How Stealing Can Make You a Better Graphic Designer

Summary

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The Angry Designer Podcast

Episode: "How Stealing Can Make You a Better Graphic Designer"

Date: November 11, 2025
Hosts: Masimo & Sean J. Creato

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Angry Designer takes a provocative look at the notion of originality in graphic design. Hosts Masimo and Sean challenge the “sacred cow” of originality, arguing that all great designers "steal"—but there’s an art and a code to it. Through lively anecdotes, honest admissions, and practical advice, they explore the difference between shameless copying and strategic creative theft. The episode provides real talk on why emulating others is not just inevitable, but essential for growth—if done with intent, understanding, and transformation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Myth of Originality (00:00–03:10)

• Masimo calls out the widespread belief that creativity must be 100% original, saying:

  "Let's be honest, every great designer steals." (00:06)

• Conversation kicks off with a reference to Taylor Swift being accused of ripping off the Jackson 5, serving as a jumping-off point for the nuances between influence, copying, and outright theft.

• Masimo argues:

  "We all, you know, start by, you know, an influence. And whether that influence inspires you or whether you're outright copying it, the reality is...designers all start by stealing shit." (02:38)

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Personal Stories: From Student Copying to Professional Practice (03:10–06:46)

• Both hosts reminisce about their early days—collecting and emulating rave flyers (Masimo) and copying illustrator Douglas Frazier (Sean) to learn technique.

• Sean admits he could never truly copy a style because "...my limited skill set, I could only go so far." (05:47)

• Masimo reframes this:

  "That's how you didn't actually rip something off...you copied it for the right reasons. True originality doesn't exist; all creativity is basically influence plus the context you're working in with your own style and spin too." (06:21)

• Quoting Paul Rand:

  "Paul Rand...he was like, don't try to be original. Just try be good." (06:47)

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The Crucial Difference: Copying to Learn vs. Copying to Cheat (06:46–13:42)

• Learning through Emulation: Copying is essential for training your eye and developing design intuition, provided it's for understanding patterns, not bypassing thought.

• Notable Quote:

  "Creativity is mathematical. Graphic design is just another math lesson." — Masimo (07:30)

• Bad Copying: When copying is only about final looks and ignores the reasoning behind design choices.

  "You're not worried about how they got to it...You're literally turning something out...You're just ripping something off." (09:01)

• The infamous “pizza slice logo” is discussed as a case of lazy, surface-level copying that devalues creative labor.

• Good Copying: Dissecting why something works—hierarchy, spacing, proportions—and using that understanding to train your mind and muscle memory.

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The Evolution of a Personal Style (13:42–19:32)

• Masimo:

  "You don't necessarily develop your own style...by looking at 100 different styles and being like, I'm going to mix this, and this, and this." (17:56)

• Building a distinct style, as seen in the careers of Aaron Draplin, Saul Bass, and Paula Scher, comes from years of working through influences and intentional refinement.

• The message is clear: Style emerges from practice and consistent transformation, not from consciously seeking originality at the start.

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The Lazy Designer, Customers, & Why Clients Get “Apple” Wrong (19:32–21:15)

• Lazy designers are focused solely on reproducing the look, disregarding the intent, context, or substance.

• Anecdote: Clients wanting “to look like Apple” but missing the point of why Apple’s design choices work:

  "They want to rush to it without understanding, without getting why." (20:38)

• Sean:

  "You don't come out fully formed in this business." (23:16)

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Comparing AI to Designers: Where the Soul is Missing (21:15–24:26)

• AI as the Ultimate Thief: The hosts address why designers resent AI—it's not about the access to data/influence ("we all thieve the same way"), but about lacking intent and purpose.

• Masimo:

  "When AI creates something...it doesn't know why it's creating. Right. It creates like the lazy designer...It doesn't do the why." (22:02)

• Real human creativity involves intention, problem-solving, and meaning—qualities missing in AI-generated works, which feel "shallow...thin...missing that substance." (23:40)

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The Designer’s Code of Stealing (25:04–30:23)

Masimo lays out a “Designer’s Code of Stealing”—a practical framework separating creative growth from plagiarism:

1. Study the Engine, Not Just the Paint Job (25:42)

   • Analyze the why behind the work: structure, rationale, the problem being solved.

   "A lazy designer...just basically copy what they see...But the real designer, they're looking at the engineering, how it was built." (25:44)

2. Steal from Many, Not from One (27:05)

   • Build a broad library of influences across designers, eras, and even disciplines.

