Stolen concept advice please

Bobafitz

New Member
Hi all,

To cut a long story short, I had an interview for junior designer role back in 07 at a large multinational company when I was fresh out of uni, gained a second interview and was asked to bring some ideas for their website that they were working on updating. Put some bits together, a basic concept of the customer "Can you...." company " Yes we can"

The marketing comms guy and designer liked the concept and everything went great - got a letter just saying I wasn't successful, took it on the chin and moved on.

Now, the new website has ripped off my concept pretty blatantly. I still have all the files on my computer of the original ideas I had done, but is there anything I can do?????

I have emailed the comms guy asking for an explanation but am I starting somthing that I will get no backup for and is there even any protection for such a scenario.

Any help great appriciated.

Thanks
 
how did you send them your concept? I hope you didn't give them PSD files, did you?

When sending a site concept it's a good idea to scale the JPEG down to about 80% so they cant extract the graphics from your mockup.
 
I never sent them any files! I presented my ideas/designs to them in person at the interview. It's really the concept that they nicked, the design and layout are similar. Obviously my designs were initial concepts, so their finished article uses different fonts and product shots and copy is different, but the overall idea is exactly what I presented.

I'm thinking I may just have to let this slide as I imagine a concept is very hard to prove ownership, and although the design is very similar it may be different enough!!
 
I think the thing here is nicking the concept rather than using the actual artwork, no?

Be interesting to see the comparison. Would be happy posting a link/uploading original files? If you can't get any satiusfaction, you might at least 'out' them.

Incidentally, it's a US site I think, but there's some discussion about it here: Potential employer stealing ideas | creativebits

EDIT: Overlapped with the above post.
 
Hi, i have uploaded a couple the initial concept design here, excuse the rawness of these, i have learnt very much since.

My rough concepts - Untitled Document

The company website is Cambridge Consultants - innovation, technology and product development

The more i speak about this with the forum i realise that the concept is a simple - question - answer idea and that cannot be claimed by anybody, the wording and refined design by the company is different enough i think - perhaps they new this.

I think because i walked in that room, presented my ideas, which they liked and ultimately used i feel aggrieved and i know that before i presented to them, this idea hadn't crossed their minds. But to others, to just look at the two, it probably isn't all that startling.

thanks for your help guys.
 
Perhaps is the practice of interviewing people just to fish for ideas never having any intention of actually employing somebody that gets me - you live and learn right
 
what did they nick? Are you claiming you invented the sidebar navigation and boxes? The footer and the search box at the top?
 
Honestly, I'm struggling to find similarities. In your mind you were at the interview so you know what was said and that may have had a bearing on what you're thinking. But as for getting anything from this, you'd really struggle in my opinion because it's so hard to prove or justify, especially when people are clutching at straws to find something the same.
 
OK, all I'm saying is that I pitched them an idea of having a customers question, and the reply that bigs up the company with a image shot for their website. They then have used that idea.. I'm not saying they have directly stolen any design.

Would I not be right in thinking that if a guy pitches a concept of say a a woman dancing to promote a product and he does a sketch to illustrate this - the finished design for that concept most likely wouldn't look anything like his sketch but surely it's still that guys concept and idea and he deserves some credit??
 
Indeed, if they have stolen it you deserve credit, and if they have, everyone here would be on your side. Nonetheless it is very difficult to prove based on what you're showing, unfortunately.
 
All they have really nicked is the question and answer thing. . . which has been used before many, many times.
 
To use your example, if you went on the net and looked around you would probably find 100 - 200 websites with a woman dancing somewhere within the pages. If there was a direct use of your idea you might have a point, but a concept is going to be very hard to prove is yours, as they can be so loose.

I agree with the others too, I really cannot see the similarity. And if it comes down to the fact that they have used a concept you were developing, who's to say they weren't thinking along the same lines anyway?
 
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