If you thought your new mini Frappuccinos looked to pretty to sip, you may want to question where the cup’s colorful design came from.
Brooklyn-based artist Maya Hayuk has filed a lawsuit in against Starbucks Corporation for copyright infringement.
Known for her brightly colored murals of splashy shapes and bright lines, Hayuk alleges that Starbucks and an advertising agency “infringed copyrights on five Hayuk paintings for its global Frappuccino campaign, including for the designs on its new ‘mini’ sized cup,” reports Reuters.
A quick look at Hayuk’s portfolio shows how similar Starbucks new imagery looks to some of Hayuk’s vibrant murals.
The New York Post reports that Starbucks reached out to Hayuk in October, but she turned the project down. This apparently didn’t stop the company from using her work as inspiration. The black, white, yellow, magenta and azure tones found on the coffee brand’s new cups and advertisements emulate a similar color scheme used in a five-piece series of paintings by Hayuk.
“More than anything, she was just saddened,” her lawyer, Aaron Silverstein, told The Post Wednesday.
Hayuk is suing in Manhattan federal court for $750,000 in copyright penalties plus unspecified cash damages.
