Contracts and Legal Issues

As a designer, I believe it is very important to have a contract for any creative service provided to a client. It not only protects the designer, but it protects the client as well. I believe contracts are important because they put in writing what the designer and the client have discussed about a project. Once the contract is read and signed by both parties there’s no room for manipulation on either end. Contracts should include the following: The deliverables of the project such as what stages of a project are due and when, estimated costs, payment schedules, guidelines for reproduction of work, rejection or cancellation of project guidelines, completion/delivery of project, and an acceptance of agreement. Of course, more may be added if needed.

I also believe it is necessary to hire an attorney. They are the ones who can help make a sound contract and help get the designer out of any legal issues that may happen to arise with a client. It would be foolish not to have one. By hiring an attorney and creating a contract a designer can help protect themselves from non-payment issues. In the contract they can state that there will be a “kill fee” if the client decides to cancel or back out for any reason. A kill fee is a negotiated payment given to the designer if the project is "killed" or cancelled. That way the designer is compensated for the time, labor, and materials put into the project to that point.

A way a designer can prepare themselves for running their own business is to take business classes before they begin their business. This will give them a heads up on what to expect. Other ways a designer can better prepare include the above. Having an attorney and a contract in place for every project are very sound ways to protect a designer from legal issues. They are two musts every designer should have.

RFP and USP

Today’s business world uses a common way to look for a service through something called a “RFP.” This stands for Request For Proposal. An RFP is a document rigidly stating that the company sending it is looking for service. It is usually sent to multiple people as a “bidding” process. It asks to have the recipients answer very specific questions with very specific guidelines on a deadline. An RFP is meant to level the playing field and minimize bias. 

In the creative industry RFPs are becoming more and more frowned upon, even though some designers may be excited to even receive one and to be thought of. In my opinion, it is doing the opposite of what the sender of the RFP is looking for. They are looking for creativity and give no opportunity for the recipient to show it. I also think RFPs are an insult to the recipient because it is being sent to multiple people. It’s like saying t you aren’t good enough, and if they find someone better than you to do the job they will throw you to the side like everyone else. Taking the time and energy to reconstruct a selling pitch to respond to a RFP is a waste of energy if they decided to go with someone else. I just think an RFP is a very unprofessional way to look for creative work. Therefore, I believe RFPs can be harmful to the creative industry. They take away true opportunity of finding good creative work and devalue the meaning of design. A good, professional designer wouldn’t respond to RFPs. They would wait till a better opportunity came their way to do good work.

One way a designer can get themselves out there and advertise what they do is by coming up with a USP. A USP stands for a unique selling point. A USP is a short, concise phrase, or phrases, that state what you have to offer as a designer. They are short and sweet. If I, a graphic designer, had to come up with one it would be something like the following: Advertisement design, specializing in identity work. Local work. $175/hr.

Creative Licensing

When using creative assets, such as photography, there is usually a license that comes with them stating how the client or user can use the asset and the terms that determine the price of it. Two common license types include a royalty free license and a rights managed license, with the most common being the royalty free license. A royalty free license means that the user pays the creator of the asset once, and the asset becomes able to be used by the user for commercial use as many times as they want. When using a royalty free asset there is a restriction on how many users can use it. Also, the higher the resolution of the asset, the higher the buying price. A rights managed license means the assets are licensed per use, and the user may have to pay the creator on an ongoing basis depending on how the asset will be used, how long the asset will be used, and what the distribution of the project will be. The more extreme these situations are the more the creator gets paid. Basically the creator monitors their work based on what you plan on doing with their asset.

For an example of a royalty free license and how a price is derived, let’s say I am tasked with the project of creating t-shirt graphics for a client. The graphics will originate from a photograph from a stock photography website, iStockphoto. My client will need a quantity of 5k shirts printed. First, I find the photograph I want to use on the website. Then I will want to choose the highest resolution of the photo. In this case I chose a picture of a cat with an XXLarge resolution costing 50 credits. Under extended licensing options I want to choose the items for resale option since the photo is for t-shirts. This option adds another 125 credits for a total of 175 credits. If I am a pay-as-you-go member I can get a package of 300 credits for $440 with each credit costing $1.47. Therefore, my photo that I want to use would cost me $257.25.

The benefits of royalty free assets include an ongoing use after purchase, a less expensive price, and easy access. The challenges of using them include the risk of finding the asset being used by someone else since they are not exclusive and not being able to transfer or resale the asset to someone else when finished with it. The benefit of rights managed assets is being able to purchase exclusive rights for a certain amount of time or possibly purchasing total exclusive rights. The challenge, or downside, of using them is possible ongoing payments that are based on the factors of using it instead of its size as in royalty free assets.

If I have a career at an agency or company as a designer more than likely the company will buy these assets. The cost won’t come out of my pocket. But, it may be reflected in my pay. If I am doing freelance work then of course it will come out of my pocket, and I will have to figure it into the expenses and the client’s cost of the project. On the flip side, if I am the one using the licensing, then of course it will be my means of protecting my work and making a profit/living.

Spec Work

I believe there are several issues that arise when designers get involved in spec work. It can not only be a negative situation for the designer, but for the client as well. Of course though not all work done without a fee is spec work, such as for an internship, competitions, or volunteer work. I believe those kinds of situations are okay to do without the designer getting paid. But, if it truly is spec work then there can be consequences. For the designer, it could mean getting taken advantage of with the client getting free work in return, as well as losing credit for the work they have done. For the client, it could mean a lesser quality of work because the designer didn’t take the position seriously. For both the designer and the client legal risks could arise over the work.

