wwwwwhhhhhaaaAAAAATTTTTT? @_@
Soooo check this out. As you may recall, yesterday we recsived the printed travel planners. Now I got home and showed a copy of it to my Dad. After a few seconds of flicking through the pages, we both realized something. However, he was the first to say, "Ummm so why is this guy on more than one page?" True enough, the ad with the guy in question was on two different pages. At first glance you may not pay much attention to it, since it was only an ad, but I had put together this planner and I knew for a fact that there was only fupposed to be ONE ad with that guy. This worried me greatly, so I inspected every page. Would you believe that the printes had made duplicates of 2-3 different spreads? This was not good. Why? Because 500 copies of the planner were printed, and if all of them had these gross errors, then we were screwed. Fortunately, the other planners we saw were correct (so it wasn't my fault >_> )but that still means there there are copies floating about out there with the missing duplicates. Fun!
Now, onto more shit. I realize that by working for someone I may not have power over what artwork of mine is chosen. The issue of copyrighting comes into question, yes, but there's also something else I'm worried about; one of the many banes of artists. It's the tampering of one's exquisite work (dumbing it down, so to speak) to please an employer/client. At this job, I punch out gold! GOLD, I say! And then what happens?
(*fictional example, but no less ridiculous*)
Boss: How about we make it pink?
Me: Pink?
Boss: Yeah, pink.
Me: But, it's the sky. The sky is blue.
Boss: Yeeeaaahhh but I like pink. It's so cute!
Me: (o_o)
This is what happened this morning. Months back, I had created a character to be used on our line of clothing. The shirts were intended for tourists and my boss wanted a cute monkey. Fair enough. I twiddled my fingers, said the magic words and BAM! MONKEY A LA CUTE! This morning, however, my boss (Michele) came into the office freaking out. We were in danger of getting SUED! Why? Oh, well because the ICC had a mongoose character for the Cricket World Cup and they did not want to appove my design. What is their mascot? Well, it's an ambiguous-looking 'mongoose' (which may very well be a dog, cat, bear, ) wearing a hawaian shirt and cargo pants. My character is a GREEN MONKEY (homage to my country's species of green monkey) with shades, white vest and orange shorts. Yeah... I see the similarity. I mean, it takes a moron to mistake my design for a fuzzy racoon... sorry, I mean mongoose.
(*accurate event*)
Boss: We can't use it! It looks just like Mello (the mongoose mascot)
Me: Which part?
Boss: Look at the head! It's round!
Me: Wait, what? As opposed to?
Me: And look, our monkey even has ears on the side of his head. Mello has ears there too.
Me: Yeah, I can see that's going to be a problem.
Boss: I'm serious, look at the ears! Monkeys don't have ears!
Me: *about to cry*
Boss: We need to find a cute monkey quick. *searches websites for monkeys* Here we go! He's so cute! Make ours look like that!
Sales Rep.: What the hell is that? That thing's so... unappealing.
Boss: No it's not, it's cute! Right Nicholas?
Me: No, it's fugly as all hell and I refuse to copy anyone's artwork.
Boss: But it's ok. We have permission to use this artwork.
Me: That's beside the point! It's one thing to study someone's work and use it as reference, but it's another story altogether if you want me to scrap every bloody thing I've worked on and make a carbon copy of pre-existing work! How is this any different from tracing Mello the bloody Mongoose?
Boss: Don't take it personally, Nicholas.
Me: It's not a matter of taking it personally or not. It's the principle of the matter. But, you better believe I'm taking this personally. It's a slap in the face, Michele. A blatant insult.
Boss: Well, just make it look cute. But looking like this monkey here. I think it's cute. Don't you?
Me: .......
Sales Rep.: I'm no longer enthusiastic about this. I don't think it's going to sell.
Boss: Nonsense. It's brilliant!
Me: And cute?
Boss: Don't you think so?
