Nothing will piss me off quicker than someone stealing or messing with my graphics. I work very hard on my designs and though it may not be obvious when you look at some of the final images there are times that a whole lot of work went into creating the final look of the design. This user requested on my graphic shop. I've blacked out the name on everything because as annoyed as I am with them I'm not going to let her be bullied for her idiocy.

This was her idea for the cover -

This is the cover that I ended up making -

(again I removed her author name)

This looks like a very simple cover but in order to get the look the author wanted for the title I had to find the marquee letters. That isn't a font. They are individual letters. The silhouette of the man and the audience, separate images put together. And the background is another image. There are adjustment layers on it to make the blue brighter and more vivid. I did a lot of work to get it as close as I could to what she wanted. She didn't like the singer image and sent me one she wanted to use of Justin Bieber from one of his concerts. It was taken from somewhere way back in the audience and cropped to be closeup. It was already fuzzy as heck and putting it on the cover would have looked awful. I explained this to her so she asked if I could just remove the guy and have only the title. That was fine, I took the singer off and moved the text up so it was in the center of the cover. 

This is the lettering, it was a download PSD file, which if you know anything about them is a photoshop file.

The letters are individual and they're red. I put in work to get the title together and make it blue. 

So, I removed the guy and put the text like this -

She rejected it and wanted it delivered with the text at the bottom and the guy gone. I refused because it would be too easy for it to be altered. Someone could swipe it from her account and add an image to the top or she could slap the image of Justin Bieber on there. Since the bottom is basically solid black her author name could also be easily erased and replaced by someone. She took the cover as is with the guy on it and I recently discovered why. 

She took the cover that I had made, gave it (supposedly) to her boyfriend and had him hack the title off the bottom and make the cover how she wanted it with the guy gone and the title at the bottom. I messaged her and asked her to remove the cover because it wasn't what I had delivered to her and my cover had been altered. 

You can see the line where the lettering was cropped off my cover. Some of the hands for the audience are warped and weird because he removed the singer from the cover and there's a space to one side where the black was lost all together. He clearly stole the title from my cover and slapped it on a similar background. Though I covered her author name, it is the same. The font matches and it's spaced the same, another indicator it was taken from my cover. The graphic was altered, which is against my shop rules. 

Don't try and pull one over on a designer, we aren't idiots and we know our graphics. I knew the second I saw the cover on her profile that she'd messed with what I gave her. I'm so angry I can't even describe how much. This is a clear violation of my rules and plain rude for someone to do. How anyone can justify stealing from someone is beyond me. If she didn't want the cover then she shouldn't have taken it. Needless to say I will never make this user another graphic again. I don't condone theft and I don't want to be associated with anyone who thinks this is an okay thing to do. What annoys me the most is, I had made another cover for her previously so I was more than happy to have a repeat customer. That has been destroyed by her behavior. 

She finally decided to answer me so I felt y'all needed an update, whether you want it or not lol.

Let's go through each of her messages individually and I'll explain why she's so very wrong. It appears she's believes I'm an idiot, I'm not. I've been designing for ten years, I can tell when something has been altered.

1) erased the cover? He didn't erase anything, he cropped off everything above the text and made his own cover using the text from my cover. It isn't even the same size file as mine. So yes, he did make a cover from scratch but he did it using my text. The colors are different. Yes, but the background I used was available in several different versions so the fact the one he used is different can't be used as a base for stating he made the cover from scratch. It's easy, even in a photo editing phone app, to adjust the color. He didn't have the raw file. Oh sweetie, please, you don't need a raw file to mess with a graphic any idiot knows that. There is a 'designer' on here who literally stole the cover of a published book, took the author's name off of it (and left the title) and is using it as their graphic shop cover. You can see where the image warped when they removed the author's name, much the same as some of the audience hands are warped on her version of my cover. Regardless of what she believes, I'm not stupid.

2) and if you know anything about how graphic design works ... If I know? Honey, ten years I've been doing this I think I know more than you. That appears more than obvious by the fact you keep insisting he didn't steal the text from my cover. You don't need to start over if you're stealing bits off a design and slapping it over your own background.

3) He legit moved the lights. He legit got the background off the internet like I did, it is a similar version to the one I used, I saw that one when I was searching for the background, I chose the one I did because I thought the lights looked better. There were a couple versions, a couple in other colors as well. He did not individually place those lights and make the background. It you take a look they are completely different covers. Different how? In the fact he basically did nothing while I spent several hours making the cover that I did? 

This user has been blocked and she will never get another graphic from me, the fact she keeps insisting she did nothing wrong is awful when it's clear what was done. I've taken the cover, changed the title slightly, and made it a premade if anyone is interested (I can change the tittle for you if needed). I want it to go to someone who respects my work and will enjoy the cover.