posted August 24, 2003 11:31 PM
Ok, here's a whacky idea, what if "we" could assemble our own clip art CD from submissions by individuals on this board, much like the Songpainter music project? I know I have a hand full of shapes, symbols and doo-dads that I use all the time - things I personally created and can vouch for their originality. Is there any interest, and who would be willing to participate?
Here's a small example of the kind of stuff I mean:
SONGPAINTER Original Sign Music by Sign People NOW AVAILABLE on CD and the proceeds go to Letterville's favorite charity! Click Here for Sound Clips! Posts: 1974 | From: Orleans, MA, Cape Cod, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted August 25, 2003 12:34 AM
It sounds REALLY neat.
But I'm about as good at vectorizing as I am at performing brain surgery, still, it sounds neat.
-------------------- James Donahue Donahue Sign Arts 1851 E. Union Valley Rd. Seymour TN. (865) 577-3365 brushman@nxs.net
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for lunch, Benjamin Franklin Posts: 2057 | From: 1033 W. Union Valley Rd. | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted August 25, 2003 01:39 AM
I think it's a great idea. Would it be jpeg's or vector art - or maybe a combo platter? I have lots of time-savers to contribute in both formats, as I'm sure most of us do. This has the potential of being the most relevant collection available to sign people.
-------------------- www.signcreations.net Sonny Franks Lilburn, GA 770-923-9933 Posts: 4117 | From: Lilburn, GA USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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posted August 25, 2003 06:51 AM
Joe, I think it is a great idea. I got a lot of positive response from my post of about 6 months ago. I created a vault.......... Vault .......... on my own domain, where you can download the files of your choice. I have a couple of samples in it. (eps, cdr, ai). A CD might even be better, but you would have to be updating it all the time. With the personal vaults, we just need a place to put our links, with descriptions and maybe thumbs.
[ August 25, 2003, 06:53 AM: Message edited by: Jack Davis ]
-------------------- "Don't change horses in midstream, unless you spot one with longer legs" bronzeo oti Jack Davis 1410 Main St Joplin, MO 64801 www.imagemakerart.com jack@imagemakerart.com Posts: 1549 | From: Joplin, MO | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted August 25, 2003 10:33 AM
Hey Jack, I missed your vault announcement - I just downloaded the Corel "headphones" file and that is exactly what I'm talking about, very well drawn, but just as importantly, very well vectorized, a clean, small file with minimal nodes that will cut well. Good job.
Sonny, I am thinking VECTOR art. Bitmaps could always be generated from the vector art, but we all know the difficulty of creating those vectors - whether it is from scratch or a sketch or a photo - creating and cleaning up those paths is where we all lose it.
If there's enough interest, (make that 'participation'), some of the issues I can envision needing clarification is foremost, the blessing of Letterville to proceed and help facilitate the project; a review/approval process for the submissions; an authenticity or originality voucher so there can be no challenges of infringement; identifying the steps involved and organizing volunteers to take them on; how production costs will be handled; file size, format or content rectrictions; ???. I'm sure there are others.
SONGPAINTER Original Sign Music by Sign People NOW AVAILABLE on CD and the proceeds go to Letterville's favorite charity! Click Here for Sound Clips! Posts: 1974 | From: Orleans, MA, Cape Cod, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted August 25, 2003 11:54 AM
It sounds pretty cool to me, I'd be very interested in contributing.
-------------------- Terry Baird Baird Signs 3484 West Lake Rd. Canandaigua, NY 14424 Posts: 790 | From: Canandaigua, New York | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted August 25, 2003 12:32 PM
Joe, Here is the link to my past post. You might be surprised of the comments, as well as support. Add them to survey if you choose. I have a lot more pieces to display myself. I'm sure you can get the job done, and you can count on my help if you need it.
[ August 25, 2003, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: Jack Davis ]
-------------------- "Don't change horses in midstream, unless you spot one with longer legs" bronzeo oti Jack Davis 1410 Main St Joplin, MO 64801 www.imagemakerart.com jack@imagemakerart.com Posts: 1549 | From: Joplin, MO | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted August 25, 2003 05:42 PM
Not sure if any of my stuff would be good enough for the CD, but I'd definitely buy that CD if it came out! The stuff I see on here is always cool. I've gotten lots of ideas from you people whether you wanted me to or not!
