DSF

Hi Guys,

My question today is about designs and images for sublimation printing and where you get them from. How many of you make your own designs for your blank products? I know there are royalty free images available but they are mostly photographs. I want to know about those of you who make your own designs for things like Christmas, Mothers day etc and if you do are you all graphic designers? Do any of you pay designers for their designs on freelance websites etc?

Obviously many of you get work from people who send photos and companies or teams who send logos etc but you see all these cool designs that many sites offer to print on tshirts, mugs etc and I was just wondering how many of you make your own on CorelDraw, Photoshop etc?

Im not a designer, no doubt I could come up with some basic designs. I could also do an online graphic design course if necessary but I was just wondering how you all go about your business in regards to this.

Do you have to copyright all your own designs and does this cost? There are many people selling vector images on Etsy that they say can be used for printing, is this what some of you do?

I want to start early in the new year and just want to make sure I have as much info at my disposal as I can before i jump in.

Thanks Guys.

I create my own work using Illustrator and photoshop but I am far from a hardcore 'Graphic Designer' I create designs to help the likes of you to get off the ground or help boost an existing business.
It's always good to dedicate some time playing in Photoshop, CorelDraw or even Gimp. Learn the basics. You Tube offer some great tutorials.

Always watermark any images you create and ensure you set out conditions. If you are downloading any images from the internet, make sure they are free for commercial use.

I think it's all about imagination. Come up with something different but keep it simple.

If you create a design entirely yourself then it is automatically your copyright and there are no charges associated with this. Under current legislation you do not even need to use the © (Alt + 0169) symbol if you publish or display your work however if you are illustrating your products online it is highly advisable to in some way disfigure your image just in case someone out there tries to copy it and use it. Watermarking or plain and simple text over the top of the image works just fine but it is a balance between making your design uncopyable (is that a word???) and still attractive enough to viewers to encourage purchases. Keeping your web images low resolution and quite small also helps protect against others using your designs.

If you incorporate someone else's work into your design then it begins to get more complex but does not necessarily mean you do not have copyright especially if you have been asked to include, say, a photo into one of your templates. The template remains your copyright and your ownership whilst the photo remains the copyright of the other person. Confused yet?

It is a good idea to therefore make it clear in t&c's that you retain the right to reproduce anything you have created for third parties so that you can use it for future advertising without having to seek permission to use that photo again some months later.