Website Design Copied

[dlparisi]

I thought the same thing as glyph the first time I opened the site, that it was similar but that it was a pretty standard layout that happens to look like yours (white bar, large picture, etc). When you start looking at the elements though it's pretty obvious they lifted a good portion of your site while "making" theirs. Not sure what you can do about it though. I think it's right about not being able to copyright a website layout but they definitely did steal your text in the "about" info. Not to let them off the hook, but are you sure your site hasn't been copied by someone who has it on a template site somewhere? Maybe that's where they got it from?

Anyways, yours is a better site anyways and great images. I did notice that the "1330 Boylston Street" interior is under Commercial Interiors when it seems like it should be under Residential Interiors.

[tom182]

Nice 3D jujubee, one look at teh otehr site and I knew it was Chinese, Generalising, they have a certain look to their renderings

Honestly, my code is not an easy code to figure out and would leave most web designers dick in hand. It's pages linked to pages and scripting.

Huh, dont think so, nothing there that couldnt be knocked out in Dreamweaver in minutes.


@judderman

What a bunch of tossers. I love people putting evermotion stuff directly in to their portfolio. Like these guys from Ireland...http://www.urban3d.ie/.

Whats your point?
When you say "stuff" I presume you mean models and not complete scenes, isnt that the idea of Archmodels?

T

[jujubee]

I can argue how many years I've put into the site and engine optimization. But unless you coded it from scratch (which I did), I don't think many of you would understand how much work I put into it getting it to look the way it does then work across multiple OS's and about 20 different browsers as well as validate.

Anyways.

Their work is pretty good though so you would think that they would go to an equal amount of effort on the webpage. I find it pretty dishonest though to pretend a company is based in the US when in reality, the people who do the work are in China - this would really effect the service people are getting in terms of amendments and turnaround as mentioned.

It's not their work I don't think - at least if they're just copying Evermotion scene and just pasting it up there.

I hate to say it, but I wish they'd stick to their own f*cking country (I'm 1/2 Asian so I can say that without coming off as racist - ha bunch of Chinese f*ckers.)

Okay, now I'm getting unprofessional.

It seriously does tick me off. People are outsourcing - wanting to get something done cheaply somewhere else and meanwhile their own fellow neighbors are getting screwed - the same people that could be the ones buying a building in the future.

The reason why our countries have gotten so far ahead in the first place is because we have the legal protections in place (mostly) compared to some of these highly corrupt governments, businesses, and countries. We also had work ethics and a sense of taking care of our coworkers and employees. Now we just send our work with a push of a button and don't have to look them face to face.

It's a way of us to ignore their system of corruption and lack of ethical standards (they probably got 8 year old kids working in factories) while feeding one's own greed and bottom-line.

What you end up is with cheap clapboard Ikea furniture mass-produced in China.

If everyone stood together, refused to outsource, and talked about the downfalls of outsourcing - we would all be in a much better place. This is just a prime example of sending your money overseas to someone that you can't trust - and has an address in Florida lol...

[jujubee]

Anyways, I don't mind people or companies that outsource to other countries assuming that those 'other' countries have ethical practices in place. Like I don't really see those problems happening between countries such as the US, the UK, and most of Western Europe.

[jujubee]

Anyways, yours is a better site anyways and great images. I did notice that the "1330 Boylston Street" interior is under Commercial Interiors when it seems like it should be under Residential Interiors

lol. Thanks man. I'm pretty much one person with an architectural modeler from this forum. Everything can use improvement but, usually deadlines kill me. Over time (if I have time) I should go back and improve upon older pieces.

Some of these images should be in different categories - thanks for pointing that out. I put some images in 'not so accurate' categories a long time ago to help fill out my webpage layout more evenly and they kinda just moved forward on their own...

[joconnell]

I'd be siding with the folks that it isn't that original a web layout but it's unfortunate that it's been ripped off by someone else in the architectural field. The code ain't great for the site either, it'd be far better done with semantic css but that's totally besides the point. The other guy did a fairly shoddy job of ripping you off, it doesn't have any of the nice spacing or font polishing you've done. Likewise they're not going to get the same search ranking as yourself so they'll probably never be found.

Fair play getting your ranking sorted out out too - what type of search terms are people using to see you in the top 10? Something like "arch vis
Massachusetts"?

[mike_kennedy]

It's a pretty crappy rip off and their work is reflective of the price......

[jujubee]

What type of search terms are people using to see you in the top 10?

Without going into too much detail, a lot of generic terms and unusual ones as well.

Likewise they're not going to get the same search ranking as yourself so they'll probably never be found.

Websites are copyrighted - pretty much any artistic creation you do is automatically copyrighted, at least in the US.

But, being in the top 10 for many search terms, I get an unusual amount of spam, resumes, and traffic all related to architecture daily. They may not be found in a general search, but you they have some sort of bot or program that scours the web for architecturally-related websites and sends out a form letter with rates. That's how I found them.

You figure if they spam 100 architecture firms, maybe a few them take a look and see a bunch of images. They book mark it for reference or they take into account their low rates and give them a shot.

And if the company ignores them one time, they'll just spam them a week or two later. I had one company that kept spamming me weekly. I'd put up a filter then they would approach me with a different address. They've been at it for about a year.

But they're not just spamming 100 companies - it's probably more like several thousand throughout the US weekly. Then of course they are hitting other countries as well.

It only takes one job to probably feed a team of people for a few weeks.