-------------------- Glenn S. Harris
....back in the sign trade full time. Posts: 293 | From: Baton Rouge, LA, USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted August 25, 2003 06:26 PM
The only thing I have a problem with is that you just know it's all going to end up on some other cd being sold on e-bay. Once you make your artwork public, it's gone.
I'd like to somehow keep this in Letterville. I liked Jack's original idea, but it seems like a lot of work creating and upkeeping it.
posted August 25, 2003 06:35 PM
The answer could be making them only downloadable to paid up residents here. It would need its own password that would change once a year (to encourage re-upping).
posted August 25, 2003 06:41 PM
I was thinking that too, Don. Except Joe isn't a resident, and he brought the idea back up. Hint, hint.
Now thinking as I type, how is this any different from the vault that is already available to residents? I suppose, anyone that wants to could send Steve and Barb more goodies to put in it for the residents.
posted August 25, 2003 07:06 PM
Well, I've seen enough already to know there is a good idea here - so good that Jack already trotted this out back in January, where Steve and many others indicated support for the general concept.
I think the reason it had a brief life back then is uncertainty over whether to make it downloadable or CD. If it's available for downloading, is that for members only or visitors too, and who's going to host and maintain it? If CD, is it a proprietary project or commercially published? But I think the biggest reason it died back then is no one took charge and pushed for it. Let the details would work themselves out, but get STARTED.
If this is going to happen, I say guidelines have to be established fairly quick and somebody has to agree to start accepting the submissions. I didn't intend to volunteer for the job but I will if it gets the ball rolling. Here's what I propose;
*Black and White vector files only. *Clean and cuttable to the best of your ability. *Small file sizes limited to 100k. *EPS format with no embedded bitmaps or fonts. *Absolutely, positively must be art you personally created. *Designs fall into one of following categories: People, Vehicles, Plants, Animals, Panels & Posts, or Embelishments.
Don't send anything yet, but that's one way to break the ice. When Steve gets back from FKAB I'm sure he will pipe in with some input.
SONGPAINTER Original Sign Music by Sign People NOW AVAILABLE on CD and the proceeds go to Letterville's favorite charity! Click Here for Sound Clips! Posts: 1974 | From: Orleans, MA, Cape Cod, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted August 25, 2003 07:42 PM
Coming out of the printing trade. I have ALWAYS kept and add to a "mourge" box. These are printed linear art from magazines,newspapers,flyers,brochures,cereal boxes comic books,etc.etc.etc. When needed,I will scan,print,trace the nessasary parts with a SCRIPIE. Re-scan,cut the (rough) out of black vinyl,trim or clean up with exacto knife. Re-scan,set size and GO WITH IT! After ALL this reworking,at least a 10% change has occured which is all that is required to by pass copyright infringements.
BUT....that is just me
-------------------- PKing is Pat King The Professor of SIGNOLOGY Posts: 3113 | From: Pompano Beach, FL. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted August 26, 2003 03:28 AM
If it's produced as a CD, there would be no maintenance issues on the web, and subsequent volumes of the series could be completed if the first batch sells. Maybe the contributors could get a copy at cost, Letterville residents could get one at a discount, and the rest of Letterville at regular price. It might leak out eventually, but the initial debut would hopefully keep it among the ever-scrupulous members of Letterville.
-------------------- www.signcreations.net Sonny Franks Lilburn, GA 770-923-9933 Posts: 4117 | From: Lilburn, GA USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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posted August 27, 2003 02:30 AM
Happy to help too!
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7017 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted August 27, 2003 01:57 PM
Good response. This can happen if we want it to. I have to go out of town till next Wednesday. When I get back I'll be in a position to start accepting emailed submissions if that looks like a good way to proceed. I'll check back on this thread then to see what's happened.
