Yesterday, I received in the mail an event advertisement from a rather large youth ministry organization. On the cover, I recognized a tutorial from PSDTUTS.com. You might think, “Oh, that’s nice.” However, there were several aspects of the work that made me angry; and I’ll list them for you.
- The entire design was copied from the tutorial (background, the main elements, and even a little of the color scheme).
- The designer did nothing to improve upon the tutorial design nor did they do anything to make it original.
- They didn’t even take the time to execute the tutorial effects with excellence!
Now, understand that I don’t have a problem with using tutorial-inspired effects. I often use them myself. But the goal of a tutorial is teach a skill or how to accomplish a look, not to give you a design. Designers, be fair to tutorial writers and don’t steal their designs for you to make a quick profit. Give your client what they deserve: your own product!
Ambert Rodriguez
September 8, 2008
Right on my friend! Lets be the inspiration, not be the thieves.
Jeremy Anderson
September 8, 2008
I think the bigger problem here is that the church notoriously underpays their staff and has likely either a) hired a very junior designer or office staff to do this piece and that person may be at the limit of their ability by just copying this tutorial for their use; and b) very few churches these days have the budget for anything more. Fewer than 10% of church members actually tithe at 10% which leaves little for “excellence” that you speak of. I think the bigger value rather than being “angry” at “several aspects of the work” would be to provide easy to use templates that require little modification so that the untrained can produce excellence with their limited skill set. A little compassion in our voice for those who are at least doing something with that skill set would also be awesome.
Rachel Hill
September 8, 2008
I would have to second Jeremy on this one here, unless, that is, you know that this was a larger church that had actually hired someone marketing themselves as a church media designer. I for one, am handling all of the media at our small church, and have managed to carve out a position for myself with a very meager salary for the Los Angeles area. (we can only afford for me to work at the church because my husband makes more than twice what I do). I have learned almost all of my skills in video editing, photoshop, illustrator, and everything else creative from online tutorials… to which I shout out a huge thank you to the internet. I would not call this stealing, because perhaps this was the actual youth minister doing his very best to learn a new skill that had little to do with his profession, but being able to market his events is a very real need, and so he may have just done his best to rise to the occasion. I do, however, believe that someone marketing themselves as a church media designer, especially a freelance one, should not copy tutorials outright, but should at the very least be building upon what he learned. For myself, however, I do know that my very first project in illustrator was very similar to the one I learned from a tutorial. Seeing as I’m not marketing the work as my own as a freelance designer, and seeing as the tutorial was given away for free, I think that this is a fair way for a beginner to begin to build their skills. If I needed to create everything from scratch, I would never had gotten started in design… I’m just not that good yet.
Jaci Askew
September 8, 2008
I think regardless of budget, creativity is always necessary. And FREE! Everyone needs inspiration, but copying is flat out lazy.
James Polits
September 8, 2008
Jeremy and Rachel,
You do make a very good point. I would agree that we should be providing resources for fellow Christians and churches to use. In fact, there are a few sites like CreativeMYK.com that try and provide such resources.
And I do want to point out that I completely understand having little-to-no budget and individuals working with what they have. It’s a great starting point. However, the “large youth ministry organization” that inspired the article has sent promotional pieces with this copied artwork on it to tens of thousands of churches nationwide.
john keese
September 8, 2008
all great points. i’ve been in churches where there was no budget (or thought) towards a designer. but we’re making headway.
a different problem though on the same thread: stealing ideas. as i grew up going to church camps, i was always frustrated when the theme was a blatant rip off of the latest movie. for example, recently transformers came out and every church camp’s theme was “transform your life” or something like that. k, so maybe piggy backing off a theme or phrase isn’t so bad. but then, on the tshirts were the tranformer logo with a cross thrown in or something.
anyone else catch my drift or am i out in left bench?
Shawn Wood
September 8, 2008
James, I agree that if this was a proffessional designer who was paid they probably should have given a better effort, but your post also just concerns me a little.
