Mark in Motion I
The following entry merely reflects my own path through the legal jungle. I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice. If you need that, go find someone with a law degree and a billable hour rate.
A “Mark” is the visual identifier of a company. The term comes from “trademark”, highlighting its role as the legally protected sign of identity and representation. As the formation of the company progresses, it is time to set my own Mark in Motion.
First, I set out to design my own Mark. I started sketching, both on paper and on computer, and began drawing out various ideas, just as I would when designing a product. However, very quickly did I come to the conclusion that I lack any artistic talent where Marks are concerned.
Caption: Initial Mark sketches done over the course of a week.
At the end of the day, it is necessary to admit that one person cannot possibly be the best at everything, and even if they are, it may not be worth their time to do so. Because of this, I have decided to outsource the Mark creation.
There are many ways for one to approach this. Since I am still starting out, I reached out to the community around me in search of a designer. I contacted the Graphic Design Club at my school, submitting what is known as a “Design Brief,” the industry standard document given by clients to designers outlining the requirements and styles to the designer. Mine was split into the following sections:
Company Information
Creative Brief
Creative Matrix
Brand Style
Colors
Others
Examples
The typical process for client work like this has 3 main sections. First, the client provides the requirements of the work in the Design Brief. Then, after a specified amount of time, the designer comes back with a few designs to be reviewed. The client then provides feedback, and the designer goes back to make revisions. This process will repeat a predetermined amount of times, after which the designer will turn in the required files in specific formats. There are a few things that need to be worked out in a contract between the client and designer before anything goes down:
How many revisions will be made?
How long does each revision period last?
What are the deliverables?
What are the compensations?
Who owns the work after it is made?
How much confidentiality do you expect the designer to maintain?
There are many minute details that also need to be included in the contract to make it legally safe. This is may seem like an unnessory step if you are still an individual doing small scale business, but having something like this on record will help minimize arguments and disagreements between the client and designer, as well as creating a “copyright trail,” offering security down the line.
Good luck finding your designer, and I hope this entry was able to make your own journey through this process at least a little bit easier! In the meantime, I just have to wait for my designer to come back with revision 1…