SONGPAINTER Original Sign Music by Sign People NOW AVAILABLE on CD and the proceeds go to Letterville's favorite charity! Click Here for Sound Clips! Posts: 1974 | From: Orleans, MA, Cape Cod, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted August 27, 2003 02:23 PM
I dont have ALOT to contribute but im definitely surely interested in getting involved somehow, and I agree it should be on a CD made readily available to paid up residents at a deep discount compared to the general public so to speak, I think if nothing elses the fees will cover the expense of making the CD's and maybe can be used to enhance the letterhead movement
-------------------- Harris Kohen K-Man Pinstriping and Graphix Trenton, NJ "Showing the world that even I can strategically place the pigment where its got to go." Posts: 1739 | From: Trenton, NJ, USA | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted August 29, 2003 02:01 PM
I apoligize for taking so long to answer this post. The last few days have been very busy. It seems like everytime I start a post, we get called away on another "emergency."
This idea has been kicked around for ages. From our point of view, a couple concerns always put the brakes on proceeding.
The first is the risk of copyright violation. We would never knowingly violate any laws, but how do you really know? Letterville exists on a shoe string budget. There is no way I am ever going to risk the possibility of a foolish lawsuit destroying what so many have worked so hard to create. That's the first challenge.
Our other concern is financing and administrating this new venture. Letterville has grown into a monster website requiring over 2 gig just in storage space. With the increase in meet coverage, and photo hosting for Residents, Letterville is gobbling up server space like it was free. It isn't.
Bandwidth is another issue. The more you use, the more you pay. Letterville requires a huge use of bandwidth. We've held off announcing some features like the Letterville DriveIn, out of our fears of bandwidth costs. There are lots of exciting new technologies out there, but they all come at a cost.
Something else you have to consider. Letterville is not your usual 9-5 job. It's a 24/7 occupation that never stops. There's email to answer, tons of phone calls, a nonstop parade of photos to be formatted and put online. Did I mention monitoring this BB and trying to make a regular appearance on chat? If there is spare time left, it's spent looking for new Residents or Merchants.
We're not complaining, but the prospect of taking on additional work is not exciting. Hiring employees to ease the workload is just not an option financially.
Our greatest failure has been attracting Residents. We don't know the answer, but here are the cold hard facts. There are 3900 shops that have registered to post on this BB. Thousands use the website on regular basis, but less than 300 feel it is valuable enough to invest in financially by becoming a Resident.
We can debate the reasons for this situation until the cows come home, but in the end it's our own lack of understanding our users needs and/or poor marketing skills. Our research indicates that even the smallest sign mags have a paid subscriber base of 3,000. Compare that to our 300 Residents and there is no denying we have some serious work to do.
-------------------- Steve Shortreed 144 Hill St., E. Fergus, Ontario Canada N1M 1G9 519-787-2673
posted August 29, 2003 02:22 PM
Steve, As far as Letterville's liabilities are concerned,,,,this is the reason I lobbied the private vault idea. It would pretty much be up to us on an individual level to supply to the "public" whatever we wanted to do. Much like visiting our personal webpages.......
I wished that it could become a valuable asset to your efforts, but maybe its not worth it. It might at least attract more people to stay in the area and participate. Whatever offerings I make to friends in the future will be on a personal level, as well as advice given or taken. It will not hold letterville, its own owners, or its participants, liable for anything.
Joe, Maybe this is the way it has to be...Perhaps we can create these private libraries, from which we could publish a list once in a while. A lot of people could participate that way. See ya all after Labor Day. Jack..
[ September 01, 2003, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: Jack Davis ]
-------------------- "Don't change horses in midstream, unless you spot one with longer legs" bronzeo oti Jack Davis 1410 Main St Joplin, MO 64801 www.imagemakerart.com jack@imagemakerart.com Posts: 1549 | From: Joplin, MO | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted August 29, 2003 02:38 PM
Steve, I don't understand why more people don't become residents. I get $50 worth of advice, laughter, and the monthly draws are nice too to make it worthwhile. I will continue to support regardless. Thanks for everything.
posted August 29, 2003 02:49 PM
Just my 2¢ worth and I'm not trying to get anyone upset with me. Just want to present a different perspective.
