PORTFOLIO: What's yours is NOT theirs.
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February 18, 2009, 4:46 PMFair Use, Copyright and Theft of Idea
Designers and professional art directors know there are plenty of career opportunities to take the easy road to complete jobs. It's littered with Google images, online download sites and image banks where one might find a photograph or illustration suitable for a comprehensive or research material for an illustration. It is much easier to ask permission than to use material illegally. Why risk it when you might get famous in the process and end up surrendering half of all your earnings plus punitive damages due the originator of the work you "borrowed"? My advice is don't even think about it. Jeff Koons makes a very good living selling stuff he calls art; though taking a postcard of a group of dogs shot by professional photographer Art Rogers and shipping it off to Italian artisans to have it reproduced as sculpture is not art. That pseudo art sold 3 sculptures at $367,000 each. Rogers, who owned the rights to the photograph used on the postcard, sued and won. The court found "substantial similarity" and that Koons had easy access to the picture; as a result, the sculpture was judged a copy of Rogers' work. Koons attempted to use Fair Use laws as a defense but lost anyway.
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September 27, 2008, 4:47 PMHealth Insurance for FREELANCERS
Down & Out
My worst nightmare became reality when I hurt my back. I had been freelancing for about 3 years, but still hadn't accumulated enough regular work to buy health insurance. Besides, I had jobs with design studios and small companies at various times during my career that didn't provide employee benefits, so it wasn't something I missed. It's a common occurence in the commercial art industry; margins are so tight, many employers simply cannot meet the rent, pay the salaries and offer a competitive benefit package. Freelance teaches you a deep appreciation for employee benefits, but perhaps not enough to give up freedom (yes, put on your best Mel Gibson blue face, thank you).
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May 14, 2008, 12:14 PMEconomic Chaos & FREELANCE
The news reports about our robust economy last year baffled me, and I freely admit my life as an artist has dragged me through the school of hard knocks and taught me how to live well without having a lot of money. In December, our economy grew a miserly 0.6 per cent and they were still calling it robust. The first quarter of 2008 reported the same statistics (that's six tenths of one point of 100 points, kids) of 0.6 per cent growth: NOW we're in a recession according to analysts. The cost of fuel has quadrupled, and since every money making venture depends on oil at one level or another, it makes good sense that rising prices would soon follow as I wrote back in 2005 on a topic I know practically nothing about—economics. Why are we talking about this on a design blog? Because many have new businesses but few have business education, so here's few things about how to stay in the black while your competitors are just black and blue.
Sex, Women, Men & QUESTIONS
CREATIVITY, a sister publication to Advertising Age and B2B is a real beefcake treat; every couple of months, it's filled with all the young men in advertising in various states of undress. Of course, it features their work, too, but it's hard to find any articles or features on women in advertising. The only women in that publication is the female editor, Teresa Iezzi and the occasional model appearing in ads. Good news, though, the February issue included a small POV article by Paula Scher. The advertising industry male-dominated power brokers should rely less on their sexual politics and more on the social fact that men and women are equal and roles in society should not be based on gender.
Closing Incompletes
This is a good time of year to remember small kindnesses from casual acquaintances; those who spend valuable time assisting others in spite of their own heavy workload. Perhaps you are one of the people who do random acts of kindness on a daily basis. It's a simple philosophy of helping whoever, whenever one can, without judgment, reason or expectation. The payoff works both ways. You get to relieve universal stress and set an example, sometimes one that will affect the recipient for a lifetime. All those generous experts at forums and on lists pertaining to subjects like web design are donating billable time—random acts of kindness are something you can do, too. A couple of weeks back, I stopped at the post office with my final shipment for Christmas. My freelance work doesn't require anything beyond jeans and a t-shirt; I fit in real well with the rest of my rural locals. A well-coifed woman in a mink coat was behind me in line. As I started out for my car, I heard the clerk tell her she was a dollar short. "Oh dear, oh, dear. I'll be right back." As she turned to run out to her SUV, I pulled a crumpled dollar out of my old down coat and said, "Here, save yourself a trip." She was both mystified and delighted; though somewhat wary. Picture the humbled principal on the bus in Ferris Bueller's Day Off when offered some warm gummy bears by a runny nosed kid. Good for her—perhaps she will see the pleasure in doing random acts of kindness and pass it on. We all make judgments; especially aesthetic judgments. But it would be a wonderful thing if we could withhold forming an opinion until there was some basis beyond appearance for forming one. If we applied the same weights and measures to food that we apply to people, no one would eat chocolate. When presented with an opportunity to close the gap between complete and incomplete, seize the moment and become the resolving link.
