Lorraine M. Fleck - March 9, 2012 - Copywrite lawyer

Lorraine M. Fleck
Copywrite Lawyer

Hoffer Adler LLP - Barristers & Solicitors - Trade-Mark Agents

Canadian Copyright Law: A Primer

1.What is copyright?

• Copyright is the exclusive right to reproduce original content and stop others from reproduction that content
• Copyright in the U.S & Canada are drastically different

2. What does it protect?

• Original, literary, dramatical, musical and artistic works    -Literary includes:books, pamphlets, magazines, plays, scripts
• Audible music with or without works
• Paintings photos, map;s, charts, plans, photos, engravings, sculpture, crafts and architectural works such as buildings, sculptures and models

3. How is copyright created?

• The original work is created by a Canadian citizen or citizen of a Berne Convention country
• The work must come into physical existence, copyright does not exist on ideas
• If the work is published, the work is published in Canada or Berne Convention country
• No need to register of mark - if you want to sue for copyright infringement need to have the mark, but you don't need it

4. How long does copyright exist?

• Depends on the type of work and whether there are joint authors
• Most works = life of the author + rest of the calendar year in which the author died+50 years
• Joint authors = term lasts to the end of the 50th year of the last author dies
• Unknown author = lesser of the end of the 50th year after publication or 75 years after the work was made

5. Who owns the copyright?

• Photograph - the first person who owns the negative of the photo
• Employees - employers are the first owner of the works created for the employer by the employee
• If your contract states that all creative works made outside of work, even if non-employer equipment is used, the work still belongs to them

6. Who can use copyright materials?

• The owner - ownership can be transferred by must be in writing. The ownership transfer agreement usually is called an "assignment"
• Copyright ownership transfers always have to be in writing - doesn't have to be notarized in Canada
• "Assignment" is technical legal term for ownership transfer
• Anyone who has permission "license" the terms of the licenses dictate that the licensee can do under the license. The fee paid under license to the copyright owner "liscensor"is a "royalty"
• Liscensor (person that owns the right) licensee (person who has permission) 

7. What is copyright infringement?

• The making of an unauthorized copy
• There must be a substantial portion of the material copied - no hard and fast rule about this, but if you want to take just a snippet of a photo you might be okay - but if its the snippet with the entire essence of the photo you are probably infringing
• 1 Primary - a copy is made without permission
• 2. Secondary  the sale, rental or distribution of content of materials 

8. Are there exceptions to copyright infringement?

• Yes but under specific circumstances
•     Major categories "Fair dealing":
•     1. Research/Private study
•     2. Criticism/Review - i.e. movie review/critique,
•     3. News Reporting - must state who the author of the material is

• While not limited to private or non-commercial contexts, not very useful for advertisers, no advertising specific exception.
• Parody is NOT currently an exception in Canada 

Moral Rights -What are they?

• The authors right to:
• 1. Retain the integrity of the work, cant be cropped or mutilated, destroyed
• 1. Not have her/his work distorted
• 3. Have his/her name associated or not with the work, i.e. Banksy can enforce his work only to be associated as "Banksy"
• Activities must be shown to be to the detriment of author's honour/reputation
• Eaton Center got sued by Michael Snow because of the red ribbons they put on the Michael snow geese because it was infringing on his moral rights
• Read the story here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_v._The_Eaton_Centre_Ltd.

 

Alexander Yougner - Febrary 24th 2012 - Design Lab

ALEXANDER YOUNGER
President and Founder at Design Lab

ABOUT ALEXANDER
Alexander's LinkedIn Profile
ay@designlab.net - email is the best way to contact

• Alexander has a history in fine arts and philosophy and economics education
• Started Design Lab about 20 years ago when the "web" wasn't really around
• Is a pilot - how cool is that?