   "If you have one look, that's plagiarism...But 10 different looks...this is how you're creating your own style." (28:38)

3. Transform, Don’t Imitate (28:49)

   • Synthesize your influences and transform them for your context; that’s how you develop individuality.

   "We reinterpret what we see...Transformation is what happens when you take your influence, put it towards your context, and put all your own style...That's how you will recreate something..." (28:49)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On originality:

  "Originality is dead. It's gone so hard to see something that's never been done before." — Masimo (29:56)

• On learning vs. stealing:

  "Amateurs, they steal what they see and stop. Right? Where, you know, pros will steal what they understand. But real legends...they steal what they can transform into." — Masimo (31:08)

• On the journey:

  "You don't come out fully formed in this business." — Sean J. Creato (23:16)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 — Opening salvo on the myth of originality
• 03:10 — How the hosts “stole” as beginners and why it made them better
• 06:46 — The difference between copying to cheat and copying to learn (Paul Rand reference)
• 13:42 — Style development: why you shouldn’t chase a “unique” style early on
• 19:32 — Lazy designers, clients who want to look like Apple, and surface-level stealing
• 21:15 — Why AI can never do what a real designer does
• 25:04 — The Designer’s Code of Stealing (three-point framework)
• 30:23 — Recap: why transformative “stealing” creates real value

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Takeaways

• Originality is overrated; all design is built on what came before.
• Copying is not only unavoidable, it’s a crucial part of the creative process—if it's done to learn, analyze, and eventually transform.
• There’s a vital difference between copying for growth and copying to take shortcuts.
• The best designers draw from a wide pool, understand the why, and remix for their context with purpose and intent.
• Clients (and designers) are often guilty of wanting only the surface, missing the deeper reasons for why great design works.
• AI can “steal” in quantity, but without intent and human meaning, it creates only the shallowest of work.

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Essential Designer’s “Stealing” Checklist

1. Study the structure and rationale, not just the look.
2. Gather broad influences—don’t imitate one source.
3. Transform what you take: adapt it with intent for your audience and context.

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Hosts sign off:
My name is Masimo.
My name is Sean J. Creato. And stay angry.

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Transcript

[Masimo]

Everybody talks about originality, like, it's just so sacred. But let's be honest, every great designer steals. You clicked on this link because you know you've done it, too. In this episode of the Angry Designer podcast, powered by Wick Studio, we're calling out the myth of originality and showing you while why stealing is actually part of the creative process. From Taylor Swift to Saul Bass, from AI to your current project, we're breaking down the fine line between copying, looking, learning, and theft. But here's the catch. There's a code to creative theft, and most designers are breaking it without even realizing it. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Let's go.

[Sean J. Creato]

All right.

[Masimo]

Okay, buddy, look. Look what we're drinking today.

[Sean J. Creato]

Loved it.

[Masimo]

Do you? Because what I got looks like a fricking kid's drink. Check this out. It's a Dino Sour. I'm drinking, and I'm drinking a sour beer called Dino Sour.

[Sean J. Creato]

Oh, and I'm drinking a triple ipa Flying Monkey.

[Masimo]

But look at how creative.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes. With the crazy eyes.

[Masimo]

Look at that.

[Sean J. Creato]

Killer.

[Masimo]

We've had quite a music adventure right now. Yes. Yeah. We're talking about Rush, talking about bands, talking about copying.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

Speaking of. So, you know, Rosie. Sorry. My daughter, as you know, is a. She's a Taylor Swift fan. Oh.

[Sean J. Creato]

She's a swifty.

[Masimo]

She's. She's only nine years old, so of course she's a swifty. Yeah. And let's not even talk about the inappropriate music that Taylor's now speaking in her just like, wow, I'm torn. Do I do this or not? But so her new album dropped, like, a week ago.

[Sean J. Creato]

Right, Right.

[Masimo]

And again, she's. She's obviously pretty popular, but, you know, people are going after her right now. No. Why? I'll read it. Because she's got a song on there. Oh. That they're saying that she ripped off the Jackson 5 song. Oh, yes. Right. Which is interesting. I heard the song. Okay. And I was like, okay, does it sound like the Jackson 5 song? And okay. No. In my opinion. Okay. I don't see a direct. It's not like a sample. It's not like they sampled it. Okay. Right. And it's just like, oh, come on. That sounds like, you know, Michael Jackson's about to start dancing. But there was something about it that had that same poppy vibe feel. And so it's like, you know, if you really want to dig, I can see how people would think that that's a ripoff, but to me, it's not even a ripoff. It's more like a remix. And not even a remix in music terms, because music terms, remix actually means something else. But, you know, this kind of goes back to what I kind of wanted to talk about today, because, again, it's like, you know, we all, you know, start by, you know, an influence. Okay. Of a sort. Right. And whether that influence, you know, is. Is it inspires you or whether you're outright copying it, the reality is, you know, if you really want to get critical, designers all start by stealing shit. Okay. And we steal layouts, we steal designs. That sounds harsh.