LAWS of Authorship
Protecting Your Work
One almost famous photographer I know put out a remarkable self-promotion piece. It was a calendar so simple and stunning, everyone wanted one. It was a series of posters with spot varnishes printed in full color on 100 pound coated cover. Being a professional (before he sucked everything up as nose candy), he stamped a copyright mark on each and every image used to produce those promotional pieces. About 6 months later, he received a phone call from a printer two thousand miles away. “Say, I’ve got these stripped up negatives here and I don’t see a copyright release. I’ll need that before I can proceed with the job.” It seems the guy who printed the job for the photographer liked the posters so much, he decided to reprint them quietly for his own promotion, without the knowledge or permission of the photographer. “Hell, no, I’m not giving you my permission.” Oh, to be a fly on the wall when those two guys came together.
IOU: What To Do When the Chips are Down
My friend, the hoity-toity designer, bought several houses the last time the economic wheel hit dirt. He rented them out and had quite a nice piece of pocket change. When property values plummeted, unemployment rose and tenants decamped, he couldn’t pay the mortgage on some of those empty houses. He walked away. I was at his house one day when the phone rang. “Hello?” he answered, “yeah, just a minute, I’ll get him.” Then he set the phone down and continued our conversation on the dying art of marker comps. After about ten minutes, I reminded him about the caller on hold. “No worries, it’s just a collection agent. I like to tie up their line and let them sweat it out. After a few times, they just give up.” No fear here.
The Consumer Credit Protection Act lays out the rules for collection agents. One thing you can do to end those calls is send a certified letter telling them to stop calling you. They are obligated by law to stop and if they don’t, you can sue them for 3 times the amount of money you owe them plus any punitive damages the court will allow.
September 15, 2007, 12:10 AMClose, But No Banana
A Changed Man
One of a proofreader’s tests for checking leading consistency in text heavy copy is turning it upside down and looking for uneven spacing or single characters that shouldn’t be there.This works because it removes distractions. Right side up, one might be tempted to get involved with reading copy or enjoying the accompanying illustration. Call me crazy, but when I saw these two video captures next to each other, it sure looked like different people. If you ignore the window dressing and just concentrate on the frame, are they the same? I was wondering what some real experts in Photoshop thought. Post your comments and convince me it’s the same guy.
Marketing 4Ps: Extended to 7 for SERVICE
Marketing has an advantage over design; they have studies, strategic planning and numbers to back up what they do. Hard facts are handy things when it comes to expenditures and raises—it’s what bean counters understand. They can draw conclusions from marketing research not clearly evident in the subliminal pushes and pulls of design. Marketing people don’t make statements like that’s how I feel when justifying a design decision. The 4 Ps were introduced in the mid-sixties of last century—to update this old but good theory, progressive minds adjusted the Ps to accomodate technological changes in the global marketplace. The 4 Ps can be used in your own business and as an adjunct to the old axiom, knowledge is power. Learn this stuff and how to stand up against the strong winds that blow from marketing. Sometimes it’s a breeze so strong, it could float a hot air balloon. I admit I’ve had more than my share of run-ins with marketing; and am pleased to report I have emerged relatively unscathed. You can, too.
Artists & War
"To criticize the government is the highest act of patriotism. The role of the artist in times like ours is to help facilitate a skepticism, to transcend conventional wisdom . . . the word of the establishment . . . to go beyond and escape what is handed down by government and what is said in the media."*
—Howard Zinn in his book Artists in Times of War
Many generations have been fortunate in America not to have the scourge of war in our cities and towns, ravaging historical buildings, uprooting families and destroying the infrastructure of our communities. We watch war in the comfort of our living rooms on TV. War is destructive; the antithesis of artistic creativity. In 1937 France, Hitler selected a small hamlet in Spain for target practice; highly explosive, incendiary bombs were dropped for over three hours. The village burned for three days and 1600 people were victimized. Pablo Picasso was so horrified by the B&W photos he saw in French newspapers where he lived, he filled one wall of the pavillion at the World’s Fair in Paris with his anguish. It was a commission he had for some time without inspiration; and the subject matter was probably not what his sponsors expected. Guernica was the name of the village, and through his heart-rending canvas, you can experience his anguish long after the man himself has passed. THAT is the power of art, not the jibberish you see on TV.