ABOUT DESIGN LAB
designlab.net

• The company has changed a lot since it has opened because the business is constantly evolving
• The mobile market is hot and keeps growing - over 1.45 million devices are activated each day - that's more phones being activated than babies being born!
• Mobile apps have exceeded web apps in just under a year so Design Lab is doing a lot of mobile work now
• Design Lab encourages it's employees to go to conferences and to further their education
• Their employees average on about 5-6 years at the company
• The company is comprised of only about 20 people
• "Design Lab is about great design - not only from an aesthetic point of view, but also - and more importantly - we are about designing power strategies, solutions and technologies that support beautiful work. Our work has helped boost the bottom line for clients across many industries from banking to fashion retailing to aviation and beyond. " Excerpt from the Design Lab Website

BEST MOBILE PRACTICES

• Steven Krug is a big influence in all their work strategy and some of their guidelines are as follows:

1. Establish business goals - know your audience
2. Keep it simple
3. Get inspired
4. Go Social
5. Remember the Rankings
6. Measure -  The things that work are as important as those that don't

• Think about Angry Birds - what do you think their key business goals were? How do you turn a freebie into money? How do you make people actually want to buy it - want to buy the additional level. Then you build a phenomenon around the game and you can start selling t-shirts, birds and other deals like that.
• When you build an app its about everything around the app
• The key thing for angry birds was they thought about how can they sell it into the market after

THINGS USERS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO THINK ABOUT

1. Scroll bars and what they can select
2. Advanced functionality should be easy to find - short cuts should be OBVIOUS and so easy - people aren't as intuitive as you think
3. Labels - keep  them clear and consistent - you can never underestimate how important it is -if something works don't change it, standards are there for a reason
4. Icons should be obvious , not cryptic
5. Scrolling vs. Multiple pages
6. Usability - test it - one of the first place clients will try and cut the budget - this is critical to have customer feed back when building for the web

THOUGHTS ON AUGMENTED REALITY

• Creates a real wow factor - has to be on brand though

RESPONSIVE DESIGN

• In the mobile world its a nice thing
• Communicates with browser to say how big the window is so it re sizes and repositions
•  Refer back to Best practice #6 - Measure! - the things that work are as important as those that don't - things are always changing, things have to evolve
•  Some good examples of sites that use responsive design:
• www.barackobama.com
• foodsense.is
• smashingmagazine.com

DESIGN TIPS

• For mobile design - not controlling as much of the experience as you would like to - assuming that nobody wants to be using this interface - get them in and out - make it easy - you just want to know
• Look for ways to embed ads - most likely to buy into things if they are not banner ads but integrated

CASE STUDY
The Beer Store

• Alexander got a phone call about 2 years ago saying they wanted to talk to them about an app -First they had to look at their business strategy
• In theory they did not have a big enough market to have a successful app
• So they re-did the beer store website - kept it nice and simple - they needed a new site to begin with, so they started at basics
• The beer store mobile page they make it look like an app to make them happy - the president even referred to it as a mobile app and got in trouble with the press
• The downside is that it does not show everything all at once like the actual website
• But the mobile site actually represents about 33% of the traffic online

Now they have 3 options about how to approach building an app

1. They don't build the app - not reasonable
2. They create an app that skins the mobile website - not a great idea because why would buy something that's already free and will piss of customers
3. Build a full app - the key will be community and strong relationship with customers - to encourage sampling 

• This is in the process of being built now - "The Beer Passport" to encourage sampling - community building - store and beer finder  - its simple, single focus

BEST PRACTICES

GET INSPIRED

• Know what the competition is up to - get out there and s whats going on, download a ton of stuff
• Be on top of new innovations - make sure that your not duplicating someone else's work - sometimes you can ask the designer of the app they will sell you the code for certain functionality
• Good example of a mobile site is Epicurious, very clear buttons and easy navigation
• Remember the rankings - rankings are extremely important for apps - great apps get free promo
• Go social - invite users to write their feedback and ideas- make it personal

ADVICE

1. The best companies are looking for the best portfolio - make it simple and clean
2. Have a great attitude - folks with the great attitudes inspire you to go hire
3. Research the company and your interviewer
4. Ask lots of questions - challenge the interviewer - ask the questions about what kind of company they are - make sure you show your interesting and interested - ask how are you going to grow here - companies that want you to grow are the ones you want to be at
5. Push back, do the testing and research if you want to build something that will deliver results
6. Don't settle - life is short
7. Go with your heart
8. Remember to just have fun!

