After discussions with John, it has been amicably and mutually agreed that the re-design will be shelved.
The site design has been swapped out, as per the following email received today:
“Strongly influenced” is one way to put it. I can think of others.
I do not approve of this appropriation of Daring Fireball’s layout and branding. I do see that you did not copy my markup or CSS, but the color, layout, and typography are clearly copied directly from my work. Daring Fireball’s design is an essential aspect of my brand, and is *not* a template for others to use. I request that you abandon your use of it.
Regards,
John Gruber
Apparently, because I have “appropriated” the design1 from daringfireball I have been requested to “abandon” use of it.
Now, I am a reasonable person and I will comply, for now, with John’s request.
I do, however, take some offence to the imputation that the fonts and colours are a direct copy. That is equivalent to suggesting if I happen to include (some) colours used by Slashdot, or Microsoft, or commonly used fonts that are used on millions of websites, that that is “appropriating” the design.
I respect others enough to listen and action a request, when it is sensible. John, whilst I understand you obviously believe I have effectively copied your design, the CSS is different, a number of fonts used are different the template engines we use, are different - there are many more differences than similarities.
If that means I have “appropriated” a design as my own, despite going to a huge effort of declaring where some of my design cues came from, despite attempting to ensure the design wasn’t a “copy”, then I am both sorry and disheartened that such a thing has happened.
Whilst part of me is amazed you’d actually consider the design similar to your own, given it’s generated from scratch, on an entirely different platform, it appears the similarities are just too much.
So be it.
Update: I’m closing off the comments. The decision has been made and really, there’s no more to be said that isn’t going to be nasty.
- which is a little unfair given I spent quite some time making sure that work was hand coded, nothing was ever ripped (↩)
≡ This is a journal entry relating to the topics of No Tags.
Brendan Borlase is a Systems and Network Administrator living in Adelaide, Australia, having lived, worked and breathed Information Technology for over 12 years. Learn more.
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Mar 23rd, 2007 at 4:53 am
That’s a shame, but it IS good to see you both seems to be civil with each other on this, considering how quickly one person accusing the other of copying can deteriorate into stupidity (notably the recent Simplebits vs Logopod spat on Flickr).
I hope you can both come to a compromise, after all no design is TRUELY original.
Mar 23rd, 2007 at 5:06 am
Indeed. I’m disappointed that John seriously considers my take on the grey + white design to be so identical to his that he felt the need to demand I take it down.
But I am not a fool and would prefer to sort this out amicably. I have invited John to comment, should he feel that that is acceptable.
Mar 23rd, 2007 at 5:22 am
It was quite similar, maybe a change of colour and logo position would be enough to block the Fireball?
Mar 23rd, 2007 at 5:42 am
Working on that as we speak (font and background colours along with header graphic movement).
Once done, I’ll ask Mr Gruber if he continues to take issue with the scheme in use.
Mar 23rd, 2007 at 7:55 pm
It’s nice to see that you’re both being good about this. The number of petty flame-wars we’ve seen over this kind of thing is ridiculous.
For what it’s worth I actually prefer this theme. DF is a nicely designed blog, but I’ve always felt it lacked something…
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next :)
Mar 23rd, 2007 at 8:59 pm
The contentious design has been scrubbed. It’s been pulled from the server and won’t be used again.
Some of the modular code used in the template will likely be used, however the CSS and overall colours, feel and design will not.
I harbour no ill-will towards John who has been professional as always in regards to the situation.
Mar 24th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
wow, that is ridiculous that he accused you of copying. You can NOT copyright colors and fonts. Cheap knock off brands do it all the time. They get the same font and color and change a couple of letters in a brand name product. *roll eyes at John Guber*
Mar 24th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
John Gruber?
More like Hans Gruber…
I’m just playing, John :)