The topic for this week is really interesting to me. The first time that I learned about citation was in high school English class. At that time, I was only 15 years old and I just immigrated here. I didn’t know why I had to cite the article and images but I did it because I want to pass the class. Now, I had a couple years of experience studying in the design field and I started to get why we need to cite the artist/author. After reading the articles, I am more convinced that crediting the author/artist is necessary.
In the past, when I used images online no matter if they are from free stock images or google, I will just use them. Especially a lot of free stock images that do not require attribution. Now, I am very careful when looking for images. I always check if they require attribution before I download the images. Sometimes I will also save the attribution quote in case my instructor wants me to cite the image. Before I cite the articles and images, I always search for the best way to cite them, and I will also use a citation generator to create the citation.
In the case of McCurry, I think it is his freedom to edit his artwork as long as the photograph is not used for journalism articles. Nowaday, even people who do not study design know the basics of editing photos because they want to show the beauty of the world. A lot of social influencers used photoshop or instagram filters before they post the image. If the photos are for journalism purposes, then I think the photojournalist should not add things or subtract things in the images in order to make sure everybody can see the truth.
In the Hope Poster Study case, I think the photographer should be credited because even though the Hope Poster is an appropriation art, the ordinary piece is still an Obama photo that was taken by the photographer. Even though the artist has his own unique style, this famous piece was still built from the original photograph.
After reading the articles from this week’s assignment, I think it’s important to follow design ethics because as a designer, I should express my ideas and thoughts in an appropriate way. During the design process, I should be careful about collecting resources and respect other’s works.