David Gray - Febrary 16 2012

David Gray
Digital Sales Producer at CTV News & Entertainment at Bell Media Interactive


ABOUT DAVID
David's LinkedIn Profile
ctv.ca

• Graduated from an illustration program at St. Lawrence
• 07' Class of the New Media Design program at Sheridan
• Started his media design career as an interactive designer
• Became known as the "banner guy", because he really enjoyed creating and developing banner ads in mostly Flash, he got to do something different everyday, and loved it
• He has worked for Publicis Modem Toronto for 3 years as an interactive designer, then moved onto being a production manager/Producer for online advertising at the same company for just under a year. Then the next year went over to Digital Branz/Digital Percent as a Client Services Manager. Over the next two years he worked hard as a freelancer working on things like online ads and digital signage, but missed the stability of income and hours of a full time job. He got a job at TBWA Toronto as an Interactive producer to ensure all deadlines were met and all the work was being delivered as requested by clients until he has recently moved to CTV as a Digital Sale producer.
• He realised that he wasn't a great designer or a great illustrator, and was fine with that, so smartly moved himself into management positions to better accommodate his good organisational skill sets.
• His new job at CTV gives him such an array of tasks that he loves. He also has a leg-up because he knows how long designing, coding, testing and research takes which makes him a lot better at this job than others that have no experience in the production work.

ADVICE

• It's all about the contacts, don't piss people off, even if they are letting you go, connections are so valuable in this industry. You might even end up working with or for them later on.
• Agency work will get you the good projects, but comes with long, hard hours. You will find you either love it or hate it.
• Don't expect too much too soon, the people that climb fast are the ones that work after work, research trends to stay ahead.
• Freelance offers you long and weird hours but is great pay. Be organised and available if you choose to go in this direction with your career.
• Sometimes companies give bonuses if you get someone good hired.
• Sign up for groups, LinkedIn jobs are posted here all the time instead of going out to head hunters.
• Put in the hours when you first start out, they do get better.
• Know as much as you can about projects - get to know the clients and what kind of work is produced for them so you can design on target.

ADVICE FOR THE GRAD SHOW

• Keep your head up, don't worry if people are looking at others sites and not yours, you never know who is actually looking at yours and has kept your resume.

Michael Gramlow, February 10 2012

 

Michael Gramlow, Co-founder and Creative Director at Lollipop

 

ABOUT MICHAEL
michaelgramlow.com

• Art Director and Creative Director roles at places like Henderson Bas and Organic in the past
• Co founded Lollipop with a bunch of ex-agency type people

ABOUT LOLLIPOP

wearelollipop.com

•  Lollipop is a production company that specializes in video, audio, CG and design.
• Their company has evolved drastically in the last couple of years to have more interative work
• Unlike 'Integrated' Agencies (Taxi, BBO etc) and Interactive Pure Play studios (Critical Mass, Organic etc) a production company only works with agencies, not the clients. They have a rep that pairs them up with agencies that have work that will fit with what the production company does well. They then pitch their ideas for execution and the agency either chooses them or another company.
• Because of the variety of different kinds of work they do, they utilize a lot of freelance talent.

LOLLIPOP WORK

See their portfolio of work here

THE EXTREME GROUP - PURE BLACK SUNSHINE

See the website

• This was their first project with no real budget for Lollipop, so they invested their own money into the success of their project so they would have a project to showcase for their new company.
• The clients coffee packaging looks like a bundle of drugs so they really wanted to play that up, so they created an Flash based interactive "pick your own adventure" type video based website for them.
• The challenge for this project was to create a seamless visual experience, which is difficult with cutframes in Flash, because the frame will always cut quickly to the next video with a black screen. They conquered this by lighting the set with flickering lights to disguise this feature.
• The next challenge was to figure out how to load all the videos without making the user sit and wait for loading screens, so they would load videos in sequence behind other videos based on the users options to choose which video to pick next, to avoid having to load all 75 megs of video right off the bat.
• Another challenge for them was hiring professional actors, and the cost associated with that. So they hired non-professional actors and used lighting to hide their faces.
• Overall the site was a success and even won a couple of awards.

