As a small creative artist/designer duo when the same London based bigger business with multiple retail outlets keeps on creating greeting card designs with striking similarities to our own we feel we have to take action to protect our brand & identity. 

We want to achieve this not only for ourselves but also for many other creatives who have experienced similar issues. We don’t believe it’s right & ok because this happens a lot & don’t want it to be the case that we have to feel powerless. We really hope our action using this platform will be a way of building a community that we can use to support each other’s creative integrity. Please share this if this relates to you or someone you know. More details below.

Who we are

We're Mike & Rika, a London based artist/maker duo called MR Studio London. Since 2014 we have created artworks, greetings cards & lino prints that use/are based on homegrown & forest found flowers & plants.

We started creating these pressed flower letters/writing designs in August 2015 & since then we produced a range of our own printed greetings cards as well as a number of commissions.

What's the problem?

Because our & their pressed flower letters/writing designs look stylistically so similar they can be mistaken for each other. In fact we have been asked many times if we sell our cards in this business or if we do the pressed flower writing designs for them. The issue of these cards being very similar to our own has also been brought to our attention by third parties on numerous occasions.

As our pressed flower letter/writing designs are one of our core selling products we're very much concerned if our designs are mistaken for theirs or if some people think that we ripped them off.

Our aim

The issue isn't about the use of this pressed flower letter/writing method itself or whether these similarities were intentional. Our aim is simply to request this business to change the designs of their pressed flower writing to look stylistically less like our designs if they wish to carry on with this series.

On top of this we know so many similar cases that occurred to other creative people. When it comes to something legal we don't want to feel like we should just give up because of the expense or because it's against a bigger company. When we need legal help we should be able to access it. By sharing our support amongst a likeminded community we believe this should be achievable.

What’s this money for?

We are using CrowdJustice as all money raised will go directly to our lawyer to proceed with a legal request to this business to amend their designs. £750 is not the full cost (we're going to pay some too) but if we could get your help to cover £750 it would be so helpful for our small business. If 150 people were to each pledge £5 we could reach our target to pursue legal action.

Why do we need to take legal action?

Because this issue happened before with this same business last year in March 2018 when we were first made aware of their designs in a prototype phase. At that time this business also followed us on Instagram so we emailed them with the hope of being able to resolve things in a friendly way. However the only response we received was a very aggressive one & they were not interested in resolving things amicably. 

So when this happened again in January 2019 with a wider range of this style in the same greetings card form (now also to be sold wholesale), we thought we needed to take further action to prevent anything worse in the future.

Chronological summary

• We started our pressed flower writing designs in August 2015
• Since then produced lots of commissions & marketed the designs on our Instagram account
• The business in question first made the pressed flower writing greetings cards very similar to ours in March 2018
• Despite emailing this business with the hope of friendly resolutions we only received an aggressive response 
• The business in question now has made a wider range of the pressed flower writing greetings cards, publicised in a trade show in January 2019 & started selling them wholesale.

If you have any questions  please feel free to contact us. mr.studio.london{at}gmail.com or our Instagram account is @mrstudiolondon. 

Thank you for reading! Mike & Rika