Looks like the designers of this website were a little bit more than inspired by the (remarkable) Obama campaign website designed by Simple Scott. There are so many similiarities i’m not even going to get into it! The Otten campaign denies they were even inspired by the Obama design (source: CNN) !!! Ha! The Otten website was ‘designed’ by Insyt… Great job guys!
What do you guys think about this design? Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
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Zach Dunn says:
I saw this on CNN this morning and was baffled. The campaign really had the balls to deny it too. Here’s my favorite quote from the accusations:
“We built the website up from the letter ‘O’ because Les’ last name begins with the letter ‘O.’
Apparently the letter O only comes in one variety. I think people would be a little more understanding if they at least claimed inspiration.
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:06 am
Tim says:
Hey Niki,
Nice post. I’m sure this is going to bring up some great conversation. Definitely there some obvious similarities between the two sites but I don’t think it is a downright copy.
The Obama site has set a standard for political canidates. I find this similar to the case off Apple.com. They have set a definite trend that is replicated in so many sites and is always argued on wether the other sites copy or just following the trend.
It is hard to say who provoked the initial direction. My guess is the Otten camp came with their mind set on having something just like the Obama site. Im sure as a designer you have come across clients as such(follow up post?). But of course it is the designers job to take the direction and implement things with considaration of plagarism.
On thing I must say is, as much as I want to side with the designers in this case as I do think it’s shady for them to deny as little as being inspired. I think they might be giving themselves away with that.
Once again, great post though! Sorry for any spelling or grammar errors. On my iPhone and am to lazy to keep spell checking. Perhaps my opinion will change when I see this on a computer screen
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:11 am
Bruno Abrantes says:
Their website elevator speech reads “Fresh. Ideas.” Fresh off of the clipboard, maybe? That they copied the whole Obama look and feel is bad enough, but that they’d overtly lie about it on CNN is atrocious at best.
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:11 am
Brad C says:
Clearly this is inspired by the Obama site and maybe taking the some exact colors and the way type is used is in bad taste but I don’t think this is anymore of a rip of the Obama site than the McCain08 site was last fall. Seems like someone is calling him out just to win political points. I wonder if this would get press if it was a Democratic’s site.
*Disclaimer – I’m not a republican nor do I endorse Less Otten or the uncreative web designers he hired*
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:12 am
Rob MacKay i says:
haha I think “inspired” might be a very gentle term in this case LOL
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:14 am
Stephen says:
I believe the green leaf, which they claim is what makes the logo original, is actually a modified version of the Coda (www.panic.com/coda) leaf. I took a screenshot of the Coda logo, rotated it, and overlaid it on the Otten logo and it’s proportionately identical… I know this is probably a stretch to call this stealing, but it shows how far they actually went to rip great designers off.
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:35 am
awesomerobot says:
For the record – I hate the quote “Good artists copy, great artists steal” or any variation of it.
People just take it to mean “A great artist said stealing is good, so it’s ok for me to steal and quote him to defend myself.”
raaaaaaaaaaaaage
…but anyway, yeah they copied the style pretty closely. I’m guessing the client specified that they wanted the site to look like Obama’s (and telling the designer that 1,000 times) combined with the lack if experience to take things in a bit of a new direction.
As unoriginal as it is, it isn’t terrible by any means – somewhat well executed. So I can give them credit there; you’d be surprised how often people completely screw up when copying things.
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:17 am
Dan Denney says:
Wow, it is actually laughable that the company could try to deny it.
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:35 am
kevin says:
Is that site all new ? Cos i cant find it in their folio. On purpose ?
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:42 am
Nikki says:
Really?! They actually denied that they had any inspiration from Obama’s campaign? What, where they living under a rock during the election? That’s absurd.
Wow.
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:35 pm
AltonDarwin says:
Aside from the clear artistic theft, as a design it’s a mess of clutter. The simple elegance of the Obama logo set it apart. This is strikingly derivative in all the worst ways.
Otten inverts the colors (arch red, stripes blue) ridiculously altering Obama’s obvious flag motif. He compounds this issue by planting an apparently random number of stars in the red “sky” while Obama suggested a single “star” (our rising sun).
