Advise with avoiding plagiarism please...

[branskyj]

Hi all,

I recently launched the second version of my flash website witch promotes my portfolio for the purposes of job hunting.

Two of the images in my portfolio are dupe-a-photo type of projects where I was aiming to reproduce relatively famous Interior/Exterior images while adding my ideas and changing some of the original's.

My question is- would it be acceptable if I keep using the dupe-a-photo images in my projects as mine? Do I need to provide links to the originals and give credit to their creators? I don't mind doing so, it's just that the purpose of the portfolio is to promote me and not somebody else.

I do realize that in a professional portfolio there shouldn't be such types of work, but I am just starting now and the images turned out to be quite nice. The idea is that my future "own" projects will replace these "dupe-a-photo" ones.

 

Thanks for any advise.

[neil poppleton]

Open and honest is always the way forward. Add links and credits.

[branskyj]

Thanks for the advise. Will do. But my main concern is if having that type of work in my portfolio will somehow repulse future employers. What do you think? Should everything in my portfolio be my own idea?

[Brodie Geers]

Nothing you do in professional ArchViz will be your idea.

 

OK, that's a bit strong, but the fact is that we only get to design the stuff that hasn't been designed by other people at the time we push Render. You'll probably get to experiment with interior design, material selection, landscape design etc. and those things will be very important. But a large part of our work is technical know-how. If the architect gives you a box of finish samples that will be used on a job, he will want to know that you can accurately reproduce those finishes. There's not exactly a 1:1 between that and reproducing a photo but it goes a long way towards showing that you can accurately represent materials.

 

Of course, that's all based on the assumption that your 'dupes' are good. If they aren't then they'll work against you.

 

As for giving credit, I would also recommend it. If anything it just illustrates your level of professionalism. In books, you'll always see photos credited somehow (even if it's at the end of the book). An un-credited photo will give the impression of informality - even if it's subconscious.

 

-Brodie

[TheAllusionisst]

In architecture 'intellectual property' and 'design ownership' is a hot topic right now. So it would actually look good to put credit or disclaimer with the image, even if it is to say "Reproduction of existing project by 'xxx'" IMHO. I see portfolios all the time full of images that were done for challenges and contest with scenes provided and I have a lot of respect for the people who give credit to the original author of the model, for those who don't, they get a penalty point!

[Brodie Geers]

That reminds me of a friend who recently turned in a portfolio to get into grad school. He included a few renderings that we'd worked on together but credited me. The person who reviewed them pointed out how impressed he was with that, and even more so the fact that (on the renderings where I'd done the majority of the work), he'd put my name over his.

 

-Brodie

[AJLynn]

That you did renders of other people's work will not be held against you, assuming you give proper credit. Give name of the building, name of the architect, city, year, name of the (whatever you like to say - illustrator, artist, visualizer, etc.)

[branskyj]

Thank you very much for the help, guys. I'll definately give credit to th original artists.

[notamondayfan]

Every artist has inspiration from somewhere. As said above, just reference your sources.

 

Your job is to be a visualiser, not sn architect or a product designer.

 

Deano