Chinese designers who have been copied and reproduced

If you look at the cottage again, the Halo series of "sunset lights" of Italian design studio Mandalaki, Pierre Jeanneret's Chandigarh chair, and Flos's luminaires have become clichés. The Internet and social media have become the design and aesthetic enlightenment of some people, and the "beauty", "lifestyle" and "popularity" that have been forcibly instilled have spawned consumer desire. The awakening of design needs is not directly proportional to the awareness of the story and value behind the design, so the people who choose copycat products under the "unconscious" of the information age, and the people who do not have the ability to consume but want to achieve aesthetic needs and choose piracy, both are to some extent the "victims" of the era of online consumption. Designers become the most passive and vulnerable beings.

The existence of supply and demand makes plagiarism and copycats impossible to eliminate. Does the manufacturing party have a complete and mature industrial chain and is called the "world's factory" at the same time, does it have a core of creative support? Can consumers support genuine designs within their spending power? Can designers still have the motivation to move forward in the face of intricate and difficult-to-define plagiarism? In the closed loop of various interest relations and capital, "plagiarism" seems to have become a scar that all parties know but cannot avoid.

China's independent young designers have been caught in the vortex of plagiarism and reproduction. The loopholes in the supervision of major platforms, the edge of laws and regulations without regulations, and the energy and money that need to be consumed to protect rights have made them a little more helpless in the torrent of capital and the Internet. In many design areas, the higher the technical component, the easier it seems to be to defend one's rights in the face of plagiarism. Product design is better than fashion design, and fashion design is far superior to graphic design. Today is the International Consumer Rights Day, and the dossiers talk to designers Cai Liechao, Chen Xingyu and Chen Li. Their designs have been, and are being copied and reproduced, from "folk designers" to established brands. As the tip of the iceberg among Chinese designers who have been copied and reproduced, we hope to restore their real actions and attitudes in the face of plagiarism.

Among the many designs of designer Cai Liechao, the Maza lamp series has been copied and imitated the most seriously. For the simple and direct plagiarism of the shape is not a minority, and stealing beams and columns to convert design logic and voice into interior design elements, adding other functions to turn lamps into shelves and other designs are endless. The design logic of the Maza lamp is to let the lamp structure conduct electrical transmission through low voltage, thus freeing itself from the shackles of wires and creating a more flexible modular construction method. This kind of design product with visual tension and flexibility is more likely to become the object of some interior designers and fast-selling brands. In the face of plagiarism like a bottomless pit, Cai Liechao believes that good design and its real consumers are sympathetic, and only by doing a good job in products and finding accurate customer groups can we not be afraid of the negative impact of copycats.

Cai Liechao's Maza Lamp 5.0 Series

In the face of market demand, Cai Liechao took a step of "open source design (referring to the complete opening of design materials, production ideas and achievements to the public)" with the "hardware store plan" last year, so that design can completely serve the public. This year, he will work with 10 designers from different regions of the world to create a new "open source design" series with localized materials and expressions. If the plagiarism phenomenon is a storm of public demand for design, then Cai Liechao is also trying to join the storm in design practice again and again, and become a storm.

Cai Liechao's "Hardware Store Program" purchases hardware and plastic pipes as raw materials for creation

Designer Cai Liechao

W*: Did your work ever experience being copied? Is there a way to defend the rights, and what is the final result?

Cai Liechao: Since we started in the design industry, the outside world has never stopped plagiarizing our works. There are three main types of cases in which we have been plagiarized. The first category, as a design studio for domestic and foreign brand customers to design works, will be targeted by different cottage manufacturers, in 2016 for a friend brand designed a cactus hanger, on Taobao was sold by more than a thousand cottage Taobao stores, in many TV series to see a large number of cottage products, Quanzhou Taobao manufacturers have become the hardest hit area. This kind of plagiarism is basically solved by the brand itself, and we as designers only need to provide some basic materials. It's interesting that the compensation that the end customer receives through rights protection even exceeds the profit from the sale of the product.

