Ethics Assignment 2

My senior year at the High School of Fashion Industries I got the chance to design a window display paying tribute to infamous contemporary artist Jean Micheal Basquiat. I had full control and freedom of the art direction and design. While creating the window display I wanted to emulate Basquiat’s legacy. In order to do that I created a painted collage of several artworks from his skull collection. My teacher at the time told me its very important to credit the artist even though the piece was for school.

After finishing the window display the finishing part was add a small description of my piece also crediting the specific artworks that I used to create my piece. Giving credit to original artist saves the trouble of being sued and copyright infringement. It is important to ask for permission to use someone else work if provided. Asking for permission and giving credit to original owner of work can result in collaboration. Successful companies do this all the time.

One example is Disney and Sony Pictures collaborated on multiple Spiderman movies to continue Spiderman’s legacy with Marvel. Disney and Sony Pictures created a deal to bring Spiderman and other films to Disney Plus and Hulu. This partnership increases both companies worth individually because both will benefit from the ability to stream films on streaming sites such as Hulu and Disney Plus while also making films accessible to marvel fans. This deal removes any copyright battles and strengthens ethical guidelines.

Given other artist credit is essential. As a designer myself I wouldn’t want anyone to take my work and assign credit to my hard work. There are consequences that come with not crediting artist. There are many instances where credit is not given to original artist. Contemporary artist and founder of OBEY Clothing Shepard Fairey created a poster in 2008 of Barak Obama which became a symbol of the presidential campaign of 2008. However the symbolic and iconic piece of artwork was copyright infringement. According to The New York Times “government prosecutors had argued that Mr. Fairey should serve time for his actions and he faced up to six months in prison.” Fairey used photojournalist Mannie Garcia’s iconic photo of Barak Obama. Fairey’s goal was to put a face to Barak Obama’s presidential candidacy and increase his chances of winning the Democratic nomination and general election. Fairey’s iconic image caused a copyright battle due to lack of crediting to original owner of photo Mannie Garcia. The end result of the case was Fairey on probation and fined. In my opinion and based off of the design ethics artist and designers abide, I agree with the result of the case. As designers and artist we need to understand that there are consequences of taking someone else’s work without crediting or permission. Authorship and crediting is essential. As stated in AIGA’s Business and Design Ethics “When not the sole author of a design, it is incumbent upon a professional designer to clearly identify his or her specific responsibilities or involvement with the design.”