Resources
AIGA has released a series of brochures outlining the critical ethical and professional issues encountered by designers and their clients. The series, entitled “Design Business and Ethics”, examines the key concerns a designer faces in maintaining a successful practice and speaks directly to the protection of individual rights.
Client’s guide to design: How to Get the Most Out of the Process |
Business and ethical expectations for professional designers: This brochure describes what it means for a client to work with a professional designer. |
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Use of fonts |
Fonts are creative, intellectual property, similar to designers’ creative work or a proprietary business product. Since type seems so ubiquitous and fonts are so easy to share among computer users, the legal and moral issues of the simple process of using a font are often overlooked. |
Use of software |
Just as design is a designer’s creative property, computer software is intellectual property that is owned by the people who created it. Without the express permission of the manufacturer or publisher, it is illegal to use software no matter how you got it. That permission almost always takes the form of a license from the publisher, which accompanies authorized copies of software. |
Use of photography |
This brochure reviews the options available to designers, considerations in contracting for the rights for use of photographic images and the means of using photography while fully respecting the intellectual property rights of the photographer. |