Cactus hanger designed by Cai Liechao

✖️ Pirated hangers on the web

Ferm Living coffee table designed by Cai Liechao

✖️ Pirated Ferm Living coffee tables on the web

The second category, after the studio began to produce and sell self-developed products, and established the eponymous brand Mario Tsai, the main work of the Maza lamp system of the cottage derivation, has not stopped. Due to the complexity of the structure, the initial technical barriers of the Maza lamp system can be maintained for about a year, and later the series that was mainly copied was the Maza Lamp 1.0 long strip series that began to appear gradually. Maza Lamp 1.0 is the most frequent work of our brand in many well-known indoor projects, from an objective point of view to study the process of copycat, the main reason is that some interior designers have promoted the birth of the cottage, part for the benefit, part for the owner to save costs, part for the project to be brilliant and the budget is not enough and so on. For rights protection, it is difficult to investigate specifically, and the circulation of shoddy copycat works will confuse the public's perception of our brand. Here we also appeal that the survival situation of product designers in China is not easy, please respect them, but also cherish their feathers.

Swipe left to see: Cai Liechao Maza Lamp 1.0 Series

✖️ Pirated gold version of Maza Lantern 1.0 on the web

The third category, as a design team and brand that began to have a certain influence, is concerned by various fast consumption forces or brands. A fast fashion brand flagship store has adopted the X version of the Maza Lantern 1.0 version of the cottage version, and the rapidly rising Wuhan store of a coffee chain brand has copied the Maza Lantern 5.0 system we just launched, which are typical examples. FMCG brands are only used because of the visual tension of design, the quality of design and construction is very poor, in the capital wind of fast consumption, these designs are generally easy to update and obsolete as their products, so the plagiarism of FMCG brands is a huge consumption of our brand itself.

It's hard to defend your rights, and it's like a bottomless pit. While new things are constantly being designed, plagiarism is also occurring and increasing. Now there are professional Taobao lawyers, and even an industry has been spawned - the rights protection industry is divided into lawyers. These lawyers specialize in helping brands fight Taobao piracy and make money through share, and even many brands make money through rights protection. There are many plagiarized manufacturers, can not check one by one, but also consume energy, even the plagiarized Flos is intentionally or unintentionally ignoring these problems. Because when people recognize the brand value, they will still choose the genuine version. We also hope to put more energy into branding, so that more people know and choose the genuine version.

Maza Lamp 5.0 Series

✖️ A FMCG brand store copied Cai Liechao's product design and made a window

W＊：

Many people choose piracy or copycats in an "unconscious" state, and there are also some "folk designers" on social media such as Xiaohongshu, who choose to make their own or imitate the works of replica designers.

Cai Liechao: If from the overall point of view, the public has not been directly instilled in the so-called beauty through systematic aesthetic education, they are also a "victim". When the outside world stimulates its impulsive behavior of consumption, when it has no ability to spend, it will think of other ways. A large number of "folk designers" as individual behaviors do not cause much harm to the brand, and I don't think it needs to be regulated, because their current stage of life is not our consumer group. But they may also be a potential consumer group in the future. Because they have initially formed a cognition, after understanding the work and brand, they may become consumers at some stage in the future.

Talents who make money by means of the public's consumer psychology are the most hateful and the most difficult to restrain. All we can do is to do some correct guidance under some platform content, guide everyone to buy genuine and distinguish between pirated copies. For some reproductions that change the functionality of the product, a certain meaning is difficult to define as plagiarism, and it is impossible to delve into it.

W*: Will the major exhibitions that are important to product designers become breeding grounds for plagiarism?

Cai Liechao: We have to accept the various positive and negative effects brought about by the event itself. The exhibition will bring sales, but also bring the possibility of plagiarism, everyone has been very clear and accept this fact, and do not care too much about this. For example, Flos is the most concerned brand in Zhongshan, and the Wireline lamp launched by them and the design group Formafantasma has already appeared in the cottage before it is released in China. This is unavoidable, but Flos can still sell well, indicating that their consumer group will not be affected by the cottage. We also hope that our brand can go in that direction, do not care too much about the negative impact of the cottage, everyone chooses the brand rather than just the product itself. Now we are also trying to do our own exhibition, so that some copycat manufacturers will find our more accurate customers more accurately.

