A picture very similar to his own work was drawn on the products sold by the clothing EC site “SHEIN” from China. Posts by Japanese graphic designers are attracting attention on Twitter.
While the company’s products have gained popularity due to their low prices, there have been a series of voices pointing out the infringement of intellectual property rights on the Internet. Japan’s PR secretariat responded to the interview, saying, “We will continue to make improvements” to detect and prevent compliance violations.
Designer says, “Please go bankrupt as soon as possible.”
The person who filed the complaint was GUCCIMAZE, a graphic designer whose work, including typography, has received support both in Japan and overseas. He has a track record of providing to famous artists such as Nicki Minaj and Post Malone.
On November 29, 2022, he tweeted a screenshot of the product page regarding the product that SHEIN is believed to have sold, indicating his suspicion that his typography work had been plagiarized for the T-shirt design.
Originally, “THIRSTY” was drawn in gold and light blue gradation, and GUCCIMAZE showed it on Instagram two years ago. The T-shirt, on the other hand, has a picture that closely resembles the work in the center, and is finished with English text on the top and bottom in addition to decorations that make it look like liquid is dripping.
GUCCIMAZE expressed his anger, saying, “Shut up as soon as possible ~SHEIN”, and in the following post, he revealed that he learned about the situation from overseas fans. He also reported that the product page disappeared immediately after mentioning it on Instagram Stories. The post has gone viral.
The relationship with SHEIN’s products is unknown, but in 2009, the street fashion brand “INFLATION”, which opened on the e-commerce site “aliexpress” from China, released a T-shirt with the same design as its own product. Although the product has been discontinued, the product page remains, and the wearing image photo matches the previous product.
J-CAST News interviewed SHEIN about the series of events.
When asked if it was true that the previous product was sold, how the spread post was received, future responses, and the relationship with the product sold on AliExpress, SHEIN’s PR secretariat replied on December 2nd, I replied as follows.
At SHEIN, we respect designers, artists, and any intellectual property rights and take seriously all intellectual property infringement complaints regarding our products.
In addition, we believe that it is necessary for our suppliers to comply with compliance and to clarify that they do not infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties. In the unlikely event that a compliance violation is discovered, we intend to take appropriate measures.
In order to further strengthen the above efforts, we will continue to invest and improve the creation of mechanisms for detecting and preventing violations.”
We requested an interview with GUCCIMAZE to ask about the details of the process and how it was received, but there was no response by 20:00 on the 5th.