3 ms·

Wow. Your website is a very blatant ripoff of Basecamp's design. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but yours is a little over the line.

by nkohari 17y ago

nkohari 17y ago
Why in the world would my comment get down-voted? The layout and design elements are practically identical.
- pclark 17y ago
  did you look at http://basecamphq.com http://basecamphq.com ? The only similarity is the top header black bar.
- rokhayakebe 17y ago
  I did not downvote you. But I suspect its the tone in your feedback. Maybe you could have asked "Why did you choose to have a BC-like design?" then...
zaidf 17y ago
I downvoted you because I did not think it is a "blatant ripoff".
- nkohari 17y ago
  Go look at http://basecamphq.com/ http://basecamphq.com/ again. The layout, fonts, and styling are all clearly pulled from the marketing website.
  - kyro 17y ago
    I'm sure he used their design as a template to get something somewhat presentable for the time being and that once he has some more time and traction, he'll give the design a bit more attention. Let's relax a bit and stop making this out to be some corporate scandal.
    - nkohari 17y ago
      I wasn't saying it's a corporate scandal or that the creator was a bad person. The problem is that 37signals didn't offer their design as a template for re-use. Everyone uses other designs as inspiration (myself included), I'm just saying you should put some distance between yourself and the original inspiration before showing it to others.
  - zaidf 17y ago
    I just see a teeeny-bit of inspiration. Remove the top black bar and it will be hard to tell that he was even inspired by basecamp. Sorry but you are way off on your judgement for this one. Of course, IMO.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    agreed, it's definitely cloned. The simplest would be to ask if it is ok. I don't think they'd have a problem with it.
swombat 17y ago
I have to agree, it's a bit overly similar (mostly because of the top bar). However, I trust that Zack will be going back to that design and updating it over the next few days. A design is a pretty easy thing to change, and I don't see anything morally wrong with using someone else's design as a starting point.
zaidf 17y ago
I noticed your company's site has a header too. It's just not colored black. There is not much difference between your site and CustomerFind in that sense. In fact, your pricing page(http://agilezen.com/pricing http://agilezen.com/pricing) is clearly inspired by basecamp. Absolutely nothing wrong with it(I don't think it is in ripoff category). But for someone to have such stringent standards when evaluating others, it's odd.
- nkohari 17y ago
  Sure, our pricing page is inspired by Basecamp... and practically every other SaaS offering out there. As I said in another comment, everyone (including myself) takes inspiration from other designs, but there's a difference between taking inspiration and taking a stylesheet.
  - zaidf 17y ago
    taking a stylesheet Can you elaborate? That is a pretty huge accusation.
    - nkohari 17y ago
      I'm not accusing the OP of anything. I was just pointing out that I took one look at the website and immediately recognized it as heavily inspired by Basecamp's design. That's all. The colors and font of the header are identical, including the use of a single green link. The fonts used in the headers don't match the logo or the buttons, and have altered kerning just like on Basecamp's site. I honestly couldn't give a shit either way. The OP asked for feedback, and I figured it was better he heard it from me than from 37signals' lawyers.
      - shpxnvz 17y ago
        The OP asked for feedback, and I figured it was better he heard it from me than from 37signals' lawyers. It doesn't look like 37 signals has trademarked that particular color scheme or design, and I don't see any evidence that they own or have an exclusive license to the font in question; so there really seems to be no legal concern here at all.
angusdavis 17y ago
Yeah, it means the guy is smart and is borrowing strength from what he knows works. 37 Signals published their conversion rates from the highrise landing page for a reason. Goal at this stage is to see if people will sign up for the concept. Once he proves that out (i.e. customer development), I'm sure he'll invest in some of his own graphic identity, logo selection, color schemes, etc.
- nkohari 17y ago
  So you're saying that, until I have the time to invest in my own branding, I can just use the Coke logo instead?
  - angusdavis 17y ago
    Um, it's called a "design pattern" for a reason. For more interesting discussions about where to draw the line on imitating others, you may want to check out a little company called Zynga.
  - shpxnvz 17y ago
    No, he's saying you can imitate a design that is not protected by trademark; quite unlike the Coke logo. They do declare copyright on the design, but that doesn't protect against designs that are merely similar.
- zackattack 17y ago
  You got it. I'm reading steve blank's book (slowly...it's tough) and trying to formulate my own unique way of applying it to web applications. This reminds me: I'm gonna go spend an hour reading.

