The Caretaker
When I first moved into my condo, the caretaker at the time, asked what I did for a living. I told him I was a graphic designer. He had asked me how much I charge for designing a logo. I told him, it all depends on the parameters of the design. But on average, at least $1000 and as much as $10,000. He didn’t flinch, and I never thought of anything else until a few weeks later.
A couple of weeks past by, and I see the caretaker, let’s call him Ivan. Ivan decides to give me four books on logo and ideas design (as the ones shown in the photo). I have no clue why he gave these books to me; he just said that maybe I could use these. Okay, thanks, Ivan. Honestly, I still have them, as soon as I got the books, it went into the bookcase. I don’t think I evened cracked it open!
Another week went by, and Ivan asks me if I was interested in a freelance gig. I said sure, what did he have in mind. Ivan says, “I have a job for you to create 30 logos!” Now, I have to say; my math is pretty bad, but, this time around, my math was tingling, I mean 30 logos x $1000-$10,000, aka $30,000-$300,000 freelance gig. That’s a huge contract! Ivan again asks me how much, and I said the same thing that I told him several weeks ago, $1000-$10,000 depends on the conditions of the agreed contract. Ivan says that’s too much for him. He asks how about $300!?
Art School?
If your thoughts are the same as mine, I had to ask Ivan what was he thinking? $10 a logo? Then, it starts to fall into place. Ivan tells me when he came over from Malaysia to Canada, he couldn’t get a job. His friend worked in a creative agency, and so his friend got him a job there (I wasn’t thinking, but I should have asked him what the name of the creative agency it was). One of his duties was creating logos. I had to ask Ivan, did he go to art school? Of course not, hence the logo books. Remember, when Ivan gave me those logo books. That was his reference. Ivan proudly says, I would look at these logo books for inspiration, and I would take the logos, and tweak it a bit by flipping the artwork around or changing the colour, and I have a finished logo.
Whoa, Ivan, that’s copyrighted. That’s illegal. Ivan pleads the fifth here and tells me otherwise. So, Ivan says to me again, so are you interested in doing the freelance gig. Thanks, Ivan, but no thanks. I’ll grab those logo books for you so you can do the job yourself. Ivan, looks at me in a disbelief look, thinking this was an easy gig and I wasn’t going to take his gig. In the end, I still have those logo books in my bookcase, and it seems he didn’t want the books back. And since Ivan is no longer the caretaker in this building anymore, I have no clue what happened to this great gig he spoke about.
Copyright is serious and costly!
So, what does this say? I didn’t steep low enough to take on a cheesy job that paid me next to nothing (hopefully, no one else did too!). But copyright is a serious business. Look at Katy Perry with Dark Horse, Robin Thicke and Pharell with Blurred Lines. Lawsuits on copyright can cause defendants millions of dollars. Sometimes, even their reputation is on the line. For those who are creating a logo for a business or themselves, don’t take the easy way out, do your research, create an original logo and call it your own.