kidd81 blog

Hey Guys and Dolls!

I know its been a while since I properly blogged… a few reasons really.. I wanted to keep the post regarding my article in WebDesignerMag very much fresh in everyones mind… besides I didn’t have anything more hardcore newsworthy…….’til now!

Rowan @ kitschensink.com are always in close contact through facebook mainly as we like to share creative ideas, we often exchange Google alerts to where her site is featured… for example… We have had an enormous response to her site going live and have been featured in countless CSS galleries which – for us both really – is a huge achievement to be recognised by fellow creative professionals.

I recieved a facebook message on February 16 at 2:02pm from Rowan saying “What the hell?? http://www.julianhasse.com.ar/ Is this OK???”

To my absolute astonishment… this guy had blatently ripped off our site… I have never in my 10 years in the industry seen anything like it… I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, scream, shout…. my instant reaction was to hug my computer screen and say “No! No! this can’t happen!!!” < yeah, weirdo!.. I guess this reaction can only happen when something as drastic as this happens to you... Rowan too was equally in a state of shock as the story unfolded.

Let me try and peice together and deconstruct the site so you can see for yourself what we was seeing.... For the record.. the beautiful kitschensink is on the top!

At first glance you you can hardly tell the difference…. thats because there is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL! (barring a few image changes which have been poorly executed)…. Whoever has taken the time to rip us off blind has done it good and proper… but very badly! For anyone who isn’t in to web development, sites are made up by markup code (or HTML) which allows pages to be built to an industry standard… these cowboys have lifted my source code too! So the hours which went in to building the site had litterally been de-compiled, rearranged and passed off as their own… how on earth can this blatent act happen!…

The site was lifted at approximately Sunday 24 Jan 2010 17:09:39 GMT… I know this because they left all my code in the top of the page with a meta expiry I set to stay current… this stopped the moment they took the site and never re-implimented it so it was like the clock had simply stopped on them! Clever cats these guys arent they? / I am terribly upset they even put their own copyright statement up there too! do they even know what this means?!!

Here is an example of the HTML.. it is only a small snippet of the code, but it is significant as I had named a h1 class as ‘grant’… as in ‘Rowan Grant’ but these idiots have kept it in! but just changed the text to his name!

The most amusing page of all we come across and at this point this is where complete anger changed to us just shaking our head.. this was the ‘Payment’ page of kitschen sink… see for yourselves…

For some reason they decided to keep kitschen sink’s payment page on their site… Strange… but it may have something to do with their blatent carelessness. The page content refers to eveything to do with kitschen sink and how to pay her for her items of jewellery. Even the links were pointing to her shop!!! This page also retains my footer with all my copyright and disclaimer notices…What the hell is going on!

Not only did they rob my design, source code and scripts they also replaced all my imagery but retained the image name so it was easy to put together… for example kitschen sinks logo image http://www.kitschensink.com/images/kitchensink-h1.jpg was replaced with that daft accordion but still kept the image name!

The last example I want to highlight… (I could go on forever but hopefully you get the gist) and this has really hit Rowan hard.. She is one of the most passionate gal I know and one thing which she prides the kitschen sink concept on is her grandma… she taught Rowan all she need to know about crafts so thats why we chose to include this story on here ‘about us’ page which reads…

“Rowan was born in June 1982, to possibly the least creative two parents in the UK. Both worked full time jobs, so on holidays and mornings before school, Rowan went to Grandma’s. Grandma didn’t like the TV to get hot, so after Saved By The Bell, it was switched off, and the paints, pencils, knitting needles, pins, wool and felt came out. Grandma spent a lot of time showing Rowan how to draw, knit, sew and the like, and it’s all Rowan ever wanted to do with her time from then on (plus catching Pugwall whenever possible!).”

Even writing this next bit makes me feel a bit sick… I have no idea how Julian had the audacity to put this on his site be he included this crock of shit on his site….

Who on Earth would think that’s morally acceptable? It’s Rowans heartfelt words about how she got where she is now.

Since we discovered the site we got in touch with the man himself – as it turns out he’s a ‘respected’ musician who teaches at the university – he co-operated fully with our request to take it down. But is does make you wonder… 1. How much he knew of our site and 2. His reluctance to give us the contact information of his *cough* cowboy ‘web designer’… its hard to make out who is the guilty one at their end… maybe its something we will never know!

Rowan asked me why I kept calm for so long over this… One of the 1st things my boss taught me at Blue is when things like this happen, keep calm and adopt the silent assassin theory… both Rowan and I are are very much the innocent party in this so while I wanna go crazy and kick and scream.. it won’t really get me anywhere… this simple blog entry makes me feel good and hopefully will be recognised and appreciated by others who have suffered at the hands of the dickhead minority who are out there robbing us blind!

In the light of the a high-profile case of the blatent rip off of Hidden Eloise (read on), one thing which has come out of it the amount of fellow professionals who have taken the time to contact both myself and Rowan about this… We don’t like people who rip others off… its an unwritten rule… Originality will always be King!

Bye for now!
Mr P + Rowan @ www.kitschensink.com