Samantha Beeson (a recent graduate from Falmouth University) has just become the design community has a new poster child of hatred. Plagiarism in its most extreme; her degree portfolio was found to be created almost entirely from other illustrators work (such as Lauren Nassef, but also my friend Jez Burrows). Having passed it off as her own, she went on to win a huge award from Textprint for pattern designs filled with Lauren Nassef's drawings. She even made a fake sketchbook with many of Lauren's drawings traced or pasted in.
It is simple cut and paste, and when viewing this girls work against the illustrators she stole from, her actions are just sickening.
I urge you to read more about this subject here...
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7 comments:
Haha! I wouldn't say it's sickening. I think it's quite good. She gave that little man blue spotty trousers and coloured in the zig zags. Brilliant! It exposes the whole sham of a mockery of a mockery of a sham that is Art & Design education. Not even her supposedly "expert" tutors realised.
It's true, the guy with spotty trousers does look better for them. I'm sure you'll agree that it's very frustrating knowing how much effort and heartache goes into putting together a portfolio, so I just find it sickening that someone can even consider plagiarism of that extreme level and think it's ok whilst their classmates slave away. Serious moral issues need to be addressed there.
I know what you mean about the tutors, but it's not exactly their job to know what work every single illustrator is producing all the time. I wouldn't have known it was Lauren Nassef's work. I didn't even know who Lauren Nassef was until I saw this news. Tutors are jobbing freelancers as well, but you'd hope there'd pick up on something like this. From the sounds of it her sketchbooks were pretty convincing to show to give the impression that it was her own work.
I've seen a video of her sketch books and it's just a collection of tracings from different illustrators/creatives. There is absolutely no continuity or sense of progression and it would be obvious for even a blind man to realise after a while that her work was so disparate that it wasn't her own. The fact that tutors are freelancers is in fact one of the major problems in Art & Design education. I feel too few have a true passion in teaching and sharing knowledge, instead using the role to obtain a steady income when regular commissions are hard to come by.
It's true that. Can't argue, but that's the way it is. I felt I learnt more off others around me, and sharing a studio, than I did with the tutors. Having said that I was lucky with my third year tutors, and the visiting lecturers were really good and they were fresh and were actually really passionate about teaching and helping ('cus they could walk away from it at the end of the day I guess).
But then higher education is more self-motivated anyway, much like the freelance world, so it prepares you for that quite well I guess!!
Doing anything creative takes a lot of self-motivation, only away from University you don't have to pay £12,000 for the pleasure. You're right about learning from others though and yes, you seemed to have great third year tutors. Martin and what's his face really didn't give a shit. Tom was good in the second year and when I think back, nearly everything I learned about practical design (white space, typography etc.) came from him. Jonathan Baldwin was brilliant and really opened my mind to a lot of ideas and fascinating theories. His blog is fascinating too. I really looked forward to HACS as I knew I would actually come away from it having LEARNED something. That's what I mistakenly believed Higher Ed Art & Design was going to be all about. Having said all of this, I did have a brilliant time at Uni.
what about the big dog, shepard faiery, who traces and takes most everything he is famous for.. and could someone take a look at a becca midwood . i found her on another blog but she traces also and has some press for her grafitti work and in galleries. she even uses tinkerbell and betty boop in her work. I believe she mostly she traces from old sewing patterns and childrens books.
Check www.tineye.com
Its an image checking new website. Very interesting if it works.
I do not understand why people like Shepard Fairey just dont give credit to the people they steal from. It would be much easier for everyone and it would be fair for the creditation of the original drawings.
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