I make signs and I make vinyl-ready clipart. I also occasionally sell fonts.
I'm not a merchant here. I have often considered it and then I see yet another post looking for this image or that font followed by another post in two minutes saying "check your email". I never see anyone being told that isn't very nice and is an insult to all artist's rights and to the paying merchants who offer their work to Letterville residents and visitors.
The simple fact is that some of you ..... enough of you ..... have little or no respect for intellectual property rights except when they're your own.
The 5% / 10% change rule is a myth. If you rework a published work that is protected by copyright, you have only created a derivative work and all rights remain with the original artist.
A guy walked in my shop the other day and asked if I was interested in buying some clipart. I said show me what you've got. He proceeded to show me a compilation of Vector Art™, my Plotter Art™ Originals and OCA's various work. He bought it from a guy in Daytona Beach who has since disappeared. I can buy my own work from ten different sources on e-Bay and they multiply so fast that there's never any getting to the original thief.
Your goals might be much better served by:
1. Collectively bargain for a better price on published work from developers who insure all releases are original.
2. Open a discussion to have your own submissions reviewed and published by a legitimate publisher. Holmes and Cottrell (Vector Art™) has done very well by a number of sign artists over the years.
That way you can do what you do best and not have to learn a whole new business.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted August 29, 2003 05:03 PM
I don't know if this is of interest to you or not, but after reading Steve's post about limited server space, maint. time, and cost, it might be an option to consider. We would be open to discussing the possibilities of publishing this collection for you. Of course everyone that contributed art to the collection would not be charged. We could actually market the CD if there is an interest, with a percentage going to Letterville. This would definitely help offset the costs of the board operations, membership fees and meets. We deal with copyright and trademark issues all the time so we would be able to deal with those issues in a legal manner. Anyway just something for you to kick around.
-------------------- Kyle Crawford Director of Sales and Marketing OCA Enterprises www.onlineclipart.com Posts: 2 | From: Scottsdale, Az. | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted August 29, 2003 06:45 PM
The last time this idea came up I offered to publish the stuff for the Letterheads, and I repeat that offer here, as long as the material is all "original" so that the artists can claim copyright.
Appoint someone to represent the Letterhead's interest and get in touch. We will bundle it into Mega Collection II which is due for publication early in 2004. We have sold about 12,000 of the first Mega Collection so far, and have every reason to expect Mega II to do even better.
-------------------- Andrew Holmes Vector Art Inc Pacific Grove, CA 93950
posted August 30, 2003 03:18 AM
I’ve got some really nice designs from a Sign DNA CD that I could donate.
Just kidding with ya Dave. Don’t blow a gasket. LOL – You really surprised me with your phone call Monday. Was good hearing from you.
At first glance a Letterville image CD sounds great. Just imagine. All those great designs by all the great letterhead artist on a CD or at location for you to down load. Anyone could submit any image and get the CD or down load for FREE or at a discount. Now I’m an upbeat and positive person but I would not touch this project with a ten-foot pole. Many artists spent a many hours designing designs and many more hours of labor getting them into .eps, .ai, ect. format. A lot of time went into getting each node or point just right.
Don’t only think of what this project might bring to you, think of what some people will submit. - And some people will submit other people’s designs/files.
Some people will make slight changes or no changes at all and will submit it in seconds that took the original artist hours to create. It is invariable that some of the designs will be missed by whoever takes on a project of this magnitude.
I personally have many CD’s by Mike Jackson, Dave Butler, Mr. “J’s” Xcaliber, Dave Simpson, SIGNWarehouse, Art Schilling, OCA, and Vector Art Mega Collection just to name a few. If your work is that good, put together your own CD and market it yourself. Otherwise, Leave it to the professionals who know what they are doing.
All of the really nice stuff (finished works) that I have done over the years uses some image(s) or parts of images from the CD’s mentioned above. Being so, I would not have anything to submit. However, I sincerely thank the above for their great work and their labor of love.
Just my thoughts, John Weber
-------------------- John Weber 3863 Buckskin Rd. NE Carlos, MN 56319 800-853-7051
posted September 01, 2003 02:23 AM
John, I have a few nice ORIGINAL sign shapes, doodads, and squigglies. Not enough to publish a CD though. I use the collections you mentioned, but I can easily discern which is mine and would not submit someone else's work.
I think this collection could be phenomenal and obviously OCA and VectorArt agree. Thanks for jumping in and offering to publish it.
-------------------- www.signcreations.net Sonny Franks Lilburn, GA 770-923-9933 Posts: 4117 | From: Lilburn, GA USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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I think that after visiting this site on a regular basis since back in 96, where Mike Jackson took part alot more, and had a banner on the old BB advertising his cd's, the clipart question and sharing thereof has been flogged to death. So compared to many other sites, this one tries really hard to respect copyright, and artistic merit. You actually see very little "check your mail" its mainly pointers to vendors or websites where help can be asked for or bought.
Those that do share do it out of a misguided opinion that they are helping, with what is not theres to help with, however good the intention.
Compared to Kazaa.com or e-bay where anything seems to go, unchecked, we are talking about a few signmakers sharing afew bits of their own artwork, the responsibility should be on what you supply rather than those compiling?
I think what people were after, was a way for us to share our creations amongst each other, in an easy and uncomplicated fashion. I think a vault that is continually updated, or just somewhere where people can easily ftp files, would be great, nice to see the offers of help in creating CD's by OCA, Vector etc, but maybe that loses the spontaneity of I just drew this and upload it to a common link, as and when it occurs.
If sufficient amounts were available a CD then being sold with percentages going to Letterville would also help out.
posted September 01, 2003 11:02 AM
Henry, I understand your point of view and largely agree with it. Particularly the part about good intentions.
The simple reality though is that most individuals involved in the various graphic arts are not involved enough in intellectual property issues to understand when a line has been crossed. And, to be sure, the majority never even become involved at all. A sizeable minority do however with the occasional sharing of a file ..... after all what's the harm?
Lot's of things become acceptable when one has to get a job completed.
We recently published a second volume of clipart where we licensed portfolios from some artists and developers we had come in contact with. One person, sent 750 images. The majority of them were outrageously good and had excellent commercial appeal as well. They weren't vinyl-ready, however, and our job was to clean them up so that they were.
Then we noticed a familiar image, then another. We even found some that were derivitive works from another licensor's portfolio. So we questioned him about it.
He responded that any of them that were derivitives had been changed at least 5% so that they were now his to use or license as he saw fit.
We asked him to review his portfolio and make a list of the derivitive work. About 25% had to be dropped.
I've spoken with and corresponded with this person enough to feel that he is not a dishonest individual. He simply did not have a clear understanding of where the boundries are in these matters.
The image pirates selling collections on ebay are another matter. To those here reading this post, and who have purchased one or more of these collections, take this as a notice that, in the name of saving money, you are trampling on the rights and livlihoods of the artists who did the work.
To those who come to Letterville asking for an image or a font ..... often because you don't have enough money in the job to cover the cost of art or font acquisition ..... you should reexamine how you got yourself in that position.
To those who respond with "check your email" .... you need to reexamine your ethics.
To those who say nothing everytime it happens .... you're the problem.
Sorry for the rambling and pontificating. It's just a sore point with me.
More on topic, the problem with such a collection, however good intentioned it may be, is that some derivitive work will find its way into it. That creates a potential liability which it's doubtful any of the participants will be likely to accept. By bringing in a third party to publish and market the images, you shift that burden to them. That is why I suggested it.
Creating a private vault for file sharing, again, no matter how good the intentions, is just a way of flying beneath the radar so that no one ever has to deal with what work ends up there which should not have.
-------------------- Fred Weiss Allied Computer Graphics, Inc. 4620 Lake Worth Road Lake Worth, FL 33463 561 649-6300 allcompu@allcompu.com Posts: 427 | From: Lake Worth, Florida | Registered: Feb 2003
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