Hasta La Ideas

What’s one of the most awkward ways to launch a new political organization? By having everyone ignore your launch and instead focus their attentions on where you stole your design elements from. Such was the case this week with the new non-partisan group No Labels, who launched by using a fun illustration of not your standard elephants and donkeys standing in for the two major parties, but a whole range of animals, proving that they are indeed “Not Left. Not Right. Forward.” Only problem is that illustration is not only five years old and was made by designer Thomas Porostocky, but it was also fairly well known, having made the rounds online with his site solely dedicated to the design, More Party Animals, and even appearing in a book by Milton Glaser. No Labels made the common, tragic missteps of ignoring Porostocky’s emails, then telling the NY Times, once they had caught wind of the story, that No Labels’ creative behind the illustration, advertising veteran Dave Warren, had come up with the idea entirely on his own, and then, as expected, Warren was forced to eat his words and fessed up that the whole thing was stolen (though suddenly it was the fault of “a designer he had hired”). Certainly a lot of egg on the face not wanted so early on in an organization’s life, but at least they finally came around and did the right thing.

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