Hot Topic rips off original t-shirt design by Big Stone Head (10)
Published on June 12th, 2008. By Justin, under General.
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I am pretty sure the Big Stone Head version came first. Maybe someone can confirm. Submitting this to you thought we wouldn’t notice blog as well. What do you guys think?
update:
A little research shows tcritic.com first blogged about the Big Stone Head version on Feb 13th 2007. Not sure when the hot topic version was released, but it is still marked as new.
Hot Topic
Big Stone Head
Did hot topic rip off big stone head on this design?
- yes, a total rip off (100%, 19 Votes)
- no, they are to different (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 19
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10 Comments
admin on June 12th, 2008
np I remember when it happened to seibei - go figure it was hot topic once more - down with hot topic!!!
Karl Long on June 12th, 2008
Wow, this is a horrible rip off. Screw those guys at Hot Topic. I’ll post about this soon.
alyssa on June 13th, 2008
i hate hot topic. they always rip off designers. they ripped off rockett clothing too
alyssa on June 13th, 2008
and urban outfitters is another bad one. corporate monsters. they ripped of johnny cupcakes so bad
Crisis on June 18th, 2008
It was ripped originally from the title of Turbo Negro song, so I say shut the hell up. It was unoriginal from the start! You guys have no facts to back up your allegations.
Crisis on June 18th, 2008
I would also like to add that it doesn’t take a genius to associate something extinct like dinosaurs with that verbiage… Could have easily been pure coincidence. HT doesn’t come up with their own designs. They buy them from design companies…
Neil on June 20th, 2008
(cross posted at youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com also)
This is Neil, one of the owners of Ripple Junction. I want to explain a few things about what happened in the creation of this design.
When I first saw this blog posting, I was pissed. Pissed at the designer that did this and I demanded an explanation. We don’t roll like that, and I want to point out to astra that this has not happened before; it was a Goodie Two Sleeves design that was posted previously.
http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/?p=805
When I questioned the artist, this is his exact response, I’ve included links to the images he’s referring to:
“Dude, I have never seen that.
I came across the attached (http://ripplejunction.com/friends.jpg) image in a list of the top 50 funniest album covers. I jotted down the title cuz I thought it might work with a zombie design, or even something for Resident Evil. I later heard the verbiage again in a song by the band Turbonegro, so I realized it was pretty much a pop culture phrase. I even saw an art print a guy did using batteries that had this verbiage as the title. (http://www.ripplejunction.com/allmyfriendsaredead.gif) The idea I had sat in my notebook for while, though.
One day hot topic was asking for some quick dino tee ideas, and I thought it could work for that, too. And if you remember, after they saw the original design I made (which had a bloody t rex I think) they are the ones that suggested to change it to a stegasarus. How do we know he didn’t use the idea after he saw it at hot topic? The youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com website is notorious for not having editors or fact checkers. Its an open blog.”
(continued below)
Neil on June 20th, 2008
I went through my email’s (we originally showed this design to Hot Topic in Feb 08). We showed a cartoony t rex with the verbiage (image here http://ripplejunction.com/RJJS1191.jpg), and hot topic wanted something a little less cartoony. We put in a stegosaurus.
We’ve been selling Hot Topic Dinosaur Shirts since the fall of 2005, you can see a picture of the first design that we shipped to them here (http://ripplejunction.com/MCJS002.jpg) .
The phrase is not original, and people make dinosaur t shirts. There are literally thousands upon thousands of people who design things every day. Ask yourself, is it possible that 2 people in different places used a pop culture phrase and paired it with a dinosaur?
I also want to point out the irony of the fact that the person who posted this, Taddict, has on his blog a bootleg Gremlins tshirt. http://www.taddict.com/blog/2008/06/17/gremlin-t-shirt-design/. We have a license with Warner Bros to produce Gremlins merchandise. We pay a lot of money to secure rights, is it ok to use WBros intellectual property without paying them? Apparently that doesn’t bother anyone.
We work hard to create original, creative artwork and have been doing so for over 15 years. We license artwork from major Studios and individual designers, and have a stellar reputation in our industry. I don’t know if this will change anyone’s mind, but I’m not going to sit back and watch our name get dragged through the mud.
Neil
Justin on June 20th, 2008
I’ll make a post about your side of the story once I get back to my computer.
Avery on June 12th, 2008
Hey, thanks for bringing this to our attention. It’s really too bad that Hot Topic continues to blatantly steal from small independent designers. Please spread the word about this, and if you like the shirt, come and support the actual creators at http://www.bigstonehead.net. Thanks!