If you’re any kind of creative professional, you have two levels of obligation to your clients. One of those levels is your legal obligation, which should be laid out in some kind of written contract or agreement. The second level is an ethical obligation. If your client is savvy, your legal obligation and your ethical obligation should coincide. In most situations, though, this isn’t the case, opening up the opportunity for duplicitous designers to take advantage of less experienced clients.
Last week, I spent some time working on a project with an illustrator. In poking around the backend of the illustrator’s website, I noticed that her online portfolio had been constructed around a fairly generic WordPress theme sold online for $20. A quick glance at the stats over at the theme store revealed over three thousand bloggers had purchased this theme for use. This illustrator prides herself on her attention to detail, so it surprised me that she would feel comfortable using such a common, almost entirely unmodified template.
I brought the matter up with the illustrator. She paid a web designer $1300 to create her online portfolio, operating under the implied understanding that he would provide her with an original design upon which she could base her brand. Legally, however, this understanding was not made clear. The web designer used the illustrator’s naivety to onsell the license to a cheap WordPress theme for well over fifty times the license’s cost. Legally, the designer has purchased the right to sell the design to his client. Ethically, however, the client is not expecting to be resold the license to use somebody else’s design. There’s a disconnect between what is legally allowable, and what is ethically right.
A broad equivalent might be a photographer purchasing a series of stock photographs, presenting those photographs to the editor of a magazine as her own work, and pocketing the difference. Or a student purchasing a piece of writing from an online essay mill and turning that work in to his professor.
I wonder how often these kinds of shenanigans takes place. Unfortunately, the legal burden falls on the client to make their needs as explicit as possible.
The ethical burden, however, falls squarely on the creative professional. If you consider yourself a true craftsperson, and if you value doing damn good work, you should be as open and honest as possible with your client. You should be able to explain your work clearly, without reference to meaningless acronyms or technical language, and you should set your prices fairly, instead of setting rates based on how much you think you can squeeze for the very least possible effort.
If you shirk your ethical obligation and attempt to deceive your client in search of a quick buck, you’re an embarrassment to everybody out there for whom the work is more than merely the means to an end. This isn’t about feeling guilty. It’s about taking pride in who you are and what you do.