As a creative, I have been ripped off more times than I can count. I’m sure it happens to all creatives at some point. Sometimes the would-be thieves appropriate it in one way or another… altering it from what was originally created. Sometimes they take a slogan and create their own design around it, or just half-ass a rotten knockoff altogether. It happens all the time.You can imagine my surprise, when a kind fan from Poland e-mailed me inquiring about the usage validity of the Keep Drifting Fun logotype on t-shirts by the Polish Federation of Drift. Imitation is supposed to be the most sincere form of flattery. In this case, it is outright theft.

This is the original logotype I designed in 2009.

The “OR ELSE” was later dropped, so that Will Roegge and Joshua Herron could use it (with full rights/usage permission) for their grassroots documentary, aptly titled… you guessed it… KEEP DRIFTING FUN. Here, you can see Lieze in front of the KDF van with the guys (May 2010), sporting the first run of orange KDF tees. Look familiar?

Meanwhile, in Poland…

Out of all the times I have been ripped off as an artist… this instance infuriates me the most. It violates the entire ethos surrounding what the logo means, and I cannot for the life of me understand the lack of moral code involved to think that it is perfectly fine to plagiarize like this. They even went so far as to conveniently drop my Slide Style™ logo from the sleeve in lieu of their PFD logo.

In addition to printing the logo on shirts, they also chose the same shirt colors, and made printed collateral/pop-up displays to show off ‘their’ line? The internet has made the world infinitely smaller than it already is… and has made the drift community even smaller at that. I cannot fathom how someone would do this and think it would not make its way back to me. Had I been contacted me in advance, I would have been happy to work together to make something happen. Especially since the message is so important to me.This is not what KEEP DRIFTING FUN is about.