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January 29, 2005 Akash K: Aesthetic Minimalist?
Original Post: 04 Jan 2005
Updated: 27 Jan 2005
Updated (no date change) to remove last name
"Good artists copy, great artists steal." This quote is widely attributed to Pablo Picasso. Only someone as familiar with the ethos of postmodernism as Picasso could say something like that and have it make sense. What does this have to do with our friend Akash? Well, it seems that he has taken the words of Picasso a bit too literally. Here we see Akash's site on the left, and mine on the right:
Akash and I seem to have a lot in common. Not only are we stylistically similar, but his XHTML and CSS code is identical in structure to my own. Perhaps imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? But if imitation is so sincere, then why does his website circumvent any mention of this act of kindness? There are many reasons to pull up a context menu and choose the convenient Save Page As... option. You may be curious to see how someone accomplished a particular design. You may be a student and not know any better (although this is a bit of stretch if you attend MIT as Akash does). Or you may be too busy to be burdened by doing the work yourself, and just decide to steal it outright from someone who's already accomplished what you want.
I don't fault people who aren't web designers for wanting to borrow a fully fleshed out website design from someone who's already worked through the details. What I don't understand is the desire to then pass off what you've created as something homegrown, novel, and worthy of admiration, as Akash’s About page does:
"As for the visual structure of this website, I will reiterate my appreciation of aesthetic minimalism. I have always been attracted to the understated power and elegance of simple websites. I will hold my website to the same high standard, and to that end, will attempt to keep all unnecessary clutter away."
Being an aesthetic minimalist such as myself, my recommendation to Akash would be to wrap the script code on his index page with p tags so that the page will validate correctly as XHTML 1.0 Strict. If you're going to steal my stuff, at least don't muck it up.
Update:
Akash contacted me a while back (I was in Brasil and didn't have a chance to respond until now) to apologize. He's taken down his site. He informed me that he was sorry if his actions were construed as nefarious; he was simply using the source code as a way to get introduced to XHTML and CSS layout.
What happened is actually quite common. Greg had a similar experience just the other day.
I told Akash that I hope he gets a chance to do a revision to his website, and to drop the "training wheels" code he was using. I'm even willing to help out. In the end it's important to keep a perspective on all this. In the words of Greg: "Life is too important to waste it trying to understand design and how it relates to intellectual property law." It's time to move on.
Posted by johnnie at January 29, 2005 09:23 AM
Comments
Wow. How did you find him out, it seems like he was just some MIT kid making a personal website?
Posted by: Jonathan at July 18, 2005 01:40 AM
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