If professionals get involved in spec work it could impact the creative professions industry. It can do so by devaluing professional work and diminishing the true economic value of the contribution designers make toward client’s objectives, as stated by AIGA. It could also damage the image of professional designers. Clients may begin to not take them seriously and see them as people who can be taken advantage of. It could give the name of graphic design a bad connotation. That is why most designers that consider themselves professional designers have a tendency to back away from this type of work. I think it is mostly less skilled designers that tend to lean towards spec work or students that are getting out of college and haven’t found a career yet.

Even though it may be hard to stop a lot of spec work, professional designers can help curb it by telling their clients what they expect from them, and by not taking clients who expect so little of them as to do free work. However, this doesn’t stop less qualified designers from doing it or the sites online that promote it. Spec work will probably never totally stop, and it could possibly only increase in times that the economy is bad. So it’s not really of matter of trying to stop it, but it’s a matter of whether a designer wants to engage themselves in that type of work since they already know of the possible situations that could come from such work and the negative association it could give them and other designers.

My Career Path

After reading chapter three of Andy Rutledge’s book, Design Professionalism, which is about career paths I was able to confirm the journey I would like to take during my career path. It didn’t really change from what I wanted before because most of the concepts he talked about I had previously been told about. But, he did introduce several good opinions and recommendations.
 

I am getting ready to graduate with an Associate’s Degree in visual communications specializing in graphic design. I would like to start off my career path by getting a summer internship so that I can first get my feet wet at an agency. That way I can do what Andy recommend and learn how to become a design professional and everything that includes such as working as part of a team, developing my skills, forming professional standards, and establishing trustworthiness and a reputation. I would also rather make mistakes working for a company rather than make them as a freelancer so they don’t reflect back on me.
 

While working as an intern, I would also like to continue my education at a four-year school so that I can strive towards a Bachelor’s Degree. If I don’t end up staying at the internship long-term I know my odds of getting a career will increase if I have a Bachelor’s Degree.

I don’t plan on relocating to find a successful career, but if need be I will. Evansville, Indiana is a good start to finding a successful career, but I know there are even greater opportunities in bigger cities.
 

As far as freelance work, I don’t think I will be doing that for a long time, if at all. I don’t know very much about the business side of graphic design or running my own business for that matter. If I were to one day have my own freelance business I would first need to take business classes or minor in business management.

Preparation for Professionalism

In chapter 2 of Design Professionalism by Andy Rutledge, Andy addresses the issue on the lack of education taught in colleges and that education is something a person must pursue on their own. He feels that most schools aren’t adequately teaching the fundamentals of design which include the elements and principle of design which he believes are key to being a good designer. He states that even if someone is taught something in school that they must further their knowledge on the subject to actually learn. Education is a person’s own responsibility, not the teacher’s. Also, Andy states that a person should never stop pursuing an education because if they do they will become obsolete.

I fully believe in what Andy has to say. I, myself was taught the fundamentals of design, but I agree that a person must always pursue their own education whether they’re in college or not. Whatever someone teaches you it is important to expound on that knowledge so that you can understand to the fullest of your ability. What I loved the most on what he had to say was that if you don’t keep pursing an education you will become obsolete. Concepts are always changing and new ones are being introduced. It is good to keep updating and educating yourself. If you don’t, no one else will. Your education is up to you and you only.

In the article by Gadi Amit titled “American Design Schools Are a Mess, and Produce Weak Graduates,” Amit also talks about how colleges lack the education that should be taught to students. He believes that the curriculums across the different colleges are too diverse, and he doesn’t know what to look for when reviewing portfolios to hire people for his company. He feels many portfolios he reviews lack the ability to integrate seamlessly all levels of creativity and only show 3D CAD work and process work.

Well, after reading this blog by Amit, I researched the company he is president of and his company is a design agency that creates products across the physical and digital business categories. He isn’t looking for graphic design as much as he is product design. This was of a little more comfort to me after previously reading that he believes the design education system today is failing many aspiring young students and that he’s finding that the impressive academic credentials of most students don't add up to the basic skills he requires in a junior designer. It is not to say though that colleges need to make their curriculums more alike and up to standards. That’s why I still believe it is important to pursue your own education outside of college and learn all you can from wherever you can. You can never stop learning!

Critique of Photoshop Web Layout Tutorials

When going to the website dzineblog.com and looking under 27 Best Photoshop Web Layout Design Tutorials to Design Decent Web Layouts, I found some I liked and some I disliked. One that I particularly liked was titled Design a Cool Photography Portfolio. This one was really helpful and informational because it went step by step through each step of making the website. It didn’t skip any steps and was very thorough. I wasn’t left wondering how to do something. Another tutorial I liked was titled Design a Hand Drawn Style Website in Photoshop. This tutorial also went into detail how to do step by step. But there were a few times that the designer didn’t explain a step when she told the viewer to do it. You kind of have to guess how they did it. I also liked how she gave the websites to go to for the different elements she used in the tutorial. That was very helpful. One last tutorial I looked at that I didn’t particularly care for was titled Stylish Web Studio Web Layout. I was pretty dissatisfied with it because after getting so far along in the tutorial it’s almost like it just ended. It leaves you hanging. I questioned if I had gotten to the end or not. It was very strange. Over all, when looking at tutorials, it comes down to there are good ones and bad ones. You just have to decipher one from the other.