[Sean J. Creato]

Y.

[Masimo]

But, you know, I. I. This past weekend, I. I was going through my old portfolio with my daughter and stuff. Right. And I was like, oh, wow, look at this. I rem. I remember, you know, I used to love rave. Rave posters, rave cards, rave flyers. I used to collect them. Yes. And my early, early shit was very heavily rave flyer, influence copied, you know, stolen, whatever. Right. But, you know, it was kind of, like, starting to get down that road.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Masimo]

Like at the record, like.

[Sean J. Creato]

No, like. But in school, I remember an artist, he was called Douglas Frazier, and I thought he really, really cool. He did these. That's when I wanted to be an illustrator.

[Masimo]

Yeah.

[Sean J. Creato]

So I. I kind of. I saw his style. His style was. Was this very. And you probably remember it, it's very thick black lines. Super, super. And. But.

[Masimo]

But it's still hot now.

[Sean J. Creato]

But it was like. You paint a board with gesso.

[Masimo]

Yes.

[Sean J. Creato]

So it had ridges and. And you would paint over that. And I just loved that style. So I did that for, like a whole year. Right, Loving.

[Masimo]

Exactly. Right. And I mean, it's like, you know, but there's a fine line. And I guess that's. That's the issue, right? Because again, it's like, you know, there's. There's a lot of guilt. So I. I hired lots of people over the past, you know, 27 years. I would always encourage, you know, whoever. I would always buy design annuals. I love my magazines. Right. I would spend hours, you know, chapters and Indigo, early days.

[Sean J. Creato]

Communications Arts.

[Masimo]

Communication Arts. And to get all these ideas.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

And then I would pass them forward. I would have designers who were so reluctant to kind of pull from anything like this. They didn't want to. They. They were scared. They were like, oh, I don't want to copy anything, and I'm scared to steal. And I'm just like, you know, you're focusing too much on trying to be original.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

And they had this guilt inside of them. Right. Which is kind of silly because the reality is by. By studying and copying and learning these styles, you know, that's how you. You get better.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes, yes. You absolutely learn that way. And I always found that I would try to copy.

[Masimo]

Yeah.

[Sean J. Creato]

But I couldn't. I couldn't understand it. I didn't, I didn't know where this artist was coming from.

[Masimo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean J. Creato]

So I would end up falling. But also my, you know, kind of creating something else.

[Masimo]

Yeah.

[Sean J. Creato]

Well, that seemed to kind of work, but it wasn't what I was trying to do.

[Masimo]

But that's that. But that's true creativity.

[Sean J. Creato]

This is kind of what I thought. It's just like it is by my limited skill set, I could only go so far.

[Masimo]

Well, I mean. Okay, I think you're being hard on yourself.

[Sean J. Creato]

No, this is early on.

[Masimo]

Okay, okay.

[Sean J. Creato]

And even now.

[Masimo]

But see, it was. But you know, creativity is like influence. Yes. Or copying. You know what I call it? That, that's plus, you know, the context that you want to use that in. Okay. So if you're looking at a print, you know, layout, and you kind of then all of a sudden transfer it online. Right. Okay. And then, of course, so you have your influence, plus, you have, you know, context is. And then you add your own style to your own spin. Where in your case, what you just described as your limited capabilities.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes, exactly.

[Masimo]

That's how you didn't actually rip something off. You copied it. You copied it, but for the right reasons. Because again, true originality doesn't exist. All creativity is basically influence, plus the context you're working in with your own style and spin too. Yes. Right.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

Paul Rand, even he, he was, you know, he. Many times, he was like, don't try to be original. Just try be good. Okay. But being good involves, you know, the need to start copying. You need to pull your influences from people. Because by pulling those influences, this is how you start training your brain. Yeah. You start doing the muscle memory. Right, Right. Recognizing patterns. Right. Okay. You start understanding, like, you know, I, I love those videos online that it's like, hey, are you curious on how much space you should put between your logo mark and your, Your word? You know the company name? Sure. Just double up the company name and spread it out like this and you're done.