Church designers. I love you. I am a friend. I come in peace, but as a friend someone has to say this, “what is our goal?”. Is our goal to create designs, only use original “inspiration” and keep everything under some lock and key and use words like “steal” and “thieves” when people use our designs. Is our goal to have fresh, hip and relevant designs that bring fame to us as designers? Or is it to reach people for Christ.
I see a trend in the church designer circles that quite frankly concerns me. What I see wreaks of elitism and is “designer” centered not church vision centered.
I agree with Jeremy that our goal as skilled designers should be to find compassion for those less skilled and have the same attitude as Rick Warren when he said, “If my bullet fits your gun – shoot”.
What if church designers had a open policy and said anything I design and have been paid to do is open game – it’s yours – your not stealing it because I am giving it to you? What if every church – especially those with influence and budgets to have designers decided that they would rather have influence than profit?
James warns us that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. I just pray that with our added influence in the church that we are not becoming a little proud…
I truly love artists and hope that we can continue to be generous with the talents God has given us.
Jeremy Sexton
September 8, 2008
I wholly agree with Shawn.
How many people got that mailer and went “Oh, this was on PSDTuts”? Probably like 8. To everyone else, it was just a design. Most probably didn’t even glance at the particulars of the design, just registered that it wasn’t clip art.
As far as church designers go, I love it when people rip me off. It’s always interesting and there’s something flattering about knowing people think your stuff is good enough that they want to use it too.
I love the other trend I’m seeing in church media of giving everything away. We do it at NCC, LifeChurch does it waaaaay better than us and I know many others that will give you all their stuff for free. Why make the body of Christ pay twice?
michael buckingham
September 8, 2008
Honestly I’m amazed that we have no problems paying pastors big salaries, but expect designers to give it all away free.
I love ya Shawn, but if I followed your suggestion of giving it all away…I’d be broke.
What happened to paying a worker his wage worth? Does that only apply to someone with pastor before their name?
I don’t understand why the church is okay being known as cheap and not generous. I don’t see how this type of thinking shows appreciation to the artist.
I think there are times and places for pro bono work…but I don’t think we’ll see true excellence in our communications if we continue to simply regurgitate the same stuff over and over. That’s cookie cutter, and it’s fine for marking a task complete…but not sufficient for true excellence.
I’ve also seen many of the churches with “limited to no budget” funny how that doesn’t seem to apply to the new church van, the sound system, the beautiful landscaping, etc.
Granted, for the church that really has no budget…let’s help them out. But it’s not just those churches that are looking for the handout.
Morgan Stone
September 8, 2008
‘Guess everyone has to stop doing anything Applesque. Can’t use reflections on rounded rectangles. I’m problaby not being fair, but truthfully I believe it’s hard to define the line where copying stops and the real originality begins. I like to think of it as being inspired
Carrie
September 8, 2008
I think there’s a pretty big difference from being inspired and ripping off a tutorial. This topic is often brought up in the CML on flickr, and I guess there will always be those who don’t see a problem with stealing artwork, and those who find it frustrating to see hours of their hard work being used by someone who merely clicked a button and called it “theirs”.
Morgan Stone
September 8, 2008
I thought we were talking about tutorials?
I do see a problem with people downloading someone else’s work.
Keith
September 8, 2008
Here’s the thing, at least they are trying! That’s right, I may have offered the weakest rebuttal to your post as of yet. But consider the amount of Churches and organizations for Christ who don’t reach out, at all, ever.
As long as they are preaching Christ, let them use a PS lesson!
http://www.impactevangelism.org
Keith
September 8, 2008
Here’s the thing, at least they are trying! That’s right, I may have offered the weakest rebuttal to your post as of yet. But consider the amount of Churches and organizations for Christ who don’t reach out, at all, ever.
As long as they are preaching Christ, let them use a PS lesson!
http://www.impactevangelism.org
myles
September 8, 2008
bro…there’s probably better things to get angry about.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin
September 8, 2008
Actually… I agree with Shawn.
