I am currently at my third job as a Graphic designer and have been in the field for about 5 years. My first company moved to the other side of the country, so I couldn’t stay there. My second job was freelancing, however I prefer to work as a team player so I looked for a job; my current one.
I am generally happy at the place, the salary is ok, my colleagues are nice, it’s a large, fast growing international company. All well, you’d think.
However, on a weekly basis I’m being asked to copy other work/websites. At first I assumed they meant to use it as inspiration but they want to literally copy it. Example;
My company colors are yellow and green and we use a design style A.
Company X uses purple and blue and uses design style B. My boss
literally wants me to copy design style B, in purple and blue, even
though that is nothing close to our style guide and I repeatedly tried
to convince him it doesn’t even work in our branch, with examples and
even proof in numbers through testing.Is this something that happens often in larger companies? I don’t want to lay off a job this soon (1 year) but I feel very uncomfortable stealing other people’s work and creating things I feel don’t work. Is it bad for my resume to have all these short jobs?
Answer
Obviously this has been answered multiple times already… But I have to put in my two cents.
Firstly, has anyone mentioned copyright infringement? This link to Wikipedia denotes that copyright infringement is
creating or distributing a “copy” of a protected work that is
“substantially similar” to the original version.
You have not only a moral, but also legal obligation to refuse your boss’ request. God forbid, you could potentially be liable for recreating someone else’s design.
Morally… well, you already know how you feel about it. And good for you, for bringing this to light. If your boss has a problem with your angst regarding his request, why don’t you just show them this thread? I’d love to answer a few of their questions to this point.
Good luck.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : user091627 , Answer Author : ColinAzeltine