Me: I thank God that you're not an artist of any sort and have very little influence, if any at all, over the general public. Now, I'd like some space so I can gett his monkey done.
It's a wonder why I have not been fired as yet. I guess Ronnie's right. I can't sit back and watch people do/say garbage and expect everything to be ok. Soooo I spoke my mind. Wouldn't have been the first time, and probably wont be the last if I continue working at this place. One of these days I'm going to have to post links to the images in question. I'd go on, but I have work to do....
Now, onto more shit. I realize that by working for someone I may not have power over what artwork of mine is chosen. The issue of copyrighting comes into question, yes, but there's also something else I'm worried about; one of the many banes of artists. It's the tampering of one's exquisite work (dumbing it down, so to speak) to please an employer/client. At this job, I punch out gold! GOLD, I say! And then what happens?
(*fictional example, but no less ridiculous*)
Boss: How about we make it pink?
Me: Pink?
Boss: Yeah, pink.
Me: But, it's the sky. The sky is blue.
Boss: Yeeeaaahhh but I like pink. It's so cute!
Me: (o_o)
This is what happened this morning. Months back, I had created a character to be used on our line of clothing. The shirts were intended for tourists and my boss wanted a cute monkey. Fair enough. I twiddled my fingers, said the magic words and BAM! MONKEY A LA CUTE! This morning, however, my boss (Michele) came into the office freaking out. We were in danger of getting SUED! Why? Oh, well because the ICC had a mongoose character for the Cricket World Cup and they did not want to appove my design. What is their mascot? Well, it's an ambiguous-looking 'mongoose' (which may very well be a dog, cat, bear, ) wearing a hawaian shirt and cargo pants. My character is a GREEN MONKEY (homage to my country's species of green monkey) with shades, white vest and orange shorts. Yeah... I see the similarity. I mean, it takes a moron to mistake my design for a fuzzy racoon... sorry, I mean mongoose.
(*accurate event*)
Boss: We can't use it! It looks just like Mello (the mongoose mascot)
Me: Which part?
Boss: Look at the head! It's round!
Me: Wait, what? As opposed to?
Me: And look, our monkey even has ears on the side of his head. Mello has ears there too.
Me: Yeah, I can see that's going to be a problem.
Boss: I'm serious, look at the ears! Monkeys don't have ears!
Me: *about to cry*
Boss: We need to find a cute monkey quick. *searches websites for monkeys* Here we go! He's so cute! Make ours look like that!
Sales Rep.: What the hell is that? That thing's so... unappealing.
Boss: No it's not, it's cute! Right Nicholas?
Me: No, it's fugly as all hell and I refuse to copy anyone's artwork.
Boss: But it's ok. We have permission to use this artwork.
Me: That's beside the point! It's one thing to study someone's work and use it as reference, but it's another story altogether if you want me to scrap every bloody thing I've worked on and make a carbon copy of pre-existing work! How is this any different from tracing Mello the bloody Mongoose?
Boss: Don't take it personally, Nicholas.
Me: It's not a matter of taking it personally or not. It's the principle of the matter. But, you better believe I'm taking this personally. It's a slap in the face, Michele. A blatant insult.
Boss: Well, just make it look cute. But looking like this monkey here. I think it's cute. Don't you?
Me: .......
Sales Rep.: I'm no longer enthusiastic about this. I don't think it's going to sell.
Boss: Nonsense. It's brilliant!
Me: And cute?
Boss: Don't you think so?
Me: I thank God that you're not an artist of any sort and have very little influence, if any at all, over the general public. Now, I'd like some space so I can gett his monkey done.
It's a wonder why I have not been fired as yet. I guess Ronnie's right. I can't sit back and watch people do/say garbage and expect everything to be ok. Soooo I spoke my mind. Wouldn't have been the first time, and probably wont be the last if I continue working at this place. One of these days I'm going to have to post links to the images in question. I'd go on, but I have work to do....