Mirror Images: Similarity in Design

This reminds me of the mindset that views the fact of existence of pyramids in America and Africa as evidence for some sort of unified effort across the oceans.

The fact is that Geometry -- itself a manifestation of Number -- is the Universal guiding principle that is naturally manifested by systems and/or minds that adhere to it. Not a mystery, really.

> Given that they both center around news functionality, it should not be surprising that Facebook's Instant Articles branding (2015) bears resemblance to Apple's Newsstand icon (2013).

There is absolutely no resemblance whatsoever. Other than both being icons of course. Same goes for the next two examples.

Yeah, well you won't believe this. The other day, I found two separate email clients. And both used an envelope as their icon. Wonder who plagiarized who first.

In all seriousness though, you're going to see a lot of look-alike design. And that's because everyone submits to the orthodoxy of flat design (or so-called material design, which is flat design with distracting animations). Obviously a designer shouldn't make originality a top priority, as my email example illustrates. But if you don't stick out where it counts (logos, app icons, style), you're going to blend in and get lost.

Photos, color spectrum, lense, shutter.. yep similar icons, It's not that the companies mirror each other, it's companies mirroring, abstracting and simplifying core concepts for their apps into icons.

Google's recent photo app icon is more similar to Google's original Picasa[1] app icon, than it is to iOS Photo's app.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasa