I gave up the files and ...

[C F Majors]

The long story made shorter is that a 30+ year contracted  work relationship ended after the retirement of the executive director and the hiring of a new director. 

The new executive director said at the outset that she had no experience in editing design or publishing. She was not interested in process or learning any more about process after the first week. I had a good working relationship with the new managing editor, who had not had much experience in production / publishing either. But there is a clear lack of understanding of the design/publishing process in the organization now. 

After multiple months of rush, then rewrites, revisions, alterations etc, I submitted the final proof for final approval. I submitted a cover design based on a common vision with the editor. 

The next day the ex director asked for me to pack up my files to send to a new designer. She wanted something fresh and new for her first release. 

I gave them the files rather than fight with them. I was "stick a fork in me, I'm done" done. I reminded the editor that I expected full credit for the artwork and charts and graphs I had created. 

These reports have extremely complicated tables and charts. For the graphs I either extract from excel and restyle in illustrator, or replot in illustrator. One story had 11 that were thrown out in a rewrite. I even wrote an excel formula to extract data for a series of charts. That's how far out we were at sea. (See process issues.) 

I had decided in December this would be my last job with them because of the process problems. I pointed them toward finding a digital publishing solution since they had less interest in the quality or process and more interest in color and gloss. I avoided entanglement as best i could. It was a hard spot to be in and I decided to get out as quickly and gracefully as possible and move on. 

Well -- the issue came out last Friday. The new designer firm takes full credit for the graphic design. And, they used my layout. 

It looks like they bumped the page size, and they changed the fonts to sans serif. Added a few break quotes, designed a new banner and cover. But the body is 90% what I turned over. I know the layout intimately since I made the decisions about photos and placement and typeset the tables, recreated all the charts. I had over 100 hours in this, and was affirmed and approved for what I did up until that day. (It also reflected the agreement we had to do one last issue in the same style since this was the third in a series). Conveniently forgotten on the last day.  

So, aside from the kick in the teeth, there's this issue of my work being reused without proper credit. What are my options in a case like this?  

I was willing to accept certain  financial losses in exchange for peace of mind at that point in time. But this is different. 

I know I should have fought back about the files. Lesson learned. But what about the infringement? 

Best, Carol 

[Michael Brady]

Carol wrote:

> So, aside from the kick in the teeth, there's this issue of my work being reused without proper credit. What are my options in a case like this?

Walk away with dignity.

The client badly misused you, and the new design firm is just sitting there saying, “What? I’m just the piano player here.” Come to think of it, I expect that the designer thinks that it’s the client’s basic design and, since they are now the design firm, they have the go-ahead to go ahead without any acknowledgment to you or anyone else.

Nest of worms. Don’t trouble yourself. Knock the dust from your sandals and walk away.


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Michael Brady

[C F Majors]

And in the end -- maybe they will learn lessons. Thanks Michael.

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[Andrew Brown]

On 28 avr. 2015, at 04:27, C F Majors <cfma...@gmail.com> wrote:

> And in the end -- maybe they will learn lessons. Thanks Michael.

May I second Michael’s sound advice? The French have a term for people like your client — goujat — and the general opinion is that they are impervious to lessons. They are not, unfortunately, in short supply.

The dustbin of history being already full, consign them to your local dump.

AB

[Heather White]

Hindsight being 20/20… I would have asked for full compensation of time invested before giving up my editable files.

 

PDF, yeah, maybe they can have it and they can recreate everything.

 

I was in the role of taking over a publication once, and the previous designer told my client he deleted all the files. Yeah, I don’t think that’s true… but I never got them, that’s for sure.

 

Sorry for this. Sometimes it’s just not the right match – you probably couldn’t have done anything to make this work out in the end. It just happens this way.

 

-heather

 

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[William Adams]

On Apr 28, 2015, at 7:55 PM, Heather White wrote:

> Hindsight being 20/20… I would have asked for full compensation of time invested before giving up my editable files.

Did the files include scripts and workflow documentation?

In particular, was the formula mentioned provided in an Excel worksheet?

On Apr 27, 2015, at 10:01 PM, C F Majors wrote:

> I even wrote an excel formula to extract data for a series of charts.

Customers can have and are welcome to our pages, stylesheets and templates --- the scripts and know-how to make them work efficiently, that's a different line item.

William

--
William Adams
senior graphic designer
Fry Communications
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

[Evans, Rebecca]

Sadly, with all the new staff at the ex-client, they won’t have a clue how much expertise they walked away from (their readers will notice a difference, though). Managers often act as if it doesn’t matter who is working at a job as long as they are minimally competent. If the everything falls to pieces, they don’t care because they’re always looking for their next job anyway, and it will be someone else’s mess to clean up.

Rebecca

[C F Majors]

I thank you for the support and reflections on this unfortunate experience. It's hard to lose a long term relationship this way. We were a team and they do need to build their own. 

I have reminded them that all artwork, graphics and photographs require proper attribution, which they can fix on the online version. The photographer credits were diminished too. I reminded them that the photographer's CDs refer back to prior permissions for specific assignments and are not simply "stock photos."

I take with me 32 years of their institutional memory. And that, folks, is that. 

Thanks for the reality checks. This gave me a way to sort out my options. 

Best, 

Carol

[Bevi Chagnon]

You never know what can happen down the road with this client.

In similar situations, we’ve had clients come back to us realizing that their new designer(s) didn’t have the skills to produce their publication as efficiently as we could.

 

So stand your ground and don’t let anything go out the door without payment, but also don’t burn your bridges with the client, either. Directors come and go, and it seems that we designers are a dime-a-dozen.

 

Our studio policy: we always turn over the source files (but not scripts, documentation, user manuals, etc.) because they are the property of our clients per our contracts. But only after full payment, which also is in our contract.

 

I also keep in touch with the client through our normal channels, advertising, e-newsletter, and direct mail, but also call them about once a year to let them know the new services we’re doing. This keeps us communicating with them.

 

It’s always painful when this happens, but you will survive.

 

--Bevi Chagnon

[Bret Perry]

So sad, but sometimes they come back next year better-behaved(!)

We usually charge a rather large fee to give up source files or anything other than PDFs --Especially when they fire us and we're glad to be rid of them.

If we quit them, or if we hope to get them back, we might make them pay only for Stock photos. (at $300 each from Getty with insurance and client as licensee).

We don't send them fonts, they have to buy those themselves.

We have a few clients who want source files every time for their archives -- that gets added to their contract and it ain't cheap.

 

Bret Perry
Application Specialist/Studio Client Manager

ph 626-463-9365
fax 626-449-2201
bpe...@russreid.com

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