If you are unsure what Zeitgeist means, I can tell you that it’s a German word – is not the name of a heavy-metal band – nor a type of lager, but rather a reason to explain how designers might come up with the same creative ideas at the same time.

I know this because Chris wrote The Small Matter of Creative Zeitgeist on our blog a few months ago.

A perfect example of CZ is Dennis the Menace. We all know the cartoon (or do we?) and Jonathan Bailey narrated last week the odd separation-at-birth Case of Dennis the Menace on PlagiarismToday.com.

I wanted to share this with you because I really like the fact that the two cartoonists didn’t get into any legal battle and recognized that they was no intention of plagiarism from either party – and this adds some perspective to yesterday’s considerations.

Back in August, I offered to help my brother-in-law by designing a logo for his new venture http://corprogram.co.za . Admittedly, I didn’t spend more than a few hours on it and followed his wishes to have a 3D globe instead of the letter “O” – but am still pleased with the result which I believe gives his business a professional online image.

Today, while browsing the web for pictures of “blue fire”, I came across a very similar logo for a Fire Protection Service I hadn’t heard of before:

My first reaction was to tell myself I’d been plagiarized – the colors, the treatment of the Helvetica letters being distorted by an imaginary white halo, the general feel… my copyrights have been infringed for the 5th time since launching Myows a year ago (that I know of) – lets take out the full arsenal of legal tools that Myows provides me with and make a point!

But then I got thinking about Chris’ article on Creative Zeitgeist – and I am now wondering about the possibility that different designers could come up with the same ideas I did when given the task of creating a logo for any company called “Core”.

Is my logo really that original?

A quick Google search for “core logo” might actually indicate a case of Creative Zeitgeist:

I do not know when these logos were created, all I know is that I created mine on the 9th August 2010 – I can prove it if asked to do so – and i also know that originality can be subjective and often lies in the eye of the beholder.

So what do you think? Is this a case of my original idea being copied 3 times since August (which I doubt) or just different designers coming up with similar concepts?

Have you had similar experiences? If so, please share…

This situation can come about for a number of cases

One example is when an unscrupulous third party is involved. For instance, a respectable company may hire a shifty “designer” to design a new logo and end up with copied work which they end up trying to defend a few years later by suing the actual owner.

Another possible scenario is subconscious copying. On a small level we all unknowingly copy parts of each other’s ideas, ‘looks’ and styles every day, the question here is where to draw the line and the law is usually pretty specific about that.

But perhaps the greatest cause of these confusingly common “perp-free” cases is simply that sometimes two people come up with bizarrely similar work at the same time. No!… Yes! Why?

Because 1) There is nothing new under the sun and 2) we all operate in the same or similar Zeitgeist* especially in today’s globalised and online world.

It’s also becoming far easier to find similar work because of the sheer number of creative’s operating on the web.

Your next great piece of copy is a result of your inspiration and approach that, in a global world, may be frighteningly similar to mine. And your resulting work may be too (especially if it’s simple work  – a four word payoff line or a clean, simple logo or name).

If you’re at the edge of your art/science, look to the left and right of you. You’re not alone. It’s possible that others are stepping on remarkably similar territory, coming from the same collective sources of inspiration, solving the same problems, developing at similar speeds, and approaching their crafts using the same tools and methods. Remember Nylon? Invented, so the story goes, in New York and London separately but simultaneously.

Take for example the proliferation of ‘love brands’ three years ago. Love was, very literally, in the air: Love your skin^TM, love yourself ^TM, juice is love ^TM, we are love ^TM, I’m lovin’ it^TM . love love love… grey is the new black, yellow is the new grey. Then there were the three word payoff lines: simpler, better, faster ^TM; today, tomorrow, together ^TM, “word, word, word”.

Recycling is in (so too is brown paper and energy saving ‘dark sites’), bling is out… oh no wait, it’s back in. Illustrator has a new gradient plug-in, the word “unfriend” has just been added to the dictionary.

Design, writing, photography, all of the creative arts sit on a greater platform called zeitgeist and as we develop together similar ideas and work emerges from entirely disparate sources. It happens.

Now bear in mind that blatant copyright infringements are also commonplace

The danger of the whole zeitgeist thing is that it can be branded about as an excuse.

Naughty naughty.

But in cases such as these, more so than in any other, it boils down to WHO WAS FIRST. See where I’m going with this? And remember my zeitgeist take on things is just my take on things – perhaps another of the subjective tirades I seem to be so fond of. But then again, perhaps you’ve had mysteriously similar thoughts yourself? Perhaps we’re standing together at the cutting edge of copyright philosophy? Perhaps you yourself are a writer and you’ve written/are writing a little piece similar to this yourself? Maybe it’s very very similar.

Whatever the case, I’m cool with it. But be warned: if you do in fact copy me then sleep with one eye open. I’ve already uploaded this article on Myows.com and I WILL take you down.

*Zeitgeist roughly translates to “the spirit of the time”. See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist