Professional Practice and Engagement - Week 6

This week is about Design and Ethics..

Free pitching is a predatory pricing. It is the practice that every designer should take responsibilities to other designers. According to AGDA, designers must not knowingly accept a commission to work on the project which there is an existing designer without informing them. If not, it could damage the industry as a whole, no one will respect each other and the others works. The clients might push the budget down and designer's design will be stolen easily.

It is important to have a code of ethics, so it is a 'Fairplay'. Code of ethics intended to provide protection for both designers and clients from unethical business practices and the havoc that can be caused by unwitting ignorance. Most probably, everyone will have less chance to cheat and steal others' ideas.

To be a designer, it is good to know different measures to protect our creative output.

Design registration is when the visual appearance of visual appearance is protect, not the way it works.

A patent protects how an invention works or function.

A trademark identifies the particular goods or services of a trader as distinct from those of others. It protects logos, words letters, number, colors, a phrase, sound, scent, shape, picture, aspect of packaging or any combination of them.

Copyright is when the owner's original expression of ideas is protected but not the ideas themselves. It can protects drawing, art, literature, music, film, broadcast, or computer program.

Copyright protection lasts throughout the life of the creator, plus an extra 70 years from the author or creator's death. While a trademark is initially register for a period of 10 years and continues indefinitely as long as the renewal fees are paid every 10 years.

As a freelance designer, I think the measure that will be most important is a copyright. It can protects all of my idea, such as my logo, website, etc. It is also important to keep track of the process of how we're working as the evidence, in case someone is stealing our ideas, to show to court. Moreover, if I want to sell our design work or work for clients, I might need to register a trademark, a patent, or even the design registration.