Ed links to a post on Seth Godin’s blog. Seth has this to say about not re-inventing the wheel when it comes to web design:

I’m going to go out on a limb and beg you not to create an original design. There are more than a billion pages on the web. Surely there’s one that you can start with? If your organization can’t find a website that you all agree can serve as a model, you need to stop right now and find a new job.

Not a site to rip-off, but an inspiration. Fonts and colors and layout. The line spacing. The interactions. Why not? Your car isn’t unique, and your house might not be either. If you’ve got a site that sells 42 kinds of wrapping paper, why not start by finding a successful site that sells… I don’t know, shoes or yo-yo’s… something that both appeals to your target audience and has been tested and tweaked and works. No, don’t pick a competitor. That will get you busted. Pick a reasonably small but successful site in a totally different line of work. Say to your designer: “That’s our starting point. Don’t change any important design element without asking me first. Now, pull in our products, our logo and our company color scheme and let’s take a look at it.”

(emphasis mine) Aside from the fact that this completely disregards the work I do, I hope that anyone who takes this advice has a good lawyer. Seth apparently doesn’t know much about copyright law, and while I’m no expert myself, I do know that you can’t take someone’s painting, photo, book, film, advertisement, website design or other piece of copyrighted material and copy it. Even if you change the colors and add your own logo - it’s still stealing and it’s still illegal. If you are retaining all the ‘important design elements’ then you are retaining the design and violating the designer’s copyright.

There is a nugget of truth to what he says; there is no reason to start completely from scratch on a website, as if you were the first company ever to build one. However, if you do as Seth says, you could find yourself in a world of legal hurt and having to redesign your design all over again, the right way. If you’re sold on the idea of using a design that’s already out there, a better approach would be to find a website template licensed under the Creative Commons license (or other open license) which allows you to start from there without fear of legal repercussions.

But better still is to respect the idea that a pleasing visual design which also embraces good usability standards is not something that can be done via theft or cookie cutters. Does that mean you need to start from scratch? No, of course not. When you work with a designer, don’t show them one site and say copy it (a good designer should get up from the table and leave right there - I know I’m not doing work for anyone who wants me to knowingly violate copyright). Instead, find elements of other sites that you like: I like the way the navigation works over here, I like the layout over there, I like the colors over here, etc. Give all that information to your designer and let them come up with a synthesis of the items you feel are important and work it into a usable, easily navigable site.

Or just take the Russian Roulette approach Seth advises (he even goes so far as to note that you’ll get ‘busted’ if you copy a competitor, so I do think he knows what he’s advising is illegal). He’s no fool - people write to be read and writing controversial advice like that is sure to increase his traffic. But if you want to take that legally dangerous written-to-increase-page-views advice, skip paying a designer, steal someone else’s work and risk a copyright lawsuit - have at it. You’re not the kind of client, or really, human being, that I (or any other designers) want or need to work with.