boakes.org

Last year, I created a parody “Tesco Value Special Occasion Card“; stuck it up on the web and thought nothing more about it; making it freely available in several formats so that people without black belt computer skills could download it, alter it a bit if necessary and then print it out.

I was a bit taken aback this week to discover that my card has now been modified and put up for sale on EBay as a mothers day card (by at least three separate people). What’s more, based on feedback left for the sellers, it’s proving to be a remarkably popular card.

The original card looked like this:

I spotted the first card on Ebay yesterday. It’s been altered to say “Mothers Day” but it’s basically the file from my site with a hacky attempt at replacing the words and image.

I say it’s hacky because the artist doesn’t appear to have matched the Tesco blue for the text (though it’s difficult to tell from the poor quality pic), and the image of the flower hasn’t had it’s white levels properly adjusted, so you can see the square border where it’s been pasted on.

The second card turned up a day later, with a different photo.

It may be that someone’s bought the card then thought what a good idea it would be to resell it, or it may be that it’s the same guy selling it twice - the kink in the bottom of the card suggests that it’s the same card in each picture.

The third card is basically just the first card, being resold by someone who’s clueless about the design/technology aspect, and is just jumping on the cash bandwagon (the Q&A indicates this quite clearly: Q: “Can I add text to it for example my mother in law’s name? Or mother in law? ” A: “Hiya, I’m not quite sure,I’ve opened the card with…).

The fourth card is an altogether different design, with a big red overlay where the artist has used entirely the wrong font for both the main message and also when replacing the “sincerity guaranteed” message.

So how do I know the fourth card is also based on mine? Easy. Look at the C in Tesco. I drew that logo by hand, and never got the C quite right, there’s too much weight in it’s body, and that’s what gives it away as a derivative of mine. I could have spent time prefecting it, but this was a quick joke, a parody, and certainly not something that was going to be sold.

Now, I couldn’t care less if someone takes my parody and modifies it, I think I’m flattered really; but I do feel distinctly sorry for all the people that have had to shell out for their copy, when they could have downloaded the original free version here!

Happy Mothers Day!

Update 2006-03-23 20:41

Someone was kind enough to send me a copy of the file from ebay, which is, without a shadow of a doubt, derived from my parody work.

You’ll notice, when you look at the large version that (as I’d originally thought):

1. the “artist” hasn’t matched the text colour at all,
2. the image is indeed in need of a little white balancing because the edges of the flower picture are clearly visible and
3. happily, my logo had been removed from the item that was sold.