[Sean J. Creato]

It's mathematical.

[Masimo]

Creativity is mathematical. Graphic design is just another math lesson.

[Sean J. Creato]

People.

[Masimo]

I get it, they're trying to help, but the reality is by copying and understanding those patterns on a regular basis, you could start training your eye to understand what that spacing means. That's something that I think people don't understand, because then, you know, that takes it to a whole new level. Right. Because then in that case, you know, you're not really copying to steal an idea. You're copying to understand how they got there. Exactly. And all design works like that. Grids are all, like, freaking. You could almost argue that design principles on a whole are based on just this. They're there. So you can copy them.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

Study them. Feel them if you have to.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

You'll learn your grades through this.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah. Somebody else has done the legwork with stuff like that. So if you used what that person and kind of, you know, copped what they were doing, you'll figure it out. You know what I mean?

[Masimo]

No matter how far back in history you go. Okay. Every style, every. Every. Every design is basically carried forward.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

And improved.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yep.

[Masimo]

Okay. And this is. This is how you do. And improved. Remixed. Major. Own. Made to the. The. The medium, the context, you know, whatever it is that you're doing. I think if you're just copying the steel. Okay. You're ultimately just focused on that end result. Yes. Okay.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

You. You. You're not worried about how they got to it.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

You are literally turning something out on a fricking service, on a platform just quickly. Right. You're just. You're literally ripping something off.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

Just to that end result. Okay. You're focused, you know, not on the learning, just on the doing part and the delivering part. Okay. And again, so it's kind of like you're. You're tracing something on paper, and all you're doing is you're tracing. You don't care how they got to it. You're just tracing it. You're putting your name on it. Right. You got the shape. You know, it looks the same, but you don't understand how they got there. But that's okay. Y. I don't need to.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

I'm just gonna rip this off and sell it to somebody else, put a different name on it. And let's face it, that's what so much of that online is. God. That.

[Sean J. Creato]

You know that pizza slice logo?

[Masimo]

Oh, my God.

[Sean J. Creato]

How many times have you seen that? Oh, I think some people just don't even try.

[Masimo]

I know. No Sag. Like, they don't even try. Poor Alan. I know.

[Sean J. Creato]

Poor Allen. And that guy worked really hard on that. And I get seeing it because it's awesome. Like, it's so good. And I can see why people will be like, my client's coming at me. I'm only getting 100 bucks for this.

[Masimo]

Yeah, yeah, I'll just use that. You know what's funny? That 100 bucks should have always gone to Alan right from this.

[Sean J. Creato]

It should have.

[Masimo]

What is it? That pitsy, that pizza owner guy, the sixth or seventh one who got that logo. Yeah. He feels like he got shamed.

[Sean J. Creato]

Exactly. He's probably looking through a magazine like, what the hell?

[Masimo]

But okay, he goes online to Alan's website and he's like, alan Peters stole my logo for sake. Brings up all the. All the pizza posse up there to rough up poor Allen.

[Sean J. Creato]

They copied me, you would say.

[Masimo]

But, I mean, that's. That's the bad copying. Yes. Okay. Where, you know, the other side, true designers, they don't copy to steal. They copy to understand, which is what we're always telling people to do. Okay. You know, you. You don't just want to recreate something to make it look good. You want to dissect it to try to understand the thought behind it. The understanding and the relationship between the spacing, the size, you know, the. The proportions of everything. There's a reason why. Right. And this is. This is how real designers train their eye. They train their mind. They kind of start developing the muscle memory to kind of be able to replicate that look. That's where, you know, when people say, there's a design intuition, well, that doesn't come just from, you know, starting, you know, fresh in college. Yeah.

[Sean J. Creato]

You don't get that. Right. You're not born with that.

[Masimo]

That doesn't happen. Paul Rand was in Paul Rand at 5 years old. Okay. Walking around. Wow. His crayon sketches are remarkable.

[Sean J. Creato]

Vignelli, I think I'm gonna build.

[Masimo]

But it's. You're trying to. You're trying to study, you know, the decisions, you know, why. Why they made the decisions they did to lay things out. Right. The hierarchy behind it, you know, the. And this is, you know, the composition, the contrast, like everything that we just talked about before. This way. It's a different kind of copying.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

Okay. Like, I don't even consider it copying. To me, it'd be more imitation.

[Sean J. Creato]

It's imitation, right? Yeah.

[Masimo]

Which. Which is. Which is a form of flattery.