And what’s up with the leaf? Isn’t the GREEN MOUNTAIN in the center of the logo enough? He’s not even a candidate for the Green Party! W…T…F?!? Not for nothing, Maine is the Pine Tree State. Isn’t Vermont the “Green Mountain” state (from which its frickin’ name is derived???
And last but not least… A semi-transparent SUNBURST behind the whole thing. Could you BE any more sophomoric? It’s like they grabbed some logo design clip art and kept stacking elements until someone said, “Enough!”
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
AltonDarwin says:
For giggles, I clicked on his site and read their “statement” in full. Among the choice gems… that the Obama campaign was accused of copying the Pepsi logo. Really? So Pepsi revamping their logo (that curiously resembles the Obama logo more closely) is an example of theft from a thief?
This denial is Palinesque in its ridiculousness. Obama’s logo is the single most iconic political symbol of the 21st Century. Perhaps second only to the Fairey head image (itself a product of theft). Way to go, Team Ossen!
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
baokhangluu says:
LesOtten.com IS a painfully obvious rip-off of the Obama site. No if, and’s, or but’s.
BUT!
I’m going to give the designers at Insyt the benefit of a doubt, and chalk it up to a case of diminished leverage.
Clients often don’t possess vision to see beyond what they know, what they like, or what currently works, unless it’s in front of their face. Even then it may not dawn on them. That’s why they hire designers! It’s the designer’s job to come up with better and original ideas. Most importantly the designer must clearly and persuasively present ideas to the client in order to convince the client of the best direction. Even with a benefit of a doubt, the designers have failed dreadfully in getting the client to accept an original idea.</Strong
I would agree with the Edie Smith that Democrats should focus on the content rather than the site’s design.
I would not expect the Les Otten Exploratory Campaign to be design experts, but I would expect them to be experienced, intelligent, and organized enough at least to hire someone with sufficient experience to work with a design agency. If there is no due diligence to put together an well-formed website, what else are they botching?If they are to be faulted they should be faulted for their gross oversight.
From a marketing and design point of view copying IS NOT a sin, especially if it is done consciously and purposely.
This is done everyday in the design industry and beyond. The Obama site worked very well, arguably setting new design standards. It was either lazy or strategic on the part of The Les Otten Exploratory Campaign to copy the Obama site. In either case they are riding on a proven and successful site. If this design works for their target audience accomplishing the intended goals of galvanizing supporters, garnering publicity, obtaining donations, etc, then it is a successful design. Giving credit where credit is due remains an ethics question and could also involve trademark law. The Les Otten Exploratory Campaign cannot be faulted for copying, but they should be called out on lying about it.
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Anthony Hortin says:
OH.EMM.GEE!!
Yeah, definately no “inspiration” taken there! 100% original. Good one guys!!
#republicanfail
July 4th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Ross says:
Another one to add to this: http://www.da.org.za/
July 5th, 2009 at 9:25 am
David Leggett says:
Inspired or not, I think Obama set a new standard in the role the Internet plays in politics. For new politicians to put little thought into their online campaign would be career suicide nowadays – at the very least I would encourage people running for office to try and mimic some of the things Obama did successfully.
Not only on their website obviously, but also through social media. As a friend suggested to me, it would be irresponsible for an elected official not to communicate openly with the public when it can be done so easily through mediums like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. We have the means to increase transparency, and really see if politicians are making good use of their time yet only a handful take advantage of the technology to do just this.
I absolutely see similarities. Not to belittle the resemblance, I must also consider the fact that the use of Red, White, and Blue is almost unavoidable in US politics… black text on white background is pretty usual… and choosing to use a blue background over red makes more sense (at least to me). I think it’s clearly an imitation, but I think Otten made the right choice going in this direction versus where he probably was 2 years ago (if my own state officials are anything to go by).
July 6th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Jamie Croft says:
OMG.
I don’t care for the layout. I would not know if it is similar to obamas website. The logo on the other hand,
That is a complete ripoff. More and more, we are seeing people just copy others work. I know, I hear all the time that there are no original ideas, but we have to do better than this.