SPRINT
See the work

• For this project the agency wanted to feature 4 different real businesses, and show in video how they use Sprint technology to run their business.
• They rented a slow-mo camera to create a very dramatic video experience.
• This all led into a "Customizable" solution for your and your business after filling out a form of qualities about your company.

SHARE A CAROL
Make a carol for yourself

• This project was a huge success in the U.S.
• They utilized Google maps as the background for each card so you can type in your location and the card customizes to you
• The challenge for this project was not only the massive download size but the fact that they were at the mercy of how Google works, so they had to create an interface to navigate around that looks and feels like Google

SAPPORO

See the Sapporo work

• Used a lot of CG, video and real time video to create this imaginary world
• Used the parallax effect to emphasize the 3D effect
• Couldn't be a Flash video because it's too large to load
• They created a seamless site that is always moving, the challenge was to create seamless loops while scrolling

ADVICE FROM MICHAEL

• You have to pound the pavement and bug people to get the jobs you want
• You really have to make an effort to get in and see somebody because they are so busy, even if you think you are bugging them, do it until they tell you to stop
• People are really good about giving you feedback about your portfolio.
• Story boards are very important.
• Sit and think things out with paper and pen before going to the computer.

Alison Garnett

Alison Garnett, January 27th 2012, Creative Director at Critical Mass

ABOUT ALLISON

alisongarnett.com

mylalaland.com

• Her online name is "SuperCapacity" which is based on a large format washing machine as an analogy to her work habits where she takes on more than she can handle, but it always gets done. Check out her way cool business cards, that can withstand the heaviest of duty washing machines
• Allison has 3 dogs, 2 kids and a husband and says that family is the most important aspect of her life
• She graduated her undergrad at OCAD for Drawing and Painting, then spent a year in Florence painting
• In 1994 she came to Sheridan for the Media program on her parents recommendations
• After graduating Sheridan she worked on CD ROM's and Macromedia Director
• Alison landed a job at ICE where her career in the digital arts began
• She worked at ICE doing digital media, then worked freelance design for a bit, joined Henderson Bas, created her own company called SuperCapacity, went to Taxi for six years and has recently joined the Critical Mass team as a creative director.
• At ICE she taught herself how web sites were put together by copy and pasting code
• As a freelancer she worked on web work because that is what she wanted to do, which led her to work at HB to work on large projects for Molson, Levi's and Nike. Working on these big brands really advanced her career so after she adopted her baby she could have a successful business.
• At Taxi she worked for six years on great brands like Mini, Town Shoes, LCBO, Cadillac Fairview, Taxi Cafe and Telus.

CRITICAL MASS

• At Taxi Allison was known as a 'hybrid' because she is good at print, web , photography and packaging
• She left Taxi because she felt she was a little bit too comfortable and wanted to work on big sites, not just micro-sites

THEODORE ALEXANDRE

View work here

• This was a great site for Allison to start working on because it was a massive e-commerce site, with over 4000 pieces of furniture to sell
• They re-hauled the branding and she convinced the company to re photograph all their furniture to work with the brand and work visually with their strategy, this was a tough sell because for each piece they had to have multiple shots of each piece and had to retouch and style each individual photo
• They wanted to treat the furniture like a Rolex watch and they definitely achieved the luxury and elegance of that

SEARS

Check out the work here

• This was a challenging project because Sears did not have the budget to do a complete rework of their site, so they had to go one department at a time
• They could only re-skin the site, so this was a massive I.A. exercise, and had to do a lot of research as to what people look for and buy the most

BRITA

• The site was almost a micro site feel, and works to remind you to change your filter
• The neat part of this site was as you scroll down further and further the colour changes as if your getting deeper and deeper into the water backdrop.