I’ve been on both sides of the table. [all sides, actually. Volunteer designer for a church, independent freelancer, paid staff at a church, leader of a communications firm.] Sometimes with a budget, sometimes without
We’ve had other creatives borrow inspiration from us on a regular basis and are happy to keep priming the pump. I think it was even Picasso who said something about all new ideas are borrowed from somewhere. The point is to learn from others, improve upon them [when possible] and give credit when credit is due.
[That doesn’t mean it’s okay to knowingly take a design/idea/concept/whatever, and CHARGE someone for work you didn’t create, of course.]
I think it’s fantastic that Seacoast, NCC, LifeChurch & others are able to give away their ideas, but also realize that model isn’t possible for everyone. As for us, if another church models work we did because it fits their needs [and budget] more power to them. We’d give it all away if we could.
But yes, quality work can come with a price tag & our team can’t pay their Visa bills with our good will. But in the end I think it’s more about getting the job done [and done well] & less about some of the other stuff we all can get caught up in.
[feel free to send any nasty emails headed my way to dnicole[at]aspireone[dot]com]
Shawn Wood
September 8, 2008
Michael,
I think you should be paid for your work – absolutely. And I think that you should be paid well. The market and the quality of the work will decide what that wage will be.
Seacoast often uses freelancers, however, when Seacoast works with an artist, either on staff or freelance, we stipulate that the design belongs to Seacoast and in that we want to give it away to other churches that could never afford to be able to have the design done.
I also love companies like Igniter who have decided to use the power of bulk to drop prices on great video design to very reasonable costs.
We believe that at that point the designer has been paid his/her wage fairly. I am not suggesting that an artist should work for free, I hope you know that – I am a fan of artists and frequently use outsource artists and pay them their fair wage. I am however suggesting that anyone who wants to use my sermons that Seacoast has very fairly paid me to preach in any way that would be honoring to God – please use them! There are churches that just can not afford to pay artists the amount per hour that a skilled designer would charge for a flier…so if they see something you or another artist did and they do their best to copy it in MS publisher what I am suggesting is applaud that – and even better shoot’em a Jpeg of the design.
Every artist has to make this call herself. I am just concerned as a Pastor who loves artists that their is a pursuit of excellence that has become idol worship and a perception of elitism that has become pride. I did a talk on the excellence Myth at the ECHO conference that speaks a little more to this…
I know this is all way off the subject of tutorials, but I was in a mood to scrap today :)
I Heart Designers…btw
Shawn
Shawn Wood
September 8, 2008
Sorry one more.
Jaci, copying is not always lazy, sometimes its just working smarter and not harder.
In November Seacoast will be doing a series called “How to be Rich” that Lifechurch.tv copied from Northpoint and now we are copying from Lifechurch.tv…we are using their design elements and using some of Craig’s points and thoughts…it was a great series for the people of Northpoint, a great series for the people of lifechurch.tv and now will be a great series for the people of Seacoast…I think that’s good use of God’s resources…not laziness.
Nolan
September 8, 2008
I actually have seen that postcard and said the exact same thing.
First thing that came to mind was “Oh I hope the designer didn’t get paid for that”. It was definitely a carbon copy of the tutorial with a text edit.
On another note, as a freelance designer I do believe that designers that create designs for a church are often taken advantage of. You would never see the same rationale for getting quality work for such a low price or even free with a plumber, electrician, sound engineer, or even the gardener.
It would be weird to hear a conversation like “Oh since you already fixed our sink do you mind also doing it for my friends church. We already paid you for ours and its the same exact work so it shouldn’t be that hard right?” ;)
I wonder if Paul gave away his tents when he was bi-vocational.
Jeremy Scheller
September 8, 2008
I’ve been a designer for 10+ years. Some days, I’m really good. Some days, I suck. Some days, when you throw in the mix that I also run communications and technology for our church, I don’t have time to worry about “original work.” I need something fast and off to print for the weekend.
When I’m working my day job at the church, I currently have no problem whatsoever with solving problems with the lowest common denominator, if it effectively solves the problem at hand. It’s a necessity.