Wow. Your website is a very blatant ripoff of Basecamp's design. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but yours is a little over the line.

by nkohari 17y ago

Wow. Your website is a very blatant ripoff of Basecamp's design. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but yours is a little over the line.

nkohari 17y ago

Why in the world would my comment get down-voted? The layout and design elements are practically identical.

pclark 17y ago
did you look at http://basecamphq.com http://basecamphq.com ? The only similarity is the top header black bar.
rokhayakebe 17y ago
I did not downvote you. But I suspect its the tone in your feedback. Maybe you could have asked "Why did you choose to have a BC-like design?" then...

zaidf 17y ago

I downvoted you because I did not think it is a "blatant ripoff".

nkohari 17y ago
Go look at http://basecamphq.com/ http://basecamphq.com/ again. The layout, fonts, and styling are all clearly pulled from the marketing website.
- kyro 17y ago
  I'm sure he used their design as a template to get something somewhat presentable for the time being and that once he has some more time and traction, he'll give the design a bit more attention. Let's relax a bit and stop making this out to be some corporate scandal.
  - nkohari 17y ago
    I wasn't saying it's a corporate scandal or that the creator was a bad person. The problem is that 37signals didn't offer their design as a template for re-use. Everyone uses other designs as inspiration (myself included), I'm just saying you should put some distance between yourself and the original inspiration before showing it to others.
- zaidf 17y ago
  I just see a teeeny-bit of inspiration. Remove the top black bar and it will be hard to tell that he was even inspired by basecamp. Sorry but you are way off on your judgement for this one. Of course, IMO.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  agreed, it's definitely cloned. The simplest would be to ask if it is ok. I don't think they'd have a problem with it.

swombat 17y ago

I have to agree, it's a bit overly similar (mostly because of the top bar). However, I trust that Zack will be going back to that design and updating it over the next few days. A design is a pretty easy thing to change, and I don't see anything morally wrong with using someone else's design as a starting point.

zaidf 17y ago

I noticed your company's site has a header too. It's just not colored black. There is not much difference between your site and CustomerFind in that sense. In fact, your pricing page(http://agilezen.com/pricing http://agilezen.com/pricing) is clearly inspired by basecamp. Absolutely nothing wrong with it(I don't think it is in ripoff category). But for someone to have such stringent standards when evaluating others, it's odd.

nkohari 17y ago
Sure, our pricing page is inspired by Basecamp... and practically every other SaaS offering out there. As I said in another comment, everyone (including myself) takes inspiration from other designs, but there's a difference between taking inspiration and taking a stylesheet.
- zaidf 17y ago
  taking a stylesheet Can you elaborate? That is a pretty huge accusation.
  - nkohari 17y ago
    I'm not accusing the OP of anything. I was just pointing out that I took one look at the website and immediately recognized it as heavily inspired by Basecamp's design. That's all. The colors and font of the header are identical, including the use of a single green link. The fonts used in the headers don't match the logo or the buttons, and have altered kerning just like on Basecamp's site. I honestly couldn't give a shit either way. The OP asked for feedback, and I figured it was better he heard it from me than from 37signals' lawyers.
    - shpxnvz 17y ago
      The OP asked for feedback, and I figured it was better he heard it from me than from 37signals' lawyers. It doesn't look like 37 signals has trademarked that particular color scheme or design, and I don't see any evidence that they own or have an exclusive license to the font in question; so there really seems to be no legal concern here at all.

angusdavis 17y ago

Yeah, it means the guy is smart and is borrowing strength from what he knows works. 37 Signals published their conversion rates from the highrise landing page for a reason. Goal at this stage is to see if people will sign up for the concept. Once he proves that out (i.e. customer development), I'm sure he'll invest in some of his own graphic identity, logo selection, color schemes, etc.

nkohari 17y ago
So you're saying that, until I have the time to invest in my own branding, I can just use the Coke logo instead?
- angusdavis 17y ago
  Um, it's called a "design pattern" for a reason. For more interesting discussions about where to draw the line on imitating others, you may want to check out a little company called Zynga.
- shpxnvz 17y ago
  No, he's saying you can imitate a design that is not protected by trademark; quite unlike the Coke logo. They do declare copyright on the design, but that doesn't protect against designs that are merely similar.
zackattack 17y ago
You got it. I'm reading steve blank's book (slowly...it's tough) and trying to formulate my own unique way of applying it to web applications. This reminds me: I'm gonna go spend an hour reading.