TV show poster called out for plagiarism (and, yeah, we can see it)

Creating a stunning poster is one of the most crucial design tasks of any production. But, as a South Korean TV network accused of copycat design has just found out, the poster should only attract attention for the right reasons.

tvN has been accused of plagiarising a poster for its upcoming series of Little Women. With its two-toned blue hue, long shadows and far-off figures, the poster bears an uncanny resemblance to another Little Women poster – an exhibition poster created in 2016 by Shiseido, a Japanese cosmetic brand. And we have to say, putting the two side-by-side is like a game of spot the difference (try it out below). We suggest they read our guide to dealing with plagiarism (and that you check out some more successful poster designs).

Pretty similar, right? tVN has commented on the allegations, which were raised in online forums by concerned fans, with a statement to E-Daily. This neither confirms nor denies any copycat intention, but does indicate that tvN can see the resemblance. 

"The concept of the poster was the three sisters walking toward the light with their shadows behind them," said a tvN representative. "We relayed this to the company in charge of designing posters that then went over a series of samples before picking one."

"In the future, we will pay more attention to it through a close preliminary review," they continued. Well, that might be a good idea. 

It's hard to imagine how tvN wasn't aware of this poster, but also that they would blatantly copy another poster and think no-one would notice – so the jury is out on this. With the number of sisters being one of the only concrete differences between the two pieces of work, it's a good thing the latest production's reimagining only includes three of them (for some reason) or they'd be almost identical. 

Anyway, to avoid this happening again, we suggest the company in charge of this design take note from the originality of the ingenious House of Dragons poster that recently lit up the internet.

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