There are so many people that buy a computer and get software and automatically think they are designers.
Hopefully, soon, people will open their eyes.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:09 am
Kristin says:
I suspect this is just the first of many sites that will follow where Obama’s web team went.
The problem isn’t so much that they copied the style of another politician (frankly, they’ve been doing that for some time now) – it’s more like the fact that they followed a GOOD site design this time and people finally noticed.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Dan Spencer says:
Is this a joke? Really, this can’t be real. Unbelievable, thats such a rip off!
July 6th, 2009 at 8:16 am
tyrale says:
David Leggett makes a good call. There are only a few color palettes to roll with. There is no shame in trying to emulate Everything Obama did successfully, but you have to own up and give credit to where it is due.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:17 am
rcarmstrong says:
I don’t know– I saw an overlay last Friday of both sites (where ALL of the elements on the pages lined up and matched up perfectly), and I’m more comfortable in saying this is an outright ripoff, and not just a case of coincidental inspiration.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Tim Wiseman says:
OK, I haven’t read through all of the replies, so forgive me if this beats a dead horse … BUT this is most likely a result of the client saying – make my stuff (web, print, cards – branding) look like ‘fill in the blank’.
It’s our responsibility as designers, marketing professionals to lean very heavy on the importance of unique, strong branding that is one’s own.
Trends are one thing, the above is clearly a result of ‘I wanna be like Mike’ (or Pres. Obama) Creating a unique (quality) brand is not easy work, but it’s gold.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Elio says:
I think that beyond the fact of the colours, the information structure and layout is also the same.
The logo is also obviously a rip-off. I don’t think that this is just following the trend. It’s not inpired by. It’s more like taking a structure, put away some sections that the new site doesn’t have and change some colours here and there.
I like the icons of Energy, Jobs and Efficiency, although Efficiency should have been frontal, like the two others.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:37 am
ignatz says:
It’s pretty common for people who aren’t technically skilled at webdesign to take the source code of someone else’s and use it as a template. But these are professionals, right?
They’re being jerks. You recognize Obama’s site as soon as you see it. Just fess up, and try and turn it into a plus. The Prez is popular, after all.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Kostandinos says:
There are no words… wow.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Jeff Deibel says:
A lot of websites look alike. Most banks have very similar online experiences. The question I pose is: Is it ripping or just good UI practices? (for the moment, let’s overlook the logo plagarism)
People like to be in familiar places. Online is no different. I want to walk into a store and know where the cash register is, the same thing applies to web.
Simple Scott developed a powerful design aesthetic with the Obama campaign site. It’s memorable and the aesthetics carried over into the overhaul of the White House’s website. As a result, these strong sites have now established the look and feel of what consumer associate with political web design. Just as the color green has signified organic, earth-friendly products in package design, the Obama look is quickly becoming what constituents associate with political websites.
Although, Otten’s site lacks creativity, it proves that branding doesn’t stop at logo design. Every element of the marketing campaign has to coincide with the overall established design aesthetic for it’s industry. Banks all have strong structured logos, to symbolize security and strength. The Obama look is very friendly & confident and captures what people want out of their leaders.
I am confident we will see this more and more. Hopefully, rather than taking, other designers will come along and add on to this new political aesthetic.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:11 am
moonman says:
The logos are “fraternal twins”. The width of the Otten site is exactly the same measurement in pixels as the Obama site. They should at least have the courtesy of admitting they were “inspired” by Obama’s site. Well, Insyt, the guys who created the Otten site, have a horrid site anyways so what do you expect. Even their site’s navigation look is Apple-ish.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
julian says:
it seems like obama and this guy were partners or something
July 10th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Jordi says:
I can only see differences between both sites.
All design elements are different.
Seeing any similarities between them is an act of designonspiracy.
OTOH, if someone, better a Republican, copied Obama’s image he would get lots of attention for free. Imagine a news saying: “President Obama abusing an innocent and weak Maine candidate”
July 19th, 2009 at 1:40 pm