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Restrictions and Usage

As it relates to the Fairey case, my internship site never gave me any restrictions. There were never any physical non-disclosure agreements on confidentiality. My supervisor did however verbally express to me not to disclose any information on company initiatives and designs. A standard confidentiality clause is included in the company signature stamp on all emails.

(Image above is  from copy-edits)

When it comes to sourcing of images, I took it upon myself to make sure that all images were labeled for re-use with modifications. I also told other designers to do the same. The company does not have any brand guidelines other than saying that the brand colors are gold, white and black. When it comes to articles written, all references are submitted to me then submitted to my supervisor after edits and comments. My eyes never hurt so much looking at articles.

Going back to my own work, I realized that I rarely used other stock photography. When I first began as a student, I was not aware of all these copyright issues. I did use a lot of photography from other people. I quickly corrected when I realized I got upset whenever I would see other students clearly plagirizing their creative work. It’s one thing to steal inspiration from others, but it is another to completely rip them off without credit. Since then, I tried my best to take my own imagery. Even when I don’t use my own images, I use images that are license free and then I manipulate them.

OP-ED ON SHEPARD FAIREY CASE

Have you ever heard the following names Mannie Garcia, George Clooney, Barack Obama and Shepherd Fairey listed in conjunction with one another? If so, why and when? One picture would cause these names to be inserted in a massive legal dilemma that would last for years. The main reason would be for an image of then President Elect Barack Obama.

Shepard Fairey is an artist that created the famous hope poster photograph for Obama’s presidential campaign. Fairey’s work is very distinctive in its aesthetics. If you’ve ever heard of the brand OBEY and the name Ernesto “Che” Guevara, then you should know what I mean. So, what was this big legal dilemma?

The original picture used was from another photographer employed by the Associated Press at the time named Mannie Garcia. Although the final outcome was a drastically different manipulated image, it sparked a legal investigation where Fairey was accused of copyright infringement. Fairy claimed fair use.He used what he thought was a cropped-out image of George Clooney and Barack Obama. Another bases for the lawsuit was the topic of copyright of expression.

Fairey ended up conceding after a long legal battle and massive cover ups that could have very well been avoided if not for neglect. The lawsuit was settled between Fairey and the AP. He now has to share a portion of revenue from his photo and all artwork related in sale.

If Fairey just looked over all his legal documents more clearly, he would have caught his mistake in time. His primary intentions weren’t deceitful or done with malice. His work was in-fact drastically different from the original and did not come from a watermark image. Fairy did make this case to the court by noting that there was a substantial amount of alteration and manipulation on his work that constituted that portion of fair use.

I only agree with Fairey due to the fact that one of AP’s main argument was the copyright use of expression. There’s no way that facial expression can be copyrighted. If Fairey’s legal team hammered that point more effectively and if Fairey himself did not engage in cover up, then I believe he would’ve won his case. He should not have forged any documents or shred any of the evidence. Those acts alone were criminal enough. I believe it would have ended up as a dismissal or at least him not having to do community service hours. If you take into consideration the amount of criminals charged with everything from burglary to murder getting off on technicalities alone, then why wouldn’t it be safe to assume that Fairey could’ve beaten the charges altogether.

 

UX DESIGN

This week’s virtual event was on UX design, hosted by General Assembly and presented by javian Colderon. It was certainly not a boring presentation at all. It dived into the concept of what Ux design was and who it benefited. There was also a lot of audience interaction by way of chat.

 

The first question of the event was whether or not coding skills were required to be a UX designer. This is a wildly exaggerated misconception. The answer is surprisingly no. You do not have to know code to be a UX designer. As a matter of fact, not knowing code makes you a better UX designer.

What is it then? UX is short for User Experience. This is not to be confused with User Interface. User Interface deals with the overall look while User Experience focuses on experience. That was really redundant. UX design is more about goal achievement and ease of accessibility. Ux design is about problem solving. I coined the expression virtual custer service. You are essentially figuring out a problem (pain point) for which a user experiences and trying to create a solution (pleasure point). That it is not so different from the concept of graphic design and advertising.

