Web Design - copyright advice

[SpringerWebsiteDesign]

Hi Guys,

My cousin has asked me to create a site for her mobile hairdressing business. She has asked me to basically do a design based on her business card that Vista Print designed for her.
This is the first time anyone has ever asked me to design a site on a card normally I am sent a logo and told to do something nice, and a brief with colours etc...
I have advised her to check with vista print regarding use of the graphic they used on the left hand side - what is the chance of them saying this is ok to use? it is basically a bit of clip art with swirls but she loves it and wants it on the site I normally supply all bits like that and i know i am licensed to use them using a scanned in image just doesn't seem right.
What are your thoughts any chance Vista Print will send the image???

Mike.

 

[cmcp]

You should assume Vista Print will be authorised to use the image, but you are not.

If I were you I'd advise her to have a similar logo drawn up from scratch, then she'll have it in all formats to use as she pleases provided she owns the copyright form the designer.

 

[DesignerNick]

Does she have many cards left? It may be easier for you to do the site from scratch and then designing her some business cards

 

[SpringerWebsiteDesign]

Does she have many cards left? It may be easier for you to do the site from scratch and then designing her some business cards

Those were my thoughts - to be honest the cards look very out of date but she likes them - I think I will try and come up with some designs and send them over and let her decide - what she wants to do.
I am not charging for this work as she is family and needs some help to get some more business - so it doesn't bother me how much time it takes she knows I am doing the work at weekends/evenings.

Mike.

 

[thecyclingartist]

Ditto on designing something similar - a swirl is fairly easy. Plus, if she's already ordered from vistaprint then she'll no doubt get emails nearly daily for free offers for the 250 premium business cards. Which means for about £3 she can just upload her new image herself and get the cards free + postage. If you designed the whole card graphic as one thing (including text) that saves her trying to work out how to layout the bits in Vista.

Tina.

 

[TickledPink]

Don't copy the images or layout exactly. Everything written down, whether it be a website or business card carries copyright.

4 years ago, not long after I'd completed a Law degree, I did a couple of months' work at a small web design company and they were churning out websites that looked IDENTICAL to existing websites simply because their clients were asking for them. No thought or knowledge of copyright law existed in that business.

A couple of years ago a friend (another web designer) also hit a problem because he didn't understand copyright law and took an image from a web site, to put on a client's site, that had actually originated from one of the large online photo libraries. So his client got a letter demanding payment for the photo.

Under copyright law, derived works also carry their own copyright, even if they breach an existing copyright ... but it doesn't stop the original copyright owner from getting funny about it and suing.

Something many people miss as well is that even layout carries copyright. But there's only so much you can do on a page, especially on something as small as a business card. So unless it is an exact copy of the whole layout and imagery, I don't think Vistaprint would be too fussed ... but then again, how are they going to find out?

 

[luke3310]

If you have photoshop or a similar program, couldn't you replicate the graphic using slightly different colour sizes, etc. Just use it as a guide.

 

[JEdge]

If you don't copy any of the images exactly you should be fine, however going from experience VistaPrint are not nice designs anyway, so just make your own and it will be unique.

~Jack

 

[SpringerWebsiteDesign]

Cheers guys.

I advised her to either get approval from Vista Print and get her to send some high quality images or let me come up with a new design different to the existing one. She just told me to come up with a different design.

Mike