You asked your legal, copyright, and trademark questions, and Jean has answered! All questions are culled from the comments section attached to the original ‘Ask Jean’ post. We invite you to ask more questions.

Thomas says:

I am a freelance graphic designer.Over the course of 5 years, I conceptualized and designed all the branding, corporate identity, website design and illustration work for COMPANY A - at a reduced hourly rate. It was a small startup company with a website product, and I had a somewhat personal relationship with the owner.

Now, there was money exchanged for design services, with this set hourly rate paid for the work. There was also - however - a COMPANY A promise of a lot of future work once the COMPANY A product was sold.

No agreement was ever signed, and ownership of the copyright was never discussed. There was an inherent promise to compensate us once the product was acquired, but that has not materialized.
COMPANY A was recently acquired by a major Magazine, which will bundle the COMPANY A product into their features on their website.

So basically the product was sold, but i’ve been cut out of any profit or promise of continuing work. The Magazine’s creative director is now requesting original art files from us as well, so they can take over the maintenance and further marketing of the product.

My questions are as follows:

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The term “professional designer” can apply to anything from a service provider to a strategic partner, depending on a person’s individual experience, their approach to problem solving, and their relationship with a client. At one end of the scale, a design vendor simply responds to a specific request made by a client and provides them with a commodity. They perform tasks that can be easily replicated by others. Competition at this level is based primarily on cost. In the middle of this scale are design professionals who offer direction and some degree of specialization. They bring not only expertise to the table, but also a degree of professionalism. At the far end of the scale stands the design consultant. They are able to serve in an advisory role, guiding the client through the design problem solving process. As design problems become more complex and require broader collaborative thinking, advisors provide not just solutions, but actually lend insight and depth, and help synthesize information amassed or created by collaborators.
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The World Wide Web Consortium is planning to implement a new version of the Web accessibility guidelines this year, and it seems like many people have had negative things to say about the version 2.0 update (not official yet). These guidelines affect the way designers and developers build sites for the disabled, so it’s more important than ever as the Web becomes the de facto repository for information, commerce and entertainment.

People smarter than I think the project is confusing, long overdue, and that the process of revision is broken.
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Steven Heller’s latest tome, Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-century Totalitarian State, is an intense read. As an object, the book is an impressive chunk wrapped in black striped plastic, with the vibrant colors of propaganda peeking through the stripes from the inside cover. Yet the book structure and narrative are highly accessible.

Part coffee table artifact / part required design history reading, the book is a must for anyone interested in branding. (more…)

You’ve probably already heard the news that Adobe announced Creative Suite 4 tv.adobe.com on September 23rd, the latest versions of its ubiquitous design apps. As usual, there’s plenty of excitement surrounding this announcement, as every Adobe release brings cool new features, better cross-product integration, and (hopefully) speed improvements that make for an easy transition to your usual work flow.

There wasn’t much chance that Adobe could beat the buzz surrounding last year’s CS3 announcement, since that was the first version of the suite to include applications purchased from Macromedia, like Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash. And, realistically, CS4 isn’t the type of update every designer and her mom will run out and buy right away, but for you antsy early adopters, let’s have a look at some of the features that will get you ready to hit the preorder button…
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Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring, the new novel come graphic design experiment by Zach Plague (aka: Zach Dodson) is equal parts both. It is what you get when a writer, who becomes a graphic designer, is also his own publisher. As with any auteur, his total control means one thing, he can break all the rules. Because no one is there to stop him. So this is what he does. (more…)

Inspired by fellow contributor Chris Costello’s post Paying Your Dues

My career also started humbly and I still think about those experiences every time I interview a young designer. I went to Phoenix for interviews near the end of my senior year. I had researched the top firms I hoped to meet and had sent them all hand-made promo pieces, well-written letters and a great resumé. To my surprise, I got interviews at all but two of my top 15 choices. Not too bad for a guy who didn’t go to a school exactly known for design - nope, not bad at all…or so I thought. (more…)

You asked your legal, copyright, and trademark questions, and Jean has answered! All questions are culled from the comments section attached to the original ‘Ask Jean’ post. We invite you to ask more questions.

Hi Jean,

For the past six years I’ve developed the print design department of a small company. There was just me and the computer doing the creative and production work, and the boss facilitating with infrastructure and a wage. I got tired of the office politics, left that company and started my own. Many customers have come with me. My question is, who owns the customer files? If the old company wants to sell them, is that legal, and what are they worth? This is a small community and a lot of goodwill is at stake here. But I don’t want to sacrifice more than I have to.
Thanks for any help you can provide!
Sue
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In his previous post Dave explained how design is increasingly looked upon as a commodity by corporations.

Good news for right brainers

Whereas the craft of design; creating logos, layouts and Web designs, is becoming as much a property of amateurs as it is professionals, designers need to find new areas of unique value that they can provide their clients. By addressing the areas of complexity, co-creation, context and accountability, designers position themselves to better meet the needs of their clients and the demands of a changing economy.

In 2000 Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan stated that technical know-how would be superseded by “the ability to create, analyze, and transform information and to interact effectively with others.” This idea was echoed in Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind, in which Pink projects that the future economy will be driven by six key “senses” - design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning. For designers with a collaborative spirit and the ability to conduct and synthesize research, this is good news. (more…)

Design is a commodity

A few years back I attended a design management seminar in San Francisco. The seminar was held on a refurbished ferry-boat docked at Pier 3 and featured a notable design speaker. The view of the bay was fantastic, and the information presented at the session was compelling. But as I look back, the most remarkable thing about that seminar was lunch.

I had the good fortune to be seated at the same table as the speaker. Others at the table included business owners and designers from a wide variety of areas, all looking to harness the power of design. Our conversation ran the gamut from design leadership, research, ethnography and our own personal design war stories. I tried to think of an insightful question to ask the speaker, but the best I could come up with was, “So, do you have any designers on your staff?” Jeez, could I have asked a more banal question? But his answer left me speechless. “No.” he responded off-handedly, “Design is a commodity.” (more…)