I won’t get into my rant about Hot Topic, since it’s really a waste of time, and I really don’t have that much against the store. But what really gets to me is when they take designs from other designers and try to pass them off as “non-cultural” or Goth. This leads to today’s “you thought we wouldn’t notice” post:
Hot Topic steals SOAP!
Designer Jess Fink is a pretty neat one. She follows the Kuwaii school of Japanese pop design, (which for the rest of you…is “cute” anime- taking inanimate objects and giving them a personality with a cute face). This is nothing against Jess Fink; I think she’s got a great sense of humor…a little bit more complex than the regular Kuwaii designs. She had this wonderful little shirt below.
Recently she posted that she had received an email from a fan of hers saying that Hot Topic has stolen the design and made this:
The rip-off was designed by “Newbreed girl” who seems to have an under construction website. The only way I can explain the stupidity of Hot Topic is because it buys from too many design companies and venders, which leads to either no back checking or they knew what they were ripping off.
This is not the first time that HT has done this. Another case is the recycle heart design. Albeit the execution is not exactly the same, the design is very similar. The designer offered this design to hot topic numerous times over the last few years and each time HT has turned it down.
The Original Design The Hot Topic design
Jess Fink sent a Cease and desist email to both “Newbreed girl (NBG)” and Hot Topic (HT). NBG responded with a statement that said it was unfortunate but probably the cause of hiring freelancers to do t-shirts for them.
“It is my poiicy (sic) to encourage freelancers to use the free Getty photo images as reference points & we also use sketches from the Japanese free clip art books, which have inanimate objects with cute faces & legs etc. which are also very similar to the soap.”This is not the first time that Jess Fink has received this type of response. She received the same one from Todd Goldman, an artist and designer…you can see his painting knock off here.
However, the soap in Goldman’s painting is not even nearly as similar as the design by NBG. Everything on the HT design is similar, the soap is pink, the hands are feet are “stick” and the word “soap” is in the same place…not to mention the same body position. The words also use “butt”…but seriously what does “I love your butt” coming from a soap mean anyway? Hmmm. Jess plans to take up the matter in court. In the meantime, friends have banded together to show their support by making parody images, which include some hot soap on soap slash. It was way too early in the morning for me to behold this Harry Potter image (NWS). 
- Gallery of Parody Images (careful some of these are NWS)
- Threadless T-shirt Store so that you can buy it if you like the shirt (the original that is)