W*: The studio is located in Hangzhou, is there any consideration in product production and manufacturing?

Cai Liechao: The most core assembly workshop of our products is placed in our own studio, which is a point that we value very much, not only with safety, but also to quickly respond to the different needs of customers. Considering the possibility of being copied, parts can only be handed over to Zhongshan, Dongguan, Foshan and other places to do, if a complete structure is handed over to the assembly plant is frightening, other brands can quickly copy and even extend according to the structure.

✖️ The cottage factory develops and reproduces the state of Cai Liechao's design

Cai Liechao designed the Maza Lamp 3.0

✖️ Pirates on the web mimic the structure of Maza Lantern 3.0 and even changed its function to shelf

China is known as the "World Factory" because of its complete industrial chain, will this have a positive effect on your design and production? Similarly, is there any pressure on you to generally because of the phenomenon of copycats caused by strong manufacturing?

Cai Liechao: Although China is the world's factory, the real high-quality resources are actually occupied by a very small number of overseas brands. Large brands and large domestic foreign trade enterprises mean a large amount of orders, and as a small brand or independent designer, there is not enough to give to the foundry so that the resources found are not necessarily very good. Therefore, the cost and cost of making a high-quality product needs to be more, so there will be a reason why the things of the Chinese young designer brand are more expensive, because the designers themselves pay a higher price, so while achieving the same effect, the high cost leads to high prices. In addition, we can't use resources like big brands, which are unfair but can't be changed. Some Chinese suppliers of overseas brands can indeed control their costs in a very cheap range, and as independent designers, they may cost twice as much, and it is uncomfortable not to have this advantage.

Cai Liechao's "Hardware Store Plan" series of products, the hose selected includes tin foil smoke pipe, sewer hose, washing machine outlet pipe and stainless steel spring, according to the diameter of the material to create the corresponding scale of furniture, lamps and accessories and other household products.

Can you share your recent work?

Cai Liechao: We proposed a research project last year called "Soft Power". This project aims to study the sense of power presented by soft, flexible things such as skin, air and water. The first series will have fabrics and large sculptures. This series will be different from our previous very rational design perspective, it is based on a logic, is to study a new way of creation, to create a new cognition in everyone's previous cognition and create a new object. The Soft Power series is planned to feature an exhibition presenting all the research during Shanghai Art Week in November.

This year there will also be an expansion of the hardware store program, we invite 10 designers from different regions of the district to create with their local characteristics, and open design details to the public as open source design. We hope that it has more cultural attributes, rather than having it sold as a work, hoping to give everyone a creative inspiration.

Designer Chen Xingyu chose to locate the studio in Guangzhou, which is closer to their product processing plant, and he chose to stand with the complete industrial chain. However, strengths and weaknesses coexist, for the safety of the product, he can only divide different parts to different foundries for processing, and finally put the core assembly back into the studio. The phenomenon of fragment series lamps being copied is staggering, and the design model has been widely publicized to make it even more sad and helpless. Chen Xingyu admitted that experiencing these plagiarisms and cottages, and the long wait for the rights protection period, made him tired and even began to numb.

Chen Xingyu's Fragment series chandeliers

In the face of the market environment that is not friendly to Chinese designers from all over the world, Chen Xingyu hopes that there will be more platforms specially built for young designers such as design things and WISE design cutting-edges, and hopes that many designers' "power generation for love" can have the opportunity to be recognized and the channels that generate value. In the complexity of major exhibitions, in the mix of social media, young Chinese designers need to regain their voice.

Chen Xingyu's Fragment series floor lamps

Designer Chen Xingyu

Chen Xingyu: It has been copied for many years. Five or six years ago, Taobao just began to popularize, but also in a stage of barbaric growth, naturally some low-cost furniture custom merchants appeared in Foshan, Dongguan area, relying on imitation also feed many people. This is certainly bad for designers, but it is also inevitable that social stability and the level of allowing some people to have food is also inevitable.

