Thursday, February 10, 2011
World Choir Games
The World Choir Games are coming to Cincinnati. Vehr Communications is handling all of their press. My former editor at the Enquirer, Michael Perry, now works at Vehr, and is trying to enlist the aid of artists to create a mascot for the games. He's asked me to pass this along. If interested, visit http://cincinnati.com/blogs/wcg2012/contest/
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I had at least 4 friends send me the link to this contest, and initially I was thrilled. I think it’s a great honor for our city to be hosting the Choir Games (especially after an unsuccessful bid for the Olympics). It’s also a plum project for a character designer. I actually worked out 3-4 rough designs before reading the contest rules, and was disheartened to find this:
ReplyDelete"All entries become property of Sponsor and none will be returned. Contestants acknowledge and agree that Sponsor shall have the right to edit, adapt, modify, reproduce, publish, promote, create a sound recording with, broadcast, or otherwise display or use entries in any way it sees fit without limitation or compensation to entrants."
This states pretty emphatically, that you could lose the contest (which is partly determined by a public vote), not be paid a penny, and still have your creations taken away from you and used to sell merchandise at this event or a future event by this same group. As for exposure: Even if you won first prize, there is no guarantee that you’d even see your own work in print. The sponsors claim the right to revise your art to any extant they see fit.
If the promoters pulled the entire award budget, they could probably hire a decent professional artist who would happily do the project at a reduced market rate. The benefit would be this: the artist and the client would form a partnership: they could engage in mutual consultation, share ideas at the brainstorming stage, pore over rough sketches together and generally lay the foundation for a good design before putting a lot of tedious work into a final mark. This is the way professionals work together. Today, crowd-sourcing and contests are the rage, and the fine art of art-direction is going the way of the dodo.
I would "like" your response here Chuck if I had the option.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Oliver.
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to make enemies, but when prices are in the gutter (as they've been for a long time), copyright becomes a HUGE issue.
I LOVE contests too myself. They're so tempting and often just seem fun to do without any real pressure. But often is the case, I think, that statements like this are really the best answer.
ReplyDelete"If the promoters pulled the entire award budget, they could probably hire a decent professional artist who would happily do the project at a reduced market rate"