How to Steal Vectors Like a Boss
Deadlines in creative industries are dramatic, painful facts of life.
You can work your ass off, powering through assignments, creating masterpieces, perfecting works of art… and your boss doesn't give a damn.
All the design world cares about is this equation.
Happy Client = Money
If you’re stressed out by a hovering Exec saying, “A little more to the left, more, more, OKAY STOP! Wait… to the right… Muuuuch better,” taking shortcuts is the best plan of action you can take.
This is most definitely stealing, but Picasso did it so why can’t you?
Good artists copy, great artists steal” — Pablo Picasso
You’re probably not confident in your own designs. Every artist goes through the same struggle. It’s even got a name, “Imposter Syndrome”. And you know what great artists all do?
They copy. They steal.
This is generally where the oceans part, and people scream, “THAT IS SO UNETHICAL!!!”.
Hold your horses Mr Purist.
Copying is not inherently bad, it’s a technique people use to improve their current artistic skill. If you’ve been to art school, you’ll know that they make you study and copy the techniques of famous artists. It helps develop your technique and hones your eye to details you otherwise miss.
The chances that your work is entirely unique are slim. Your exposure to the world around you will directly influence what you create. That’s why great artists spend thousands of hours practising — they are sifting through all the outside influences to create something that’s remotely unique.
As for stealing, well, you heard Picasso. Steal what you can and use it to create something better. Human society has been following the same pattern for centuries, constantly building, constantly improving and constantly growing.
Stealing vectors in itself is an in itself art, and here’s how you get good at it…
This technique can speed up your creative process, but you need to think like a smart thief, not a stupid one.
Stupid thieves get caught. Stupid thieves sell the stolen jewels in their original form, clever thieves transform the jewels into new pieces of jewellery.
By using someone else’s design as a basic template, you can create new designs in an infinite number of styles.
Never ever trace a copyrighted design and think you’ve gotten away with it. You need to put in an extra five minutes and transform the look and intention of the design.
In everything you do, always ask yourself, “Have I added value?”
For those with vector experience
The quickest way to transform a design is to change the style. Find an image that is roughly the shape you want your final design to be and another image of the style you want to use. Use the one with the correct shape as a proportion guideline and change the curves or angles of straight lines. With complex shapes (like bushes or clouds), it’s often quicker to draw them on top of the existing vector. You won’t waste unnecessary time editing paths and moving every single anchor point.
For those with no vector experience
It’s going to take you a little bit of time to figure out how vectors work. Don’t worry if you don’t get it at first, it’ll click eventually. The quickest way for you to adapt an image is to edit the general shape of whatever you are lifting. If they use straight lines, you use angled lines. If they use curves, you use different curves. If they use circles, you use squares. Get the picture?
For both
Don’t forget to change the colors. Even changing the way something is shaded will introduce a significant difference to the final look and feel of the design.
How to actually steal a vector (or any image you can find for that matter)
It’s pretty darn simple, you only need two things… Adobe Illustrator and the internet.
Step 1: Find your source image
Go to Google image search and type in whatever you are looking for. Find an image you think you can work with. Something with a good base shape that can fit into your design.
Step 2: Copy the image into a new document on Illustrator
Ctrl + C and Ctrl +V (CMD if you are on a Mac) is your friend. Get your image into Illustrator and scaled to your preference.
Step 3: Trace the image
Tracing is a feature in Illustrator that turns a pixel image into a vector one. Select your image object, and hit image trace on the top toolbar.
Adobe moves things around and renames tools with every update. The tool named Image Trace was once called Live Trace. You can easily locate it under the ‘Object’ drop-down menu if you are having issues. (Note: you must have the image — called an object in illustrator — selected for tracing to work).
Once you’ve hit the image trace button, you’ve probably noticed your vector didn’t turn out like you expected it to. That’s because you are on the wrong setting for image trace. Click the little down arrow to find the right setting.
These are all the options you can choose from. Most projects need only 3 or 6 colors, but it’s up to you to decide on the complexity of the trace. Choose 16 at your peril — you’ll be busy cleaning up paths for more than a few hours.
Have a play with all these to figure out which ones work when.
Once you are happy with the trace, it’s time to expand.
With the object still selected, hit expand and your image will be outlined by a bunch of blue lines and dots that look like this
One last thing to do — with everything STILL selected — press Ctrl+Shift+G to ungroup the paths.
Step 4: Change the vector beyond recognition
Now you’ve got a nice clean vector to work with, it’s time to turn the vector into your own work of art (as quickly as possible).
Here are some ideas to get you going.
- Trace over the entire image manually, changing key details.
- Delete points on a path to better manipulate the shape.
- Change the colors.
- Change the direction of the lighting, pretend the light source is coming from the left instead of from above.
- Add shading if there is none.
- Change the style by removing or adding details to the vector.
- If the vector is a composition of multiple elements, move the elements into different places creating a new look entirely.
- Change the overall emotion of the piece.
- Add value by creating context and merging multiple pieces together
- Take your own photos, image trace them and use them as backgrounds or for elements in a scene.
Step 5: Save and move on knowing you saved some time
Save and send for approval. Remember, it’s not cool to steal someone’s work outright — you’ll get caught. Be sure that you’ve changed the vector to the best of your abilities.
Done successfully, you should end up with something different.
In the above image, the style, the colors, and the emotion have been changed, creating a new design altogether.
How Copyright works and what will happen if you get caught
The Copyright Act protects the work of artists against exploitation. If an individual recognizes their work has been duplicated by you, they will need to hire a lawyer and sue you or ask you to take the work down in a personal capacity.
There are two infringements you need to be careful of.
- Misappropriation: Applicable if your image has the same ‘concept and feel’ as a source image.
- Fair Use: If you added value and didn’t negatively affect the market for the copied image then your copy will be deemed as ‘fair use’ and you’ll be safe.
If you get sued, a court ruling will be made and if you lose, you will need to pay whoever is suing you.
If you are not sued, but someone in your field finds out you made an exact copy, your reputation in that circle will plummet. Not good for your Friday drinks party! Motto of the story — don’t blatantly copy.
All this copyright stuff is subjective and deserves to be answered by a lawyer. You can find a great article on the details of tracing and copyrighting over here.
Where you can get free vectors just in case all this is too much work
I get it. This creative stuff is a mission. Sometimes you need simple stuff and you need it now.
FYI, for commercial work you need to make sure the copyright is CC 0 or CC 1.0.
These sites have free vectors! Yay!
4. Google is your friend.
You made it so far!
If you have anything to add, any question or just general glowing praise and thanks, leave it below in the comments or hit me up on Twitter.
