Back when I was a newspaper designer, there was a lot of discussion about “borrowing” someone else’s design idea. See here, here and here.
Apparently the same rules apply in web site design. While reading a recent Gannett “best practices” idea from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader on covering high school football, I somehow started thinking about my fantasy football team.
Here’s the Argus Leader page:
And here’s the Yahoo Fantasy Football site:
It’s not a 100 percent ripoff, but I’ll tell you the one thing that bothers me the most. Those little lines under the main headline. It’s one thing to take a concept and make it your own. It’s completely another thing to copy someone’s design details:
What do you think? Did the Argus Leader do anything wrong? The design of most Gannett sites looks the same. I’m sure there are other sites that use the same Wordpress theme as me. Is this any different?
