Originality belongs to yesterday

We are living in the age of information. When a celebrity dies, we'll hear about it on Facebook within 5 minutes. If an earthquake hits Japan, my Twitter feed will make it obvious instantly.  Unless you are Amish, you are pretty much aware of most happenings in this world. Everything is out there for you to mentally capture, and when you do, act accordingly. 

Which brings me to some interesting finds I've come upon while surfing the web. On the left you see our El X shirt, which was brought to life in the early Spring of 2011. Pasted next to it is a shirt recently released by the streetwear brand 10 Deep for their Summer 2012 collection.

There's an obvious similarity with these 2 designs. Was it a coincidence? Who knows. They are pretty simple designs, so calling it a knock-off would be stupid.

Here we have the poster graphic for our Wild Card (Leopard) tee. It is also a very simple design: A black, leopard-print t-shirt, with a real leopard in the background.

And here we have another company's, Play Cloths, poster (put out 3 months after ours). A black, leopard t-shirt, with 2 real leopards in the background.

Here's some more similar ones.

Ours...

Theirs...

Ours...

Theirs...

The last 2 weren't too similar, but the ideas are. Our collection was called the Wild Collection, theirs was the Wild Life Collection. Whatever the case, we cannot call these copies. Most ideas are brought about at the same time because of trends. Animal print is EVERYWHERE today. These are just influenced by the craze. Just as our brand became popular around the same time where another company (Miskeen) was also hand-painting t-shirts, you cannot call anyone copycats, unless they are completely ripping you off. 

It is hard to stand out these days. Everything has been done, almost. Which makes it tough to compete in many markets. Fashion being the major one. How many t-shirt designs can you make different from the next guy? I believe we have passed the stage of innovation, now it's just up to who puts it out faster & on a bigger scale. Peace.