No New Ideas?

An interior designer I worked with in Canada told me that in the world of design, there are no new ideas, and I disagreed. But every now and then I am reminded of where she was coming from...check this out:
I designed this little graphic a couple of years ago and at the time I thought it would be a fun silk screen print on a tea towel, or fabric to make an apron.

I think I blogged about it many moons ago because it ended up on a MOO postcard. Anyway yesterday I was in Spotlight and I found this:

Now I am certainly not claiming that there is some sort of intellectual property infringement going on here (heck they could say the same about me!). I didn't invent this style of graphics, there are probably hundreds of similar designs out there. I just think its interesting how similar it is, thats all. The cup shapes, the ring on the plate, the shape of the knife? It spins me out. I still think there is such a thing as NEW IDEAS though. I think we have to keep pushing ourselves to be original.