H&M accused of copying 'You look nice today' design
In December 2008, Tori LaConsay painted a love letter to her neighbourhood. On a billboard in East Atlanta Village, she wrote: “You look nice today.”
Beside the hand-painted text, she added a little heart. This month, she discovered that an almost-identical image — with the same wording, font and little heart — was being sold by H&M on pillowcases and doormats.
Friends started complimenting LaConsay for selling her design to H&M. Only, she hadn’t. LaConsayposted the story on Regretsy and is saying the retailer has engaged in “copyright infringement.”
H&M admits no fault:
“We employ an independent team of over 100 designers. We can assure you that this design has not been influenced by your work and that no copyright has been infringed,” the company responded to one of the many complaints about the copycat image.
[See also: H&M models are computer-generated]
H&M quickly backtracked — sort of — when angry messages flooded its Facebook wall, admitting designers were “inspired” by LaConsay to “create something similar in a different font.” Soon after, that Facebook post disappeared and the company offered the closest thing to an apology so far:
"We are very sorry for our customer service team's reply, it is very unfortunate and we apologize for it. We are in contact with Tori LaConsay and will continue the dialogue with her directly."
Inspiration and copying another’s work are not the same things. And Internet hate — Angry Facebook posts included “You look like a pirate today” — doesn’t go away quickly. With H&M due to debut its first-ever Super Bowl commercial next week, it’s hard to say if viewers can forgive and forget.
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