully constructed with the same high standards they have set for themselves which is repeated throughout their body of work.

The PSDTUTS concept is simple, authors submit Photoshop tutorials and if chosen they are paid a fee. The tutorials have to be formatted to their specification, original and can’t be published anywhere else. From these guidelines they have produced better quality and more sought after tutorials than most of the other similar type sites out there.

Today PSDTUTS revealed that it was brought to their attention that the latest tutorial they had posted was more than likely plagiarized (it was not an original) so it was taken down and they withheld payment from its author immediately.

Class Dignity and Style

I say “good for you guys” for sticking to your guns. Because of the type of work Envato do they not only have an obligation to protect their author’s content but also the works of all creative’s no matter the medium.  They are an outlet for information and they have a commitment to us readers that the material they publish was acquired lawfully and the author was compensated properly per there agreement. It is just good business.

I must admit that the way they handled the situation was admirable and should serve as a lesson to us all who publish content online. They immediately acknowledged the situation and dealt with it according to the rules they set on the requirements needed to submit a tutorial “Your tutorial must be your original work and not published elsewhere” plain and simple no excuses.

I was utterly shocked when I started reading some of the angry messages they were receiving in their comments section from people talking about everything from plagiarism, intellectual property and even Envato being afraid of their own shadow. There is no debate about the situation; the author broke the rules so the tutorial is out.

For Your Protection

Envato moderate all of the comments posted to their websites before it can be read by the public, this is yet again another commitment by them to protect us the readers from such things as that X-rated spam we so frequently run into. At the same time they also posted that abusive garbage that was sent to them that they could have just as easily delete showing that they truly value their transparency and have nothing to hide.

Which brings me back again to my last blog entry about graphic and web designers who just don’t get it. These are the very people who write the kinds of negative comments that are on the PSDTUTS page, they are also usually the ones who have no sense of structure when it comes to being a freelance creative and through inconsistencies and unethical practices make it very difficult at times for clients to trust us.

We all make mistakes but it is how you learn from blunders either yours or others that dictates how successful you can be in all your endeavors. Be upfront, honest and when you find you have made a mistake deal with it swiftly and making the necessary changes so it does not happen again.

You can read about the whole situation and watch as it unfolds here.

These problems range in size from minor to major and the usual suspects are web standards and compliance which pretty much means that websites function well in one browser but differently or maybe not even at all in others. Another huge issue is usability, if you don’t understand how the website works how are you ever going to navigate to the information you are looking for?

So let’s say a website passes all these hurdles, it adheres to web standards and functions properly in Firefox, Safari, Opera, the new Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 7 and even the dreaded IE6. It is so simple to use even your granny or your mouth breathing nephew can use it, but does it look good?

Not only do you have to work within a strict set of rules to impact the largest amount of users you have to present it graphically in away the is very pleasing to the eye and simultaneously compliments the content that is being examined.

Unfortunately Most Websites Just Plain Suck

You would expect when any of these vulnerabilities are overlooked it is either very small companies, nonprofits or just an amateur’s personal space but unfortunately that is not the case because these practices are rampant. When I’m surfing the web I come across the very same problems in all industry websites almost on a daily basis.

Now I know that my perception of the web is skewed because of my trained eye and it may sound like I am complaining about the state of the web but really I am not. I am fully aware that from a business stand point it is much better for me that most websites are subpar which finally brings me to the very point of this blog entry, bad graphic and web designers.

Specifically the graphic and web designers in the Regional Municipality of Durham where I live, my competition who rate from very poor to really good as in most places. Fortunately there is only a hand full of us good designers in the Durham Region (notice I said us? …lol) so you would think that most business owners and groups commissioning websites would stay away from all the riffraff but they haven’t.

Many Clients Distrust Designers Because of Past Experiences

What I have found is that clients have almost always had a bad experience from their first website and usually that is why they are looking to get a second one done. This is the proverbial double edged sword, on one hand you are talking shop and networking with potential clients and on the other hand they come with baggage and distrust from the bad experience they had with the last design studio or freelancer they worked with.

A couple of tell tale signs of bad design habits to look out for when you are in need of graphic or web design work are no website or portfolio,  website doesn’t function properly or a date on the site is a year or two old. Of course there are many others but that is for a later blog entry you get the idea.

An indicator of a good designer or Design Company is how thorough they are and if they have some sort of process that they use to get the job done. Using a design process is key no matter what size or type of project is being commissioned and you will quickly find that there will most likely be issues in a project that were otherwise unforeseen by the client but by having a design process in place these issues are recognized and addressed before they become a problem.

Good Work Ethic

As much as I would like to out some of the major local culprits in the Ajax, Pickering, Whitby and Oshawa graphic and web design industry I feel that it would do more damage than good as I have set some strict business and moral standards for myself and Digital Deceptions and reframe from bad mouthing anyone specifically and let the work both theirs an mine speak for itself.

So if you are a business owner, have a unique product or idea and are in need of hiring a local graphic or web designer from the Durham Region area, have a look at my portfolio before you make your decision, Digital Deceptions creates all types of graphics from logos to print layouts and I specialize in web design and animation.

