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Fuck. I'm working on a series like this. Now, I have seen his work, and there's the visit to his site to prove it. My work will always be "Derivative of Chad Hagen". Or worse, I'll be accused of stealing.
Damn the digital age. Damn my eyes.
I wouldn't worry about that, since David Byrne did a book on nonsensical powerpoint slides, and my first thought on this was that it was derivative of Byrne's work.
Just look into the light.... bfzzz!
It's okay.. people might have said that you were being derivative whether or not you ever saw the other works. Others might then say that your work is still not derivative even if you have seen them. Yet others would rush to your defense and say that your work is still not derivative even if you actually intended for it to be.
Whether it matters to you what others think is entirely up to you.
@Ian70
That's true right up until he gets sued for copyright infringement. Then it definitely does matter what others think -- the judge and jury!
@jimh
I don't think you're in too much trouble. Just by perusing Chad Hagen's images, it's clear that he uses certain patterns, colors, and other style elements that are his own. As long as you don't end up copying those elements, you should be okay making other nonsensical infographics without being a derivative of his works.
Then again, copyright has grown so much in scope that my post alone may be considered derivative of your post, this article, and even the browser I typed it in. In which case, I will put my post into the public domain so that you can reply to it without fear of me suing you for making a derivative work. Or does BoingBoing already have an exclusive license to my post? This law is so confusing...
And then of course, there was the even earlier example of the _Codex Seraphinianus_...
http://www.archimedes-lab.org/Serafi/C_serafini.html
To do nonsensical diagrams seems to be a logical reaction to the current surge of more or less "sensical" infografics. Recently I've also exhibited a series of "dada visualizations":
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quasimondo/sets/72157619795179936/