Steal from many sources

Daniele Catalanotto
Dec 13, 2022
A Service Design Principle for simple innovation.

I'm 16 years old, and I have a passion for graphic design. I'm self-taught, so I don't really know what I'm doing or what are the proper rules to follow. So I'm trying to copy stuff to create my own creations. With time, I notice that there is a simple trick I can follow so that nobody notices that I've copied the work from others: for one creation, I steal from many sources and try to mix them together.

For example, from one poster I really like I'm using the typeface. From a website I'm using the colour scheme, and from a book cover, I'm using the illustration style. Once these are all mixed together, the original inspirations aren't that visible anymore, and the result is quite okay. 

This is pretty similar to the lightning demo technic that is used in the Design Sprint (1) method. 

Action question

What are different tiny elements that you could steal from services you like to improve the way you serve the people around you.

Footnotes

  • Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz (2016). Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. Simon & Schuster . Available at https://extra.swissinnovation.academy/CTAr accessed 20 October 2022. 

Daniele’s notes

  • This is the first draft of this Service Design Principle.
  • Once improved, this principle could be part of a book in the “Service Design Principles” series
  • As always, feel free to share comments, feedback, references or personal stories to improve this principle.