As a creative I often scour the Internet looking for inspiration for my own creative endeavors. It seems there are inspirational websites popping up everywhere you look.

There are websites to showcase beautiful CSS design, websites to assist with developing color pallets, and stock image websites to drool over gorgeous photography.

It is up to the designer to use their better judgement on the thin line between inspiration and copyright infringement.

To use an existing website as inspiration you would simply simulate, very loosely, a style or feel that the website uses. For example, if you see a posh modern website with simplified navigation and web 2.0 curves you could use the same type of look and feel on your website… as long as you do not copy.

Okay, so what is your point anyway?

Eva Crawford of Eva Crawford Creative, asked the opinions of her redesigned website to a creative professional community.

For the most part, as I read the comments left to her, everyone really loved the look and feel of her website and only stated one complaint - it took entirely too long to load all of the graphics.

I was a bit excited to review her website and offer my own critique after reading the reviews.

When I clicked the URL for her website I was taken aback for a moment. Something just looked all too familiar.

I absolutely adored the imagery in her website. It was extremely reminiscent of a turn of the century carnival. I love all things vintage, antique, obscure and nostalgic so for those reasons I was very impressed.

However…

I still couldn’t get over the fact that the entire layout looked as though I have seen it somewhere before.

Feel free to take a look at her website while I think about where I’ve seen this design before, I’ll even make it easy for you.

Click here:

And here:

Ah ha! Now I remember… CSS Zen Garden!

The whole very thin content div and image placement is a common trend found in CSS layouts that designers submit to CSS Zen Garden!

But wait, maybe Eva Crawford submitted this design to CSS Zen Garden. I’ll take a look, you can wait here if you like.

Just what I suspected.

The same layout concept that Eva Crawford used to create Eva Crawford Creative is the exact same layout concept that is oh so commonly found in *many* of the CSS Zen Garden entries.

You see, it seems 90% of the designers who submit designs to CSS Zen Garden create very narrow content divs (containers) with the navigation on the left and down a ways on the page.

But, unfortunately the layout concept was not the only thing Eva copied from CSS Zen Garden.

The newest submission to the Garden by Eric Stoltz not only has the same narrow content div and navigation in the same location… no, Eric’s “Under the Sea” submission also has the same “turn of the century” carnival/freak show motif!

But wait… that’s not all!

No, it seems that Eva copied Eric’s source code (the CSS) exactly and just changed the images and the content in her html to fit her website.

What does this mean though?

Not only is her layout the same, her theme the same and her source code the same… but her graphics are in the exact same position as Eric’s as well!

Here are the screen views of Eric’s entry:

If you take the time to view the URL of Eva’s website and the CSS Zen Garden submission you will see just how similar the two really are.

In fact, let’s list the similarities:

• Header/Logo - Both websites place a logo at a slight angle and on a “distressed paper” looking graphic.
• Content Div - The main content DIV (container) on both pages is designed to look like distressed paper and to be very narrow.
• Navigation - Same size width and position.
• Imagery - Similar style, near exact placement.
• Footer - Static (stationary) while content scrolls behind.

Audacious I think!

Considering Eva calls herself an “idea wrangler” her entire design is against that very name!

Sure, her graphics aren’t 100% exact, however the entire style, layout and concept is. In my opinion, that doesn’t say too much of the “idea wrangler” if she couldn’t wrangle her own ideas for her own website.

But she gave credit!

Sure, Eva credited Eric and CSS Zen Garden for her inspiration within her source code, but considering how much she copied, her inspiration turned into a modification of a template.

Only there is one little problem… CSS Zen Garden states in numerous locations that the designs submitted are not templates and should not be used for anything more than a showcase of what can be accomplished with CSS design.

An important lesson to learn

If you are just learning CSS design then it is fine to use the source code from CSS Zen Garden. However, do not publish that live to the Internet and call it your own work.

Learn from the code to practice, but write your own for professional endeavors to avoid infringing on someone else’s copyright . It is just plain common sense plus good work ethics!