Do you own a company? Does your company have a logo, a website, a brochure, business cards, letterheads etc.? Where are those original files now? Do you know who to ask should you decide you want to embark on a marketing campaign?
We’re currently reconstructing a customer’s corporate brochure because the designer of which “can’t find” the originals. Now we have to scan in the document (11 pages including a gold foil print on the cover page), re-type it, extract all the images where we can, clean them up and make them ready for their website.
This is not the cheapest exercise, and if I were the client, I’d probably bill the original designer what we charge him.
The quality of the images will never be as good as the originals for print, but luckily for him this is a web exercise and the printers seem to have retained the original litho plates. If he wants to make changes however… well, there he has another problem… and expense!
Are your digital assets in safe hands? If not, I recommend getting ahold of them as soon as possible and making some good solid backups and put them in your safe.
Don’t allow your assets to be held ransom
Another concern in this industry is the type of designer/firm that chooses to retain the original files in the vain belief that they can hold them ransom for a fee, or keep the client this way for future design/print work.
I personally believe this to be underhanded, and we never retain these materials due to the fact that we prefer to retain clients based on the value we provide, both in the form of service, skill and the return they get on their investing their money in proper solutions.
Check the fine print. If your service provider wants to claim full copyright and only hand over the finished product and none of the raw Photoshop files, then either find out what he/she wants in exchange for that ownership, or find another service provider. Simple as that.
Perhaps this will spark some debate amongst designers that disagree with me, but please keep it friendly, and lets discuss things nicely, even if you want to banish me to the depths of hell for this post. Remember, the comments are moderated.
I’m a software/web developer and have on a number of occasions “reverse engineered” brochures, logo’s, letterheads and other items because either the originals were lost or because the fee the original designer wanted for the items was too high. Depending on the work I can understand charging a small fee, but charging 5-10 times what the original work cost so that you can get the original files is a bit much.
I’ve re-traced a bad jpeg of a logo so many times so that I could scale it bigger or smaller its silly. Or taken a PDF apart so that I could get the photo’s of a product because the originals were unavailable. Worst is flash stuff, I’ve on a number of occasions de-compiled flash files so that I could get images/text out for sites or other things.
I strongly disagree. Basically what clients’ paying is the rights or licence of using its design under specific outlines from the contract. Say, this brochure design cannot be reused for other purposes. It is a good point that you did pointed out about claiming the full copyright under the held ransom part. That’s it, by law, who produced the design, who owns the copyright.
Also never given out the original editable source of its file. Sure most of people today owns a copy of Microsoft Words, maybe try call them and ask them to send you their original source file of its program. I seriously doubt they will even sell it to you even if you try to buy it from them.
You are actually breaking the law by decompiling the Flash files there Dale. Buying the original source is rare and uncommon these days, and majority of designers are also unwilling to sell it to their clients too. Why should they? When you buy a cheese burger from McDonnell can you also ask them the recipes or when buying a BMW, can you also ask them to provide the detailled blue prints as well? This is professional creative services. I am sure not many designers would like to see their hard works being played around by some amateurs, it would looked bad on your portfolio too, do not forget.
Hi Sam, you do make a point.
However… if you look at it from a client’s point of view. The person paying you to do the work sometimes moves on. This can be a very fickle industry and people come and go. Some go overseas, others go into another line and the person who suffers is the client.
Also, I think your comparison to an automobile is not quite apples with apples. When you buy a car, it has been designed, tested and constructed long before you put your money on the table. More often than not, a website or most other form of design is solicited and without that request, the site/brochure/logo would never have been made in the first place.
I for one claim no copyright over my client’s work, and have no qualms with handing over the PSD files when the project is complete and they have paid. I don’t give them my copy of Photoshop however, so if they don’t have the tools to manipulate it, thats not my concern.
What do you want with your client’s designs anyway? Aside from holding them ransom, what are you going to do with designs you did for someone else? Using them on your own work or work for other client’s would be very unethical, and therefore they sit in your vault or get deleted.
Hardly in the client’s best interests… wouldn’t you say?
Your other point about some amateur messing with your designs is another problem I see often in this industry. You need to let your ego go on this aspect to survive. The client is paying you to create something and they pay for it, and they can do whatever they please with it after that, as long as all due remuneration is settled. If they bugger it up (often a subjective statement) thats their prerogative.
Coming back to your automobile analogy, if you bought a BMW and you wanted to fit after market mags and respray it… could BMW throw their toys out the cot and demand some form of remuneration for your “buggering up their design” ?
Another thing to think about Sam is that your examples are mass produced products, what Ross is referring to is a one of a kind design created specifically for one person or company. If I commissioned Picasso to create a painting for me I sure as hell would want the original painting, not a print.
If you’re upfront offering say a hosted web app, I can understand not giving out the source files, but to hang on to something like a printed brochure or photograph you’re just going to hurt your own business.
I can see both sides of the fence on this one. I offer PSD files to my clients when a project is finished, and the thinking is that they are paying me to create something, so they should get what I create. But if you think about it, when you buy a painting you don’t ask the artist for the paints and brushes.
Granted, the difference here is that a website will change over time, and a painting is meant to be static. But that aside, the same basic principles apply, and I think it’s really up to the designer. Regardless of who you are making something for, you are still making it, so it’s yours as far as I’m concerned.
Bob, I think it’s very difficult to accurately compare 2 industries directly.
When you mentiion the paints and brushes, the direct comparison would be Photoshop itself, not the layered composition that you produce in it. In the painting world, there is no “layered composition” because the final piece is the final piece.
The way I see it is that you’re welcome to charge for the layered PSD as a separate cost, but in the long run, you’re likely doing yourself a disservice, since a majority of your competition (and I’m talking high.. high end designers) are not even charging for this.
Retain clients on quality of work, quality of service, speed of delivery and market related pricing… not by holding their editable artwork ransom. Very quick way to getting a bad rep.