Fragment series chandeliers and floor lamps have been copied the most, and they are all in the private customized WeChat accounts of Taobao, Idle Fish and Zhongshan. Many merchants are not formal companies, selling through weChat's small community, so they cannot trace the source. More often than not, they circumvent some of the legal conditions that constitute plagiarism, so even if we have patent rights, we are helpless.

In the first three months, I did try to defend my rights, both disturbing and a little tired, and I have recently become a little numb. There was a plagiarized business that we commissioned a lawyer to send a lawyer's letter and began to file a case, and it took at least 10 months for the court to file a lawsuit. However, in this long time, perhaps the plagiarized merchants have made almost all the money, and the compensation is not important to them, which is a big loss for our brand.

The phenomenon of copycating or plagiarism reflects a supply and demand relationship, and some consumers spend very little money to buy a close product to some extent is also a "beneficiary". Once there is a supply and demand relationship, it is difficult to make this extinct. For individual creators, there is not enough time, energy and money to invest in rights protection, which is also a weakness. Even through the official channels of Taobao and other platforms to protect rights, it is impossible to eliminate. The situation of first removing the shelves and then putting them on the shelves has appeared repeatedly, and even the platform like idle fish is a gray area in the law, and there is really no way at all.

Above: Chen Xingyu's various materials for the purpose of safeguarding his rights

Below: Chen Xingyu's product model was disseminated by netizens without signature and consent

Many people choose piracy or copycats in an "unconscious" state, how do you think this phenomenon occurs? There are also some "folk designers" on social media such as Xiaohongshu, who choose to make their own or imitate the works of replica designers, what do you think of this kind of reproduction that does not involve commercial attributes? Do you think this is a well-intentioned tribute?

Chen Xingyu: This phenomenon has existed for a long time, and the public's current awareness of the value of design is not too high. Our design model is shared by many platforms without permission, and there is no attribution, even if it is not profitable, it will still be unpleasant, just like a hard-working article is reproduced without attribution, it is the same. For homemade if not to sell it is fine, after all, hands-on imitation is too personal a thing to evaluate good or bad. Maybe I inspired him in a sense, but it's not good to be exactly the same.

Above: Chen Xingyu's Chinese Architectural Memory Series

Below: Chen Xingyu's furniture Pagoda (left) and Obelisk (right)

Will the studio location in Guangzhou have a positive effect on your design and production under the mature production and supply chain? Similarly, is there any pressure on you to generally because of the phenomenon of copycats caused by strong manufacturing?

Chen Xingyu: Our studio was selected in Guangzhou because nearby Foshan and Dongguan have the conditions of industrial chain, have the advantages of processing and manufacturing, and have relatively mature and supporting industries for production and research and development. But there are advantages, and there are also disadvantages. Because of this, we need to split the product into multiple factories to produce, so that they do not know the whole picture of the product, and then assemble it themselves, building a barrier for their own products, but also a means of protection. Getting a factory to produce the designed product entirely is a dangerous thing, and for most manufacturers, this ethic is not yet available.

Although the industry is clustered, it is interesting to see buyers or brand stores in Foshan, Guangdong. Because it is closer to the production base, most of it is factory direct sales. Most of the supporting industries here are exported, and in the face of overseas markets, the factory production quantity is huge, and the price is profitable. However, now that China is developing domestic demand, these industries have become less viable and their profits are gradually decreasing.

The pressure seems to come from any direction, but I was lucky enough to quickly find my own style of work. Many Chinese designers are relatively young and have little experience, and the funds for proofing when creating are problematic. Even creating your own design, it is difficult to continue to practice your profession, and you have to face the problem of copycats and the problem of urban advantages, which are all problems.

W*: Do you think there are more platforms left for product designers to express in China? Enough

Chen Xingyu: There are still quite a few, basically no choice. At this stage of the exhibition, its mixedness is not yet the turn of independent designers to speak. There are fewer platforms for young designers to show. Design shanghai, Shenzhen design stuff, WISE design cutting-edge to give a lot of young designers the opportunity to show, is benign. Now the exhibition is large and mixed, as a relatively independent designer, it is difficult to put in the same system as home furnishing brands. The motivations and nature of both sides are not the same. Independent designers may output a new idea and perspective, can not be compared with many home brands, and are not on the same channel.

