Style Can't Be Selfish

I was working on a project for my London design class that had to do with connecting the East and West ends of London and I really wanted to create a look and feel that was similar to a trend I have been noticing in the graphic design world. This trend is most represented by the artists Si Scott for his organic and sinuous exploration of classic type faces. I am not ashamed to admit that my solution although not identical but is similar to his style. But what bothered me is that one of my peers was upset that I was just copying somebody else’s work for my own project.

This got me thinking about style and authenticity within artistic movements throughout our history. If everybody had their own style and all artists were solely unique in that nobody’s work could be similar to another than we would have a lot less art in this world and a lot more copyright infringements. There would be no such thing as De Stijl, pop art, or impressionism. There wouldn’t be cubism, futurism or constructivism. There would just be Mondrian, Warhol, Monet, Picasso, and Maholy Nagy.

Style sells and style speaks to an audience.As an apsiring designer I was finding the best way to communicate to my audience. And yes this may be immature of me but by the looks of my classmates final piece I can swear I have seen it somewhere before. I guess we could call them a “hypocrit-ic”. Here's an example of two celebrated cubist painters, who's copying who?
Pablo vs Braque