[Sean J. Creato]

It is, yes. The most sincerest form of flatter.

[Masimo]

That sounds so special. But it's true. Right? So when you're trying to imitate, you're not necessarily trying to deceive.

[Sean J. Creato]

Right.

[Masimo]

Okay. And that's a big thing. Right. But in this case, you're trying to learn how to replicate that same. Not necessarily that same Mark, okay, but that energy, the mark carries the space, the feel.

[Sean J. Creato]

That's right.

[Masimo]

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[Masimo]

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[Masimo]

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[Masimo]

Web design for graphic designers. In this situation, when you're trying to imitate something, you're not necessarily imitating it. You know, logo for logo, right? You are looking at a logo and you're like, wow, that looks great. And you take that and put it online for something else. Okay. You try to create a, I don't even know, like a, an infograph based on a certain style or intensity. Right? You see a layout maybe in a PowerPoint somewhere or on the web somewhere and you're like, you know what? This is fantastic on a PowerPoint. Exactly right. So you're actually, you know, you're learning. But the thing is, you're not just copying it. Yeah. Because you can't copy that web page directly on that.

[Sean J. Creato]

You're translating it to another meeting.

[Masimo]

Exactly right.

[Sean J. Creato]

So.

[Masimo]

And again, you know, this happens. Web layouts, dude.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

I think this is why for, for me, early on in our Z Factor career, it was so easy for us to pick up web. Okay. Because I was so okay back then. I wasn't into logos. I was in the layouts. I loved layouts. Right. I would again, go spend hours at Chapters in Indigo flipping through the surf magazines, escape magazines, the car magazines, the design magazines.

[Sean J. Creato]

Right.

[Masimo]

And although I loved looking at the stuff in the magazines, ultimately the way.

[Sean J. Creato]

The layout of the magazine itself, skateboard.

[Masimo]

Magazines were pretty fucking cool, right? Yes. And so for me to take that and translate it online, I mean, it just felt so natural.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

Right. Because I knew this is where the world was going.

[Sean J. Creato]

Right.

[Masimo]

And so, you know, we had an. I can honestly say we had a leg up on anybody else around, because at that time, you either had print people or you had programmers who were building websites, but there was nobody in between, like where we were. And this is why in a short amount of time, we. We excelled a lot in that space. I like that. So. So. So again, I think the fear isn't necessarily, you know, to copy for the sake of copying. Okay. Or. Or, you know, imitating. I think it's just, you know, people worry about staying that way. Right. Okay. And then staying as a. A carbon copy. Right. Of it. Right. Because I. I constantly get people asking me, you know, is, is it better to be able to replicate all these different styles, or should I, you know, look for a style all on my own? And I. I would always tell people that there's a huge advantage for them. Yeah. To learn how to be everything. Well, to be like a chameleon. Yeah, yeah.

[Sean J. Creato]

Right, Right.

[Masimo]

Because again, not every client is going to want, you know, that one. Look, if you study, you know, Swiss modernism, which I love, that's not going to be for everybody. Yeah, Right. And there's no. So, I mean, you're only doing yourself a disservice in that case, if you just. If you're just studying. Studying one thing only. You know what I mean?

[Sean J. Creato]

Exactly. Yeah. I'm a Bauhaus guy, and I'll never, ever diverge from that.

[Masimo]

It's true. Right.

[Sean J. Creato]

It does work.

[Masimo]

It's not to say that people won't come to you.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah. You get that. Yeah. But it's very, very selective and very well.

[Masimo]

And it takes a while. Like, I mean, it took. It took a long time for. Okay, so now we're known for a look, right?

[Sean J. Creato]

Definitely.

[Masimo]

We are. It didn't start. It's not like I see that look.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah. I'll bet that portfolio that you were looking at didn't have any of what you have.

[Masimo]

Not at all.

[Sean J. Creato]

And the slash of red. Well, I might have had that.

[Masimo]

Always had the red, dude. Always had the red. Okay.

[Sean J. Creato]

I figured that.

[Masimo]

No, but it's true. You know, I think going about it and trying to try to get that early style, you know, first and foremost and focus on that. Yeah. That's. That's the wrong intent. It's the wrong chase. Okay. Especially if you don't have everything else in order. Right. Because you don't. You don't necessarily develop your own style, you know, by looking at 100 different styles and be like, I'm going to mix this and this and this, and this is going to be my stuff.

[Sean J. Creato]

That's what it's going to be.