On an idealized level, hopefully someone will recognize the value of these designs. Designers can spontaneously form a commercial closed loop, and with supply and demand, these platforms can naturally appear. Therefore, I think that domestic designers can only do what they have at hand at present, and do a good job in order to be seen and recognized. Some things cannot be overcome and are useless, and they can only do better in themselves. Good design will definitely still be seen, power generation for love.

Swipe left to see: Chen Xingyu created a wooden chair based on the discarded ship wood from his hometown as the original material.

Chen Xingyu: From April to May, we will release our new collection, which is a furniture series with a more handmade texture.

Architects, product designers and photographers, with multiple identities, maintain a unique visual style language in both interior design and product design. In the design line that Chen Li has always insisted on, he is more of a "connector" role, not so much to create furniture, but to design a new way of connecting to combine materials. Acrylic, glass, metal, wood and other materials create an "intimate relationship" under the new connectors.

Darkdetails NO.1 series chairs designed by Chen Li

While searching for DIY furniture on social media, the folk imitations of his furniture brand Darkdetails emerge in an endless stream, chen li refers to this type of imitators as "soil steelmaking", although it does not involve commercial interests, but the essence is a cheap imitation. The cottage shops on Taobao call Darkdetails lamps "ins minimalist industrial style", which not only erases the attributes of Chinese designers' creations but also ignores the essential significance of designers' material experiments, leaving only a formalized shell.

Swipe left to see: drawaballs x darkdetails, a "Give Me Bubbles" chair by Chen Li and artist Jin Ningning.

Designer Chen Li

Chen Li: Yes, Taobao and Xiaohongshu have it, and the platform rights protection has not been successful.

The Internet is promoting the "aesthetic education" of the public to some extent, and the surging aesthetic demand seems to be out of proportion to the search for the story and meaning behind it. Many people choose piracy or copycats in an "unconscious" state, how do you think this phenomenon occurs?

Chen Li: There is demand and supply to promote this phenomenon, the demand side is not to say, the supply side, all kinds of property rights can not be protected as a result of the formation is that there is no permanent property people have no perseverance, everyone is more willing to engage in short-term interests to make a profit.

Darkdetails NO.9 by Chen Li

✖️ Pirated Darkdetails NO.9 on the Internet, there are general public DIY for the design of the diy, there are also merchants plagiarized, and even commercial photography space using pirated scenery.

There are also some "folk designers" on social media such as Xiaohongshu, who choose to make their own or imitate the works of replica designers, what do you think of this kind of reproduction that does not involve commercial attributes? Do you think this is a well-intentioned tribute?

Chen Li: It has a certain role in popularization, and it has little connection with the work, which is mainly beneficial to the platform itself. Good or badwill I can't say, maybe there are good intentions, but from the results of replication, at least the limitations of ability limit the expression of good intentions, may be closer to cheap imitation.

Darkdetails NO.5 by Chen Li

✖️ Pirated Darkdetails NO.5 on the web

Darkdetails NO.11 by Chen Li

✖️ Pirated Darkdetails NO.11 on the web

Will there be a positive impact on your design and production under the mature production and supply chain in China? Similarly, is there any pressure on you to generally because of the phenomenon of copycats caused by strong manufacturing?

Chen Li: Not yet, we produce furniture similar to small workshops. Maybe because I don't rely on furniture to support myself, there is no pressure at present, but I feel sorry.

Some of your product design materials will be easier to find for some people who want to copy and copy, so it is also convenient for them to copy to some extent, so do you care or worry about these?

Chen Li: For factories that involve commercial behavior and plagiarism, the ease of finding or not of materials does not hinder their plagiarism, and they are not less plagiarized of difficult materials, and for personal reproduction of non-commercial behaviors, it is easy to find materials, but the details are not well mastered.

Darkdetails NO.2 by Chen Li

Darkdetails NO.14 and Darkdetails NO.8 (right)

Other experimental designs of Chen Li

Chen Li: Recently, I have been working on some design projects for shops and offices, and new furniture products are in the process of proofing, and then I may make a flower stand.