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You are here: Home / Graphic Design / Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Obsession with Originality is a Trap

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Obsession with Originality is a Trap

July 18, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

“Allowing influences into your work is one  of the ways that you expand your expressive range. Designers enrich their work — not diminish it — by looking for ways to ‘incorporate’ new and radical modes of expression into their work, especially from places outside contemporary design. Shutting out influences because of an obsession with ‘originality’ is a trap. But you have to be able to acknowledge the debt to your sources. Copyists never own up to it; the talented always do. That’s the difference.”

—Adrian Shaughnessy, How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul


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Filed Under: Graphic Design

About Douglas Bonneville

Douglas has been a graphic designer since 1992, in addition to software developer and author. He is a member of Smashing Magazine's "Panel of Experts" and has contributed to over 100 articles. He is the author of "The Big Book of Font Combinations", loves cats, and plays guitar.

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