Artists, in the past, were labeled as outsiders and anti-social. Interesting since most artists have a burning desire to get everyone to see their art. Artists are like dictators in this aspect, we want everyone to either Hate us or Love us. The image of the brooding artist in the corner is gone, since everyone is bombarded with so much media everywhere. Today we must remind the world that we are here. For me, it’s why I set this blog up. However, it gets to be a bit difficult to do it all. First we have to do the adult things like pay bills and keep a reasonably clean domicile while we try to entertain and please our friends and family. Then we try to get our names out there thru networking events and social media. Of course most of us will try to keep up on the latest trends or current events seeking out motivation and ideas for our next Magnum Opus. We also try to spend any time we can reinforcing the basic talents and practicing our skills. Of course, the most important part, we have to do the actual work. We need to find time after all that to do what we love and create art.
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When an artist creates anything, they like to believe they own that creation. Copyrights have been a tangle of laws and history that can confuse the layman. First, let me say what led to this blog post. I was talking to a very talented artist, Annie Hobbs, found at: anniehobbs.carbonmade.com. (Disclaimer, she is my sister-in-law, but that does not detract from her talent.) We were discussing the use of a watermark on images in a blog. I prefer to stay away from them, more for cosmetic reasons, but understand why people use them. I then decided to check on one of my more popular images, the egyptian iphone paper I have in my downloads section. Sure enough, I found another person who had stolen the image, but this time it was posted on the Photobucket site. I reported it to photobucket and was wondering if it was going to be a long drawn out process. However, five minutes later I received and email from Photobucket and sure enough they took down the image.

I remember when I was kid, The Simpsons was a big thing, although it still does remain a strong show. A school used the likeness of Bart Simpson for some dance or some thing, and FOX put a Cease and Desist on it. Ignorant people came out of the wood works decrying this move by FOX. Granted, I don’t like a lot of things FOX does (especially in the realms of it’s “political coverage”), but I know why they did that. Truth is, if they didn’t enforce their copyright even once, the courts would later state that they had released their copyright and then anyone could use a simpsons likeness.

As it stands the law has a time limit on how long the copyright owner owns their works, and that law keeps getting extended since Disney has a lot of lawyers arguing for more time as they have a lot to lose when Mickey Mouse becomes public domain.

This is just an introduction to the topic, and I highly recommend all artists and designers to learn more on copyrights.

beginning of the 25 awards

In the advertising world, there are awards. One of the awards in Orange County is the formally called OC AD Club Awards, now the OC Advertising Federation Addy Awards.

Even though, I haven’t worked at DGWB since October, almost every piece submitted and awarded prizes was something I had a hand in. From artistic input and layouts to doing the production work on these. DGWB earned 25 awards including Best of Show.

I couldn’t be more proud of the work I did there, or of those I worked with. It’s kind of odd that I really can’t be there when they celebrate, but that’s how life is.

So, if you are hiring, remember I help earn awards.