[Masimo]

That's not how it works. No. You have to earn that shit. Exact. Yes. Aaron Draplin Lincoln design. Right. They didn't just wake up and decide, you know, I'm going to be all skulls and imitations or I'm going to be, you know, big geometric shape, big bold colors. Yeah, yeah. They earned that.

[Sean J. Creato]

They did. They kind of. They worked and they put in the time.

[Masimo]

That's right.

[Sean J. Creato]

In order to get that style of theirs.

[Masimo]

Years. Yeah. Of consistently doing the same look over and over and then refining it, you know.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

It's. It's. It doesn't happen overnight. No. So it's the wrong chase when people think that they can just. I'm just gonna work on developing my own style because that. That's. That shit. I mean, it comes over.

[Sean J. Creato]

It's not born exactly.

[Masimo]

Right.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

Even when you look at, like, the. That Saul Bass was doing. Okay. His stuff, you know, he didn't. In the end, he had a very distinct look.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

But if you take a step back, you can see. Yeah. The earlier stuff, he was imitating. Right. Bauhaus. He was. He was imitating some of the Swiss modern movement. A lot of the constructivism, I think, was his stuff. Paula. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Very awesome. Her, you know, like her early typographic posters. Okay. Very cool. That was very much what she became known for. Yeah. But you can clearly see a line between that and her imitating maybe earlier on, or her in being influenced early on from the Russian propaganda of posters.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

No shame in it. She's still ballisher. And I don't think anybody's pointed their finger at her and said, she stole, you know, this design, this layout. It was all influenced.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

Okay. So there's nothing wrong with it. And this we know. You know, I think it all goes wrong when, you know, basically they're. They're trying to copy the look without grasping the why they got there. Right. And then again, this is so this kind of goes back to this whole. The lazy designer. Okay. And seriously, it is. It's the lazy designer who just. Who's really more focused on that end product and just. I just want to replicate it. I don't care about the. Yeah. I don't care about the depth. Yeah. I just like the way it looks. And so I'm gonna mimic that look on this project and copy it. Yeah. So I think that's the problem and it's that. That kind of ruins it for everybody else. Yes. Yeah, you're right. And it's not just the one. It doesn't just be the designer. I mean, agencies do it. I mean, customers do it.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah. Right.

[Masimo]

How many customers? I'm sure everybody has had a customer who said, I want it to look like Apple. And then of course it's like, okay, are you sure you want. I love everything about Apple. I go to their website. That's what I want.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

Okay. So then you give them their product on a sea of white. Yeah.

[Sean J. Creato]

And they're like, like, what is this?

[Masimo]

I didn't pay for all this white space. What? This isn't Apple. And it's just like. It is Apple. What about all of our features and how people gonna know about how. What our product does? And it's just like Apple doesn't talk about.

[Sean J. Creato]

They don't say that stuff.

[Masimo]

It's, you know, and. And again, so they. A lot of other factors in play here. Of course. Right. Years of branding and the way they do things really messes them up. People can't comprehend that. But everybody thinks that that's what they want. Right. They want to rush to it without understanding, without getting why. Right, Right.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

I bet you this is why so many people are pissed off at AI. Oh, well, because think about it. I mean, the ultimate thief. Well, kind of. But, you know, the thief isn't the problem because again, we all thieve the same way we do.

[Sean J. Creato]

Well, yeah.

[Masimo]

You can't deny that that's true. Anybody? The argument is flawed. Oh, well, AI was trained on all these stolen im, you know, without. Dude, how many times have you asked to borrow an image to create a mood board to present to a customer?

[Sean J. Creato]

Right, Exactly.

[Masimo]

Or when you create your. That's not the part. Because what they. What AI in that sense has done is no different than the shit that we do, unfortunately. Okay.

[Sean J. Creato]

Far more efficient.

[Masimo]

Yeah. I think the real. The problem that nobody's really honed in on yet except us right now because we're solving all the problems of the world. On this podcast is I think that, you know, the problem people haven't have an issue with is that when AI creates something, okay, it doesn't know why it's creating. Right. It creates like the lazy designer. Right. It just replicates that look. It mashes it together and it just makes it look good. It doesn't do the why. Nope. It doesn't understand anything when we do it. Okay. We have intent and then we're like, listen, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm choosing to try to do something that's a little bit more Swiss modern, a little bit more bau, with a mix of this and this is our reason why.

[Sean J. Creato]

Right.