July 17, 2007, 5:02 PMLast of the 4Ps: PROMOTION
Advocate For Yourself: That's Self PROMOTION
This is a group of Chindoya street performers in Okubo, Tokyo, promoting the opening of a new pachinko parlor. Pachinko is a popular arcade game in Japan and, if you know the rules, you can make big bucks by cashing in your little steel balls for the right premium. Promotions attract attention, even if it is just the chin and don sounds of a Chindoya band's instruments. Discerning between a marketing PROMOTION and designing promotional materials is frequently an issue for in-house corporate designers. “I am the marketing manager, therefore, I control everything about this product, especially the promotion, and that includes advertising design.” Whoa, Horsey. Management pays too much attention to marketing managers and too little attention to separating personal preferences from professional choices when formulating product parameters. You know that old Stan Freberg song, “Everybody wants to be an Art Director, everybody wants to call the shots.” Art Directors and Designers unite: only you’ve been adequately trained to make decisions concerning aesthetics, so don’t let your marketing manager get giddy with power when it comes to PROMOTION. You’re not doing him or your company any favor by rolling over and playing dumb while he calls the aesthetic shots. Promotion is NOT choosing typefaces, working up concepts, or designing ads. Promotion refers to the program used to stimulate demand for a product.
June 25, 2007, 4:07 PMMarketing 3 of 4Ps: What exactly IS your PRODUCT?
There’s a small town in Ohio where a lot of big advertising takes place. It's also where most of the talent booking takes place, including freelance design and art direction. I only know this because somebody I grew up with is a male actor (very vain, very fickle, very average) who occasionally appears in commercials. I learned the same thing from Barbara Bills, a seasoned professional and highly efficient production manager for more than a few big ad agencies in her time. She said to me once, “I get lots of calls from freelancers who want to show me their portfolios and I’m always glad to give them a few tips when I have time. But sometimes, I am absolutely baffled when they show up with no idea what they’re selling. They aren’t sure what their specialty is; they like doing one thing but have no samples. They want logo work, but they design silly little detailed logos that no one would be able to reproduce. Didn’t anybody tell them that a corporate identity has to work in print as well as on the web?” Before you go out marketing your services, make sure you know what you want to sell.
Marketing: 2 of 4Ps
PRICE: Is it RIGHT or is it WRONG?
In the best of worlds, product launches are thoughtful, labor intensive risk-taking with marketing strategies firmly in place. Before investing in a new venture, four key marketing factors are carefully defined: Product, Position, Price and Promotion. Get any one of these wrong, and results will be less than stellar. Whether it’s widgets, consumer goods, or professional services, knowing the 4Ps will achieve maximum results with minimum effort. Ethics should be a part of pricing, but that is not always the case.
Here's an example; genital herpes is a painful, recurrent and debilitating disease that still has no cure. A friend of mine described it as being on fire from the inside out. When a repressive agent for the disease was discovered, a marketing team used focus groups to decide price. Questionnaires asked, “How much would you pay for relief from this condition?” Respondants answered “$100 a day” and “everything I have”. The questionnaire continued with price ranges, feeling out the market for how much is too much and what the market would bear.
May 28, 2007, 5:16 PMDefrosting Those Icy Cold Calls
“Hello. Is there anyone in particular I might show my portfolio? I’m freelance.” This was my opener when calling a large agency where chances of showing my work were slim to none. Inevitably, the person answering the phone was taken aback that I did not seek to hide my purpose or intent; plus I was asking for their help in reaching the right person. Ad agencies will frequently assign portfolio reviews to one art director who will either let you pass go or dismiss you with a handshake, so it’s not always possible to research the facts. Getting your work out in front of the hiring public is a task you will face for most of your professional life, and the cold call is a key point to master. For some folks, making a cold call is possibly the worst feeling in the world. They are, afterall, risking immediate rejection and that hurts. It shouldn’t hurt, though, because the basis for rejection is nothing personal—they don’t know enough about you to make it personal. Keep that in mind and fear will fly out the window.