 

Who can be a Ux designer? Everyone in life is essentially designing their own user experience in terms of their everyday actions. How do you wake up in the morning and how do you drink your coffee? If you broke down the steps, you’d already figured out that you already are a UX designer. Long story short, UX design can be applied to any field and that s great to know if you want to switch into a new career path. Whether you are a psychologist, artist, teacher or an accountant, there is always a road for you in UX design. The great thing about is that you don’t have to attend a brick and mortar institution. To me at least, the greatest institution there is YOUTube. We all have that at least.

 

Virtual Exhibit

During the virtual gallery walk through there were many pieces of artwork that I found interesting. I know I was asked to pick one but there were two pieces that I found interesting. One piece was titled “The Huxley Guide To Switzerland” by  Christopher Winter. The people in the picture to me feel like their free falling down to their death. Others might say that they look like they were hovering in the air. It can be interpreted any way. I enjoyed the many shades of blue and the mountain landscapes.

The piece does have Switzerland in the title so I would imagine the blues also represent cold. This piece also has kind of a stoic and minimal tone but very complex at the same time.

Spark Brooklyn by The Freelancers Union

I recently attended a webinar held by The Freelancers Union by Spark.
The Freelancers Union is an organization dedicated to entrepreneurs and the self employed which include creatives . The Freelancers Union Spark group regularly host monthly events at their location in Brooklyn, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic everything
is done through webinar.

April’s Spark event was entitled “Website/Social Media Critiques”. Even though this webinar was geared for primarily web and social media people, it was very beneficial to other creatives. It talked about the following.

• Website portfolio critiques
• Social Media critiques
• Top website builders
• Personal Branding

 

The speaker for the night gave examples of building your brand.  How do you brand yourself and the debate over specialization or generalization. Do you put everything in your portfolio or concentrate on what you’re good at? I learned a lot from this webinar.
Now that I am a member of The Freelancers Union I plan on taking advantage of the many benefits they have to offer.

AWMOMS’ Spotlight on AdvertisingWeek360

I watched a series of video articles on the website called advertisingweek360 which highlights an organization called AWMOMS. AWMOMS is a group of you guessed it “moms” that’s supported by Advertising Week. Without repeating what obviously can be read on the site bio, I’ll just say that they’re a group of strong creative women who are moms working in the field in different ways. The whole purpose of the series of testimonials and interviews was to highlight the many different experiences that these moms face inside the board rooms. 

Jillian Goger, one of the featured moms in the video recounts the way she was treated when she was pregnant at her company. To paraphrase her statement she said even when her employer was trying to boost her up it still felt like a put down. Even when the culture  around pregnant woman and moms in the workforce have evolved there is still a long way to go when it comes to corporate etiquette and compassion.

Another mom featured was Karina Vasquez. She said that she was always conflicted with the term “mom guilt”. She still hates the term because it implied that she couldn’t be an effective mom and a successful worker at the same time. Surprisingly enough this sentiment wasn’t just limited to men. It was shocking to find that only when certain women themselves became moms that they understood the struggles that their female colleagues dealt with.

App Review

I took a look at  the Trello app. What is Trello ? Trello is a mobile/web app that allows you to list task and to do list. It helps companies and individuals keep track of assignments, appointments and basic communication needs. It uses a web based list style system. It is considered one of the more popular project tracker apps.

It has a free version (mine), and two more tier payment systems. Being that I was introduced to it during the pandemic, I didn’t have funds to buy into the paid versions.
I dabbled in it for a day or two but quickly lost interest. This was not solely because I didn’t like it, but more for the fact that there was no one to interact with on the platform. Plus I didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t exchange files like I could using dropbox and mega.nz.

It is pretty simple to use. I found everything from the sign up to the actual creation of this dancing shark to be pleasant. I guess If I did have chance to use it in a more ideal time I would. The only drawback for me was the fact that I couldn’t even upload any documents to send through their site.

Another one of these apps is called Coast. This is what I use for my internship site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The good thing about the Coast  mobile app is that it pretty much acts like a regular text exchange chain. I found it very useful for tracking deadlines and relaying messages. It does however make it difficult to say you didn’t get the memo because everyone can see the memo. It’s very easy to set up and send invites either by text or email. Its available for both android and iPhone. You can’t email files with this but you can send and receive images, videos and links. I would definitely recommend this app to use. It has a very clean layout. There’s not a lot of clutter. Everything is clearly laid out in terms of classification of pages, task assignments and the ability to check off.