Themes inspired by other software

Katos

Wage wrote: Facebook certainly wasn't the first website with a sidebar on the left or even right side. Just like YouTube wasn't the first to have that kind of color scheme. It's definitely not a bad idea taking tricks that big corporations use and making use of it on your own. So unless someone is stealing another's property I don't see any harm in it. It's very likely Facebook & YouTube take ideas from other sources too.

Fully agree. Inspiration is a powerful thing, and taking conceptsÂ from other themes to use as inspirationÂ is fine in my honest opinion.Â Where I don'tÂ agree with, is with people blatantly just ripping themes and content.

Wage

Facebook certainly wasn't the first website with a sidebar on the left or even right side. Just like YouTube wasn't the first to have that kind of color scheme. It's definitely not a bad idea taking tricks that big corporations use and making use of it on your own. So unless someone is stealing another's property I don't see any harm in it.

It's very likely Facebook & YouTube take ideas from other sources too.

Daphne

Sometimes you see theme developers that create themes inspired by the design of other sites. For example, I've seen forum themes trying to imitate the design of facebook (with a sidebar on the left side) or YouTube (with the red and white pattern and buttons). How do you feel about this? Do you think it is a good idea for designers to try to imitate the themes of other sites?

Daphne

I agree. I am not saying it is a bad idea. I just found it interesting. Some designers find inspiration in the default themes of other companies. I have also come across MyBB themes that looked like the XenForo, vBulletin and IPB default themes.

Ben Cousins

I miss the old Yaldaram site. MyBB, but a splitting image of the default XenFail theme.

Yes, I just called XenForo XenFail. So sue me :P