[joconnell]

I getcha - so effectively you're afraid of competing with a lop sided economy? I know what you mean in this regard, it might only take a company doing one job to realise that the hassle isn't worth the money savings (my company used a chinese company to model phones before I started working there - don't think it was worth it) but it's still one job. If it's one job less for every arch vis company in the states then that's a significant amount. Realistically it's going to keep on happening though - a lot of american companies are reaping the benefits of cost factors by earning dollars and paying in yen. It's not going to change any time soon so what are you going to do about it? I can't remember where I read the phrase "the better you get, the better you better get" but it's relevant here - are you going to promote more on the fact that you can meet people face to face to iron out problems and avoid communication issues or if you can speak chinese well enough would you outsource some of your own work so you can work on more / quicker? It might take some time to find a company to your standard but in the long run would it work?

In dublin it's the same deal - most companies will try someone out for curiosity reasons or price reasons - if something is significantly cheaper it speaks volumes. A lot of companies will take a punt on it and if it works for them then they'll probably stick with it. After all, who wouldn't go for the cheaper price on something if it's comparable?

[jujubee]

so effectively you're afraid of competing with a lop sided economy?

As someone that runs my own business and gets emails regarding outsourcing renderings sometimes 5-10X a day in my mailbox and have been ripped off numerous times, yes. If you don't get that, then feel free to remain oblivious/ignorant to the fact.

It's not going to change any time soon so what are you going to do about it?

What are WE going to do about it? What "should" we do about it? You mean what am "I" going to do about it. Seems no one else wants the fight.

I tell customers the horror stories all the time and I'm being completely honest and straightforward with them.

If our economies were on equal scale, then this would be a no brainer - people would stick to their own countries. And in no ways am I trying to be racist, but I don't think it's fair for businesses to operate without some sort of legal protection in place between two different and "civilized" countries.

After all, who wouldn't go for the cheaper price on something if it's comparable?

Yes and no. I believe in supporting people that have similar ethical standards and don't employ child or slave labor as well as supports human rights. On the other hand, the US is no f*cking saint either so...

I also believe in trying to help out colleagues if possible because they are the same people who would (ideally and hopefully) buy a project.

But then again, that's me and I'm a quickly dying minority who doesn't completely "buy" into the motivations of greed and treating my own neighborhood like shit along the way.

I've tried outsourcing a project to another country a long time ago and it was a disaster of epic proportions. I haven't done it since. I'd rather pay more for my coworker.

"Greed greed greed gotta make a quick buck at someone else's expense. Stab them in the back. Shoot them down."

[joconnell]

As someone that runs my own business and gets emails regarding outsourcing renderings sometimes 5-10X a day in my mailbox and have been ripped off numerous times, yes. If you don't get that, then feel free to remain oblivious/ignorant to the fact.

Yep I do get it - as a one man / two man operation losing a single job is going to hurt more than it would a larger company who works on multiple things and has more ability to absorb the hits.

What are WE going to do about it? What "should" we do about it? You mean what am "I" going to do about it. Seems no one else wants the fight. I tell customers the horror stories all the time and I'm being completely honest and straightforward with them. If our economies were on equal scale, then this would be a no brainer - people would stick to their own countries. And in no ways am I trying to be racist, but I don't think it's fair for businesses to operate without some sort of legal protection in place between two different and "civilized" countries.

That's all you can do really - you've gotta sell on the benefits of having local contact and no issues in communication. Not being personal but I also don't see the difference between yours and any other industry that competes on a global scale. I'm sure there's a tonne of stuff in your house that you could have bought from american only producers but didn't - where do you draw the line?

Yes and no. I believe in supporting people that have similar ethical standards and don't employ child or slave labor as well as supports human rights. On the other hand, the US is no f*cking saint either so. I also believe in trying to help out colleagues if possible because they are the same people who would (ideally and hopefully) buy a project.

Yep - that's good karma at least. On a lot of things there's a lot of benefits of having local after sales service - if I was buying an expensive camera I'd be hesitant to buy outside the country since it's a hassle to send it back or troubleshoot with someone else on the other side of the world - for intangible things like renders once they look correct though, they are correct so it's a little less risky?

But then again, that's me and I'm a quickly dying minority who doesn't completely "buy" into the motivations of greed and treating my own neighborhood like shit along the way. I've tried outsourcing a project to another country a long time ago and it was a disaster of epic proportions. I haven't done it since. I'd rather pay more for my coworker. "Greed greed greed gotta make a quick buck at someone else's expense. Stab them in the back. Shoot them down."

It's going to keep getting tougher either way - you can see why a lot of the vfx studios set up bases in india and asia - they're sending out local staff to troubleshoot the communication / standards issue. If the outsourced project had gone smoother would you still be using that company? Or if a friend of yours / previous co-worker set up a place that could offer lower rates and guarantee the quality would you go for it? I'd say a big thing at this stage is that a lot of firms are quite old fashioned and haven't gotten around to looking at communications and the global market. As younger, more tech savvy staff come through though it's going to become a great reality.

Even at a local level here since the recession kicked in commercial budgets have been halved for nearly everything. We still need to deliver the same standard of work for that money, but to make it viable we've got to do the job in half the time. The running costs of the company haven't changed (of course salaries are going to keep going up generally) so if the money coming in keeps falling how do you deal with it? I'm going to be interested to see how the ad agencies react when the recession is over - if they've been getting the same work half price are they going to want to bring their costs back up again or will they rather keep the profit themselves?