Back in the day, when I was first getting going, if I had completed that tutorial, I would have jumped for joy with giggles and goosebumps and I would have used whatever product came out of it.
When I work for the church, my job is to “get it done.” When I work for my clients after hours, I’m getting paid for “original work.” That’s the deal. They pay for that. And if it’s not right the first time, they pay a little more to get it right the second time. And for every extra piece we produce for them, it’s going to cost something. I would probably have a totally different perspective if my job at the church was billed by the hour, but it’s not. It’s billed by you get paid this amount and you need to produce x outcomes. And nobody suggested that everything I do has to be “original.” Maybe we’ll get there. Maybe there will be an ethos change. Maybe we’ll one day have enough well paid staff to make that a reality.
Do I wish I could crank out new and original designs for everything that comes across my desk? Sure.
Is that a reality? Maybe if there were two or three of me to do my job.
I think there needs to be some discussion of Return on Investment. If I do something for the church that is effective and produces results and you can use it in your neighborhood way over there, than I say do it. Get results. The church becomes self-righteous when it starts to believe in Our Work, for Our Church, for Our People…
There’s only one church, and we should figure out how to break down the walls between the resources.
Jaci Askew
September 9, 2008
Shawn,
I think we’re talking about two different things here. I said it was lazy to copy a design. I don’t think it’s lazy to gain inspiration from others designs and make it your own. It’s not lazy to use an entire sermon series or event series that you are allowed to use that is a resource from another ministry.I think it’s a bit unoriginal, yes, but if you were given permission to use an entire series that has already been developed well, then that’s a whole different story.
Jeremy,
For me, it’s not about the church being self-righteous. It’s simply ethics and originality. If a church is giving away their resources, then fine, use em. But if a church just thinks it’s alright to use someone’s design simply because they feel entitled, then that’s not cool.
Jeremy Scheller
September 9, 2008
Jaci.
Right. Totally agree with that.
Josh Lee
September 10, 2008
Great article and right on about stealing. Winners stay, Posers walk.
Drew
September 11, 2008
Are we comparing these…?
1. Tutorial Design
2. Other Design
I don’t agree that it is a complete rip-off. They used there own images and used the effects from the tutorial plus added a few more elements. I can’t say I love the design but I’ve seen worse thievery.
The_Truth_is_out_there
September 21, 2008
Adults with imaginary friends are just silly!
Also with the belief that EVERY SPECIES on the planet was within walking distance from Noahs house – think about it.
David
November 21, 2008
I love this site. Finally someone speaking truth about the use of communication inside of the church. Problem #1 Stealing images, graphics, designs. #2 Not even an attempt to be original. Lets use the visual puns of the world and make a spin of it. And please do not call them metaphors, or analogies. #3 The church seems to love to use everyone but the professional.
Being inspired is one thing, copying something is stealing sheep. So to all you non-designing, non-qualified designers, stop your plagerism. How can we call ourselves Christians if even in the details were are dishonest in our work.
Benjamin Stewart
December 4, 2008
I love the conversation going on – but I have to second (or 20th) the comments from the top. I know in my life under different churches and ministries there have been few times that we had an art department (or one that could meet the needs of department). In those cases I had to learn how to do my own graphic designs, and while I would say that I can pretty much rock it now – at the time I sucked. I was really poor at it actually. And there were a few occasions that I needed something that would punch better than I could, and I would learn a tutorial and due to time limitation I would not “make it my own”. At the time it would take me hours to complete when I didnt have hours to complete. In ministry many of us have about 12-200 hats that we wear.
So those are my thoughts…
Except the stealing – I am not kewl with that at all
Jean
January 26, 2009
How about stealing a website? I’m thinking that Journey Church in Raleigh, NC http://www.takeajourney.org/home copied Northpoint Community Church http://www.northpoint.org/ home page. What do you guys think? Is this taking the sincerest form of flattery too far?
Lebo
September 29, 2009
Dude, are you a friend to Job? you nag like a dripping tap. let people get better at what they do. Have a break and take a kit-kat. read a bible or something. have a nice day ‘mr Nag’