[Masimo]

AI hasn't. It doesn't. It doesn't understand that. No, it's not human. This is the benefit of being a human, of course. But it just spits it out just to make it look good, like a lazy designer. And. And I think that's the problem that people have with it. Right. Because again, you can't fret it for how it got its data set. We get our data set in our mind the exact same freaking way. Exactly. It's just. It's just that. That little intricate part, that's a big difference, that intent part.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah. We aren't born in vacuums, you know.

[Masimo]

We like it or not. We're not.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah, exactly. You don't come out fully formed in this business.

[Masimo]

Right. It. It does.

[Sean J. Creato]

It.

[Masimo]

It. When we decide to, you know, create stuff, right, We. We look for substance, you know, we have meaning where, I guess, you know, when AI is creating something, it can create something that's pretty kick ass. Yeah. That a lot of people couldn't do, period, because they don't have the skill to do it. But it does it. It's very shallow.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

It's very, very thin. It doesn't have the why behind it. It doesn't have that. That soul, the intent. It's just like you want something that looks like that. Here you go. Something that looks like that.

[Sean J. Creato]

Which is exactly why you look at it and go, oh, yeah. But you think I can kind of improve.

[Masimo]

I can improve on that many times.

[Sean J. Creato]

I get. I get what you're doing and. And I can raise that up to.

[Masimo]

The next level so often. And again, you know, I obviously am a fan of AI, but I can. Can't ever say that I've seen a piece of AI work that has moved me that I have felt emotionally connected to. And again, it's missing that substance totally. That, you know, humans can put towards a Project. Yes. You know, whereas you can see a.

[Sean J. Creato]

Piece of art and just be like.

[Masimo]

Yeah, like, exactly.

[Sean J. Creato]

Take your breath away.

[Masimo]

Right?

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

Right. So. So, you know, it. I guess if I was to compare the AI to designers, right. It's like, you know, lazy designers will ask AI for the answer, where real designers ask AI to understand. Okay, so. So maybe. And you understand exactly right. So I think that's the difference of. Of translating what AI is doing versus what we're doing, comparing us to the lazy designer. Right. You know, based on all this, I did plan a little bit because I've been thinking about this. This. I've talked about this a couple times over the past couple of weeks is, you know, there's no question that designers need to be comfortable with the fact that we copy.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yep, yep.

[Masimo]

Copy.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yep.

[Masimo]

We copy to be influenced. You know, we copy to come up with our own creative ideas. Heck want to say, right, oh, right. We steal. Yeah. Okay. Like, we will, Right? But there's a code of conduct.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

Okay. That, you know, I kind of wanted to put out there. Right. And I. I would say it's the designer's code of stealing. Okay. Because, you know, this way, it's like, how do we. To make sure that we are, you know, imitating.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yes.

[Masimo]

Not being a lazy designer and trying to be. Okay.

[Sean J. Creato]

Flat out stealing.

[Masimo]

And it's only three things. Okay? You know, like. So again, the law of creative theft. Okay? Number one.

[Sean J. Creato]

Okay, we.

[Masimo]

Okay, so this one car analogy, okay, you need to study the engine, not just the paint job. Okay? So a lazy designer, they just basically copy what they see. They see something shiny and cool and it looks great. That's what they do. Right? But the real designer, they're looking at the engineering, how it was built. You know, they're looking to get that influence and take that to the next level for their project. Right? So this is. We need to be able to look beyond just the color and the layouts of whatever it is that we're ingesting, we're influencing, we're trying to imitate. Okay? We need to try to analyze why it works, why the designer who did it made the choices they did to get to that look. Right. We maybe need to dig deeper and try to understand the problem that they tried to solve with this. Okay. Not necessarily just, you know, bl. You know, just. Just spit it out on a piece of paper. But what were they trying to achieve by doing it this way, by laying it out? You know, was it the hierarchy? Was it the flow, the eye pattern, the traffic what is it that you wanted to achieve by doing this? And then again, in the end, you should be able to say to yourself that if you stripped away, you know, all the visuals, you know, to that piece, would it still give the same energy of where you started? Okay, so. So again, you know, so number one, study the engine, not the paint job.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

Okay. Number two, steal from many, not from one.

[Sean J. Creato]

Oh, that's brilliant.

[Masimo]

This is huge. Okay? Because again, the lazy. A lazy designer will just copy a single reference, right? That's it. Right? They're like, you know what? I like Aaron Draplin. Shit.

[Sean J. Creato]

I'll go with that.

