Asked+Answered: September 2008 Archives

Gray Areas (To Be Sure)

Gray Areas (To Be Sure)

A reader asked:

I would love to hear comments on what to do when an illustrator takes an art director's creative concept and uses it in another publication.

Recently, I hired an illustrator. Gave him a clear concept of what we wanted executed. The illustrator did the work (not deviating from this concept) but we decided to kill the illustration because it wasn't meeting our needs aesthetically. Paid the illustrator in full. We ended up with a more graphic interpretation that we did in-house. The illustrator took our concept and his illustrations that he did for us and sold them to a competing publication (that came out the same week as ours).

Although the artwork was property of the illustrator, it was our creative concept.... What do you do in this situation? Seems like a gray area.

Our thoughts...
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