How do you create a hamburger design without a burger or fire? Use text only.

Instead of using an “i” in the word Big we used the number 1 and combined the “g” with the letter “o” to make it look almost like a zero. This logo contains three different font types serif, sans-serif and a hand written typeface.

After researching other coffee brands and logos we noticed that they were all so similar so we agreed to stay away from that type of style but in our research we just happen to see a cigar label and we instantly knew which new direction to go, you just never know where you will find inspiration do you?

The last five Digital Deceptions sites have either been full Flash sites or hybrids (using both Flash and HTML) which as with most technologies have their pros and cons.
Back in early 2000 when I was in college Flash was quite new and everyone wanted to use it. I’m sure you all remember those huge Flash intros; you could literally wait a couple of minutes just to see a company’s logo spin and they probably paid a fortune for it as well.

After finishing school and coming from a multimedia program I naturally used Flash to create most of my websites. I would be lying if I said that Flash wasn’t always my first choice because I definitely felt more comfortable with it as opposed to other web platforms, but if a clients website didn’t need to be animated, flashy (for lack of a better word), contain music, video or their target audience was much older I used Flash very sparingly if at all.

Most of the work I did was a reflection of my own website Digital Deceptions, clients would say “I loved what you did on this or that project” and usually to achieve what they wanted the only option was Flash, that’s why they came to me. So I guess what has made me stand out from the crowd has also kind of painted me into a corner in some respects.

To Flash or Not to Flash

I have never liked being pinned down or labeled a one trick pony and to me being the go to Flash guy was just that. Way back in college one of my teachers noticed I started all of my designs on a black background and he told me to get out of that kind of habit right away and use colours that I am not comfortable with or he would choose the colour palette for me.

So once again I have come out of my comfort zone by making the latest Digital Deceptions website The Free Lance which is PHP and fully database driven by WordPress. Just because it much more search engine friendly the traffic to my site has almost tripled and the average time visitors stay on the site has multiplied tenfold which is one of the major goals I wanted to accomplish with the latest build.

Don’t get me wrong I still love to use Flash and I’m very aware of its uses both good and bad believing it has a time and a place in certain projects, for instance I have used it for the search box in my website because I could customize the look of it much more closely to resemble the look and feel of the site’s design.

Is the Medium the Message?

In the end as with any project it is about the message and the information you are trying to get across to your audience, whatever technologies you use are just tools to support those ideas and shouldn’t in any way dictate anything different.

Being your own boss we as freelance designers sometimes get caught up in all these technologies and get lost forgetting the fundamentals, so as with any business model it is a good idea to evaluate your game plan. It is also a good idea to reevaluate your skills, equipment, what technologies you use and make any necessary adjustments before they become major changes.

I think that being a serious designer is something that you grow to be as opposed to just wanting to be one. I know from my experience growing up that I knew what inspiration was quite early on and I gravitated towards those things that inspired me.

I use to love going to the grocery store with my parents every week because I could go to the music shop and check out all the album covers and posters until they were done shopping. When I got home I would instantly go to my room and try to recreate what I had just seen.

I always wished I had a copy of these images to work from but because records were both expensive and usually not suitable for a little boy I was forced to absorb it all in that small amount of time I had alone with them in the shop.

Compulsive Hoarding of Great Design

I’m a firm believer that if I had access to all those album covers and posters whenever I wanted I could have been a much better artist earlier on. When I decided I wanted go to school to become a graphic designer one of the first things I was taught was to start collecting different types of magazine ads that you enjoy, to me that just confirms my belief.

The idea of collecting reference materials was basically a tip from the teacher and wasn’t given any more attention through the rest of the course but I heard it loud and clear “start hording images”…lol.

Cutting out ads and images didn’t last long because it was too sloppy and storage was becoming a big problem, how are you supposed to organize all your clippings so you can find what you are looking for?

Digital Deceptions Goes Digital

I ended up scanning them in and organizing them in folders. I quickly knew I needed to come up with some sort of system to classify these images so they can easily be found and what I did was pretty simple.

Say I have a picture of a palm tree it would be put in the folder called “nature” which had a folder called “trees” which contains a folder called “tropical”, simple enough and very effective. Nowadays you can get loads of software for this type of thing which is a very good idea to do if you haven’t already got a load of reference materials and a system.

I also do the same thing with my own photos, websites and even colour pallets, if I see something that I like I take a screen capture and save it to the appropriate folder which I also have a similar system for. I classify sites by style so it would go something like this grunge, corporate, themed and so on you get the idea its whatever works for you.

This is a great practice for designers because websites never last forever plus you save loads of time from surfing garbage and distractions. It is great to be Independent and have a copy of great ads, images and marketing campaigns, you never need the net to reference your archive, isn’t that what freelancing is all about? Most importantly I think it means you are always on the lookout.

Here are a couple of Pablo Picasso quotes about copying and taken at face value he sounds like a thief but what he is really talking about is using reference materials for inspiration but he had a real sense of humour about it.

• “Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.”
• “To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic.”

Just remember that they are only reference materials, don’t copy others work and give credit where credit is due.