[Masimo]

I'm going to go with that. And they're going to study every one of Aaron Draplin's logos, his posters, his look. They're going to be a copy of Aaron Draplin. There's no pride there. That's disgusting. Yeah, okay. If you're a real designer, what you want to do is you want to start building a library of influences. You know, take Aaron Draplin, then take Alan Peters, you know, find some people, right?

[Sean J. Creato]

Go back in time.

[Masimo]

Go back in time and find, you know, people who have this similar bold, thick lines. Figure out why Aaron Draplin does it his way, right? Where versus why Paul Rand did it his way and Massimo Vignelli did it his way. Okay? You know, this is what you want to do, because then if you're pulling from. And even go outside of the discipline, go to architecture, go to film, go to music, right? Get all the different influences. Maybe that won't help so much if you're trying to develop logo influences, but the ideas don't just go to the one source for all of your influences. Right. The more sources you have, then the more you can understand the bigger picture of what they were all. What makes one different than the other.

[Sean J. Creato]

Exactly.

[Masimo]

That's where true mastery comes in. Okay. That's how a true designer learns, you know, and learns how to design from pull, from memory. Pull. You know, create muscle memory. Create that look and feel. Right? So again, if you have one look, okay, that's, that's. That's plagiarism.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yep.

[Masimo]

Plain and simple. Okay, but 10. 10 different looks that you're trying to mimic, Right? You're now taking all this influence from there, and this is how you're creating your.

[Sean J. Creato]

Your very own style.

[Masimo]

Exactly. Right? Because you're adding your content to this. You're adding your own insight. You're. You're matching it to your audience. So this is how you create based on all These other pieces, that's gold. And last but not least, number three, transform. Don't imitate. Okay? So a lazy designer just recreates. Yep, that's it. They copy. End result. Here you go, sir. We're real designers. We reinterpret what we see, okay? You know, transformation is what happens. And I said it earlier on, okay? When you take your influence, okay, you take that influence, put it towards your context, and then put, put all your own style that you've just gained, you know, from all these other influence in place. That's how you will recreate something, right? Base it on your audience, base it on the medium, the message you're trying to deliver. And this is how true creativity works. This is how you create masterpieces, okay? Because again, you know, the reality is originality is dead. It's gone so hard to see something that's never been done before. Okay. And I don't. I, I don't think it'll even happen. I. Again, I. Every single thing, this has been done. This can obviously has been done. It's Nickelodeon can.

[Sean J. Creato]

It totally is. Yeah, yeah. This is hippie from the 60s.

[Masimo]

That totally. That is.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Masimo]

But it doesn't make it any less cool.

[Sean J. Creato]

It doesn't. And it is kind of in a sort of. It's somebody's stamp on and somebody's version of whatever exact accumulation of their existences over the, over the years.

[Masimo]

Absolutely.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah.

[Masimo]

So. So I do think that this is something that, that we have to get comfortable with. Okay. And again, there's a fine line between, you know, copying, you know, and theft versus copying to understand. Yes. Okay. One is growth. One has got short term games, one's got long term gains. Okay. One, you know, is basically, you know, is literally, you know, plagiarism, where the other one is learning how to, how to understand how they got there and learning how to recreate, learning how to embrace what they were feeling and the methodologies and everything they got to that final product.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah. You're almost getting into their skin just to kind of figure out what, really, what it is that.

[Masimo]

Absolutely.

[Sean J. Creato]

The reasons behind what they, what they're doing.

[Masimo]

Absolutely, absolutely. It's really important because honestly, amateurs, they steal what they see and stop. Yeah. Right. Where, you know, pros will steal what they understand. But real legends, real, you know, masters of everything, they steal what they can transform into. Nobody has ever said that Massimo Vignelli was a thief.

[Sean J. Creato]

No.

[Masimo]

Paul Ran was a thief. You know, Paula Shore, any of these people. Right? Just, you know, but they, they recognize they must recognize that they pulled their influences from, from people before.

[Sean J. Creato]

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

[Masimo]

Cool. Wow. Well, I hope you guys got some cool out of this. You know, don't forget we've got a kick ass newsletter called Anger Management Management for Designers. It's awesome. It's a lot of this just in newsletter format and you know, there's a little bit of AI in there and there's a, you know, a fun comic and some smart ass and a challenge every week. But please check it out. You can go sign up in our social profile on our website or at Anger Management for designers Dot com. Yes, other than that people, you know where to find us. YouTube, Instagram, say hi on our website. You know, get the conversations going. And other than that, my name is Masimo.

[Sean J. Creato]

My name is Sean J. Creato. And stay angry.