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.