Today I found another great resource for "Designers Who Hate Contracts" - it's an eBook explaining things like copyright and "work-for-hire" and includes a basic contract sample that you can revise for your own projects.

Thanks crowdSpring for producing this document!

LINK

Labels: contracts, copyright

I have a gig tomorrow that will require me to come up with ideas for product names and then check to see if they are already trademarked or used in the United States. To give myself a head start I've just looked up how to check for pre-registered marks and names.

Step 1) Google it! The more popular results are likely to come up first.

Step 2) Bing it! Or Cluuz it! Or [insert your second favorite search engine here]. Using a second search engine is like getting a second opinion or an alternate point of view that might lead you somewhere you hadn't thought of looking before. I just found Cluuz.com and it's interesting because it's providing me with the type of business a site represents and shows their primary images and logos. This is helpful in this kind of search.

Step 3) Search the U.S. Copyright office here: http://cocatalog.loc.gov If you haven't found anything that is competing with your idea yet you can try searching here. This seems to only turn up articles and written works though. And since not all published works are required to be registered, you still might turn up nothing.

Step 4) Search TESS! (The Trademark Electronic Search System) This will show records of active and inactive trademark registrations and applications.

The purpose of this searching is to find out whether or not you can register your mark/name for a trademark. You’re searching for marks where "if the examining attorney determines that a “likelihood of confusion” exists" there might be a problem.

First you want to see if there is a mark similar to yours and then whether it is used on related products or services that are like yours. Identical marks could be OK if they’re used on completely different products (i.e. a soda and a computer). Be thorough in your search. Your application for a trademark could still be denied if you don’t find exact matches.

Labels: trademark

Auto Tuning from Casey Donahue on Vimeo.

There's nothing better then geeking out with music.

9, coming out on 9-9-9, is something I've been anticipating. Especially the movie site because I figured it would be something along the lines of the awesome Coraline site. But while it has some interesting marketing gimmicks, the site as a whole is leaving a little to be desired. Well let me step back, the ACTUAL SITE is just a section on the FILM IN FOCUS site (Focus Features?). They've done it a little blog/profile page style with some videos and ad space.

The interesting stuff is the "Before the movie takes place" scenario stuff around the Internet. For example, you can "Join the Rebels" on Twitter and you can "Meet the Scientist" on Facebook. I find it interesting that these tactics really haven't changed, they've just changed location. Years ago I signed up to receive updates from the movie LOST SOULS (starring Winona Ryder and Ben Chaplin). At the time those updates came in the form of an e-mail or several from "Maya Larkin" (Winona Ryder's character) telling those of us on the list that the end was near. The Scientist is saying the same thing on his Facebook page. And I kinda want something more since it's all a rehash of the same ol' smart machines take over the world thing.

The "something more" comes from the 9experiment.com site and the "talisman" site. The intention of the former is to be like an exploration of The Scientist's lab ... it feels a bit like I'm playing Myst or BioShock though it's narrated and introduced by Elijah Wood (as himself).

There are a couple of things that take me out of the experience of the site. The first is the poor color contrast on the bottom menu - I can't read the navigation callouts.



Another is the diagrams and things that I'm supposed to interact with but I can't really see clearly. That is IF I'm supposed to be seeing something important at all.

The Scientist's book is full of backstory and thus an interesting read for prior to the movie viewing but little things like this annoy me:



I'm NOT LISTENING!! I'm READING!! Eek!

But other than the pet peevy stuff, there is some interesting propaganda art on the site.





Then we go to the Talisman site. I think the idea is interesting... being "The world is ending so let's make a time capsule of memories" sort of thing. But implemenation is a little odd. All I really seem to be able to do is upload pictures and then comment on them. Then they do that "fun" thing where I zoom into my picture and it is seemingly made up of more of my pictures like a photo mosaic. Ok...... 10 bucks says this Talisman isn't going to be on the web long enough to really be a time capsule anyway.

Plus my internet is lame so every time I get loaders of doom I get annoyed.



The site ambience is good though. I've had it on in the background for an hour or more and it hasn't bugged me once.

Another interesting promotional gimmick is the 9 bar code posters. Apparently if you see these around, download an app for your smart phone (if you've got one) and then "scan" these with your phone camera - you can unlock some video content. This is cool though unfortunately something that proves we Americans are behind the times technologically. In Japan you can scan your phone on a vending machine for a Coke! Let's catch up with that!

Here's some video about that 9 code:



Overall I grade the 9 site (and I'm counting the 9Experiment.com site as THE site) at about a B. Better than many but not as clean as things like Coraline or as immersive as the District 9 experience.

Labels: movie site review

I don't know what I'm doing - I'll be honest. One learns to put stipulations into one's agreements when one gets burned by a client. And then one's list of stipulations becomes longer and longer. I went looking for some sort of standardized design agreement contract and the one I found was on AIGA's site. It's 56 pages long - that's a lot of burn!

For you - here's AIGA's Standard Form of Agreement for Design Services: LINK



Also helpful is this book: Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines (This is the 2007 edition - they're probably due for a new edition soon.) This book contains some general prices you should charge and sample contracts. For more info about the guild and the book click here: LINK

Labels: business license

For further info - turns out you only need an EIN if you have employees. If you're only you working for yourself then you have no need for an EIN.

Labels: business license