Plagiarism Caught Red-handed, Gardens&Co Pled for Mercy Because They Were “Non-profit” and “Financially at Stake”

While indulging themselves to the success of neonsigns.hk, Hong Kong based design agency Gardens-Co seemed to have forgotten the hard lesson learnt a year ago.

On March 2013, I came across a booklet for an exhibition in Hong Kong, designed by Gardens-Co. A strong feeling of Déjà vu came to me at first glance and later I found that such booklet had a terribly similar design to another booklet received earlier, designed by Boccalatte, a Sydney-based design agency. Since the one designed by Boccalatte was back in 2011, and there had been extremely strong evidence of “influence” spotted on Gardens&Co's version of booklet. I decided to file an enquiry to the agency for further investigation.

ORIGINAL booklet design by Boccalatte

Foldable Treatment originally by Boccalatte

Gardens&Co's suspicious rip-off booklet on an exhibition called “Revelation”

The foldable treatment they've adapted

As observed, it had a heavy resemblance of the original design.

Here is the original email I have sent:

from: Design Observer
to: info@gardens-co.com
date: Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 11:20 PM
subject: [Urgent] Enquiry about "Revelation Exhibition" 

Dear Designers,
Hi, I think I should better keep myself anonymous for the time being, what I would say is, I am sensitive to beautiful booklets.  

The thing is I've just discovered a booklet that looks terribly similar, if not the same, to the one that you have produced for the exhibition "Revelation". The booklet was designed firstly back in 2011, which is obviously before the exhibition. 

At this stage I am open to any explanation to such coincidence, the last thing I wish to hear is that it is actually a violent "adaptation". 

I hereby firmly request you for an explanation for such incident ASAP, otherwise I am afraid that I would have to inform the original designers and let them decide whether any legal action should be taken. Bear in mind that the booklet is copyrighted, they have got all the reserved rights. Please check the attached files for your references, I look forward to hearing back from you soon. Happy designing. 

Kind regards,
Anonymous

Soon later, I received their reply:

from: info@gardens-co.com
to: Design Observer
date: Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 1:07 AM
subject: RE: [Urgent] Enquiry about "Revelation Exhibition" 

Dear Anonymous,
Thank you for your email and I have no excuse to avoid it is a violent adaptation. I sincerely apologize for this mistake that I have made. 

I have deleted all the related posts or pictures from our website or facebook. Hope that this quick response can show our regret towards this incidence.

We have no offence to violate the copyrights issue, we always admire and respect great designers and works. 

Perhaps you may be a designer as well, sometimes we browsed or read too many references, we are not sensitive enough that we applied idea which is not originated by us.

Thank you for your email again, your reminder really hit me badly. I know how terrible the feelings are when you find the design being adapted as our design were adapted by others before.

Revelation is a project for a not commercial client. It is a small photo exhibition held by secondary schools. We did not adapt this format for a commercial propose. 

We are a small design house and more than 60% of our projects are for non-commercial propose and hope our work can bring positive attitude to the community. 

We are not intended to adapt any designer’s work. This could be our only time we have made this foolish mistake.

I hope our apology could be accepted and promise will not make it happen again.

Yours sincerely,
Wilson
gardens&co.

I did not respond in the first place, only to spare a little space for observation. Then a few days later, they added another reply:

from: info@gardens-co.com
to: Design Observer <design.observers@gmail.com>
date: Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 4:43 PM
subject: RE: [Urgent] Enquiry about "Revelation Exhibition"  

Dear Anonymous,

I would like to confirm if you have received my previous mail? Please let me know.

Referring my previous mail, I would like to add one more point. As I mentioned, we did not intend to adapted the design from other designer. 

The whole concept and inner layout of our booklet is totally different from the one you collected. We just referenced the folding method of the map. 

Furthermore, we designed the whole event identity for this non-profit project, the booklet itself is a small part of the whole. 

Hope you can understand that we are using this folding idea to earn money or benefit us in anyway.

To be frank, due to the poor business in the last year. Our financial status only mere enough to run the studio with 2 more months. 

If the situation cannot be important, we probably will close within this year.

I will never forget this lesson I have learnt. Thanks again for your observation.

Best Regards,
Wilson

Caught red-handed, the designer conceded to be the culprit, though tried in vain to defend himself – “sometimes we browsed or read too many references, we are not sensitive enough that we applied idea which is not originated by us.”. He also begged sympathy by stating that  “due to the poor business”, they can merely “run the studio with 2 more months”, and their sole purpose for this (and many other) projects was non-profit-making.

It was honest for him to admit such a blatant plagiarism. But the fact that he pled for sympathy by labeling themselves “non-profit-making” and “financially at stake” was purely an act of hypocrisy, the intention here was fairly obvious: attempted to declare exemption for such accusation due to the non-commercial nature of the project. Of course, there was even more to imply – given that it is non-profitable, “we” have no time for such therefore had this idea of adaptation...and so forth. As it turned out, they did not close after two months, rather, they grew bigger and more ambitious, taking on decent projects and clients, earning their great share of fame (and of course, money). And that’s when I decided to have everything disclosed, in the name of design ethnics.

Without a doubt, Gardens&Co has been getting more and more sophisticated in their local design industry over the year. However, as a client, when it comes to choosing the best agency for your next project, do design ethnics and personal honesty count as major considerations? How would you think if your elegant booklet was eventually found to be a relentless rip-off of something already made?