ADVICE FROM ALLISON

• It's not just about the work you do at the office, it's about doing creative things outside of work
• Design identities, mini company sites, pro-bono work, business cards and you will get ahead and your work in the office will show it
• Work on contests, because you might just win and get to work on the project, it's good PR for your company too.
• Don't be afraid to ask for peoples business cards
• It's just advertising - we don't save lives, we just make cool shit

Sapient Nitro Friday January 20th

Kim Welch, Gail Leija, Sonia Janovjak, Norma Penner from Sapient Nitro

 

This past Friday we had an awesome presentation from four women that work at Sapient Nitro. We'll talk about them individually in a bit, but let's jump into Sapient Nitro and what they are all about.

 

SAPIENT NITRO

• Sapient is a monster company with over 100,000 employees globally.
• The creative marketing sector is called Sapient Nitro
• They are do not do all their work in house and do not contract out work
• The Sapient Nitro philosophy is that they really listen. They don't expect their clients to take on their personality and culture, rather they take on the personalities of their clients. They have empathy, to serve clients emotional needs. They are like the "Meryl Streeps" of ad agencies rather than the "Julia Roberts" type.
• Some of their clients are Crystler, Jeep, Dodge, RBC, BMO, TD, SportsChek, Harley Davidson, Abercrombie & Fitch...and the list goes on and on

Norma Penner
npenner@sapient.com
Norma's Website

LinkedIn Page
Norma's Flickr Page

• Norma is a graduate of the Sheridan Web Design program (back when it was called "Media Design") about 5-6 years ago
• From there she's had a successful career as a designer at places like ecentricarts inc., Organic and HBK
• She is now the Sr. Art Director at SapientNitro
• Norma works on a ton of projects from micro sites to very large projects
• Let's take a look at some of the projects she's worked on:

Jeep
Check out the images here

• This project was a micro site that had to be compatible on all devices and had to carefully consider the language and culture so it could be communicated globally
• Norma had to use images provided by Jeep from their television spot
• Her concept was to focus on the people who drive Jeep's and their individual personalities and use this
• The site used HTML 5 as a scrolling site as well as layers to give it depth. This was a very clean design as to keep the main focus on the mood of the images

Crystler Grand Voyager

Click to see the images

• This was a micro site that was used to leverage a television spot that was targeted to 40 year old men
• The research has revealed that "gen X" men had a very powerful emotional response to nostalgia. Because "gen X" men were the first generation to have mothers in the work force and raised with new core values, they are heavily involved in their family life. They are no "mad men" but are now family men. This concept was putting a parallel to buying this car with a nostalgia of buying their first car.
• Norma not only came up with the initial design in one evening but also had only two weeks to execute the entire site
• She designed the site to mimic the commercial where half the design was of the past images and the new images of the product and info were on the bottom

Abercrombie & Fitch
See the images

• This was one of those projects that Norma had to take on the personality of the client
• Abercrombie & Fitch were having a very difficult time with leveraging their products via media and had experienced several companies that let them down trying to deliver
• Norma basically lived in Utah at their head office immersing herself in their culture and learning about their design standards and how to design for them
• Sapient Nitro successfully steered them in the direction of mobile design  which they had not done yet and they successfully pulled off great mobile web designs complete with A&F approved typography and design

Gail Leija
Gleija@sapient.com
Gail's LinkedIn Profile
Gail's Personal Webpage
Gail's Autobiography

• Gail is one of those people you could talk to forever, she has had so many different jobs and is one of those people that is addicted to learning...not a bad addiction if you ask me
• After a series of seemingly random jobs (not so random if you watch her autobiography) she started at Sapient as an info-architect in the 90's always in digital
• She worked hard to prove she could go from info-architect to research at Sapient so for the last 2 years she made a change to experience research, utilising anthropologial type tactics to uncover what it is customers really want from a company or products
• She works with creative teams closely to come up with the best possible and research proven tactics to leverage a product to it's full potential
• An example she gave of her process was for Harley Davidson. Harley was pretty sure they knew who their target market was...you know who...tattooed, husky, older men. But by hiring 12 people across the U.S to go out and collect information (specific information requirements were provided by Gail) they found that young people and young women should be Harley's target markets.
• Once she collects all her information and arrives at certain conclusions, she puts together "personna" sheets. Based on her research she creatively creates fictional people and their habits that would buy the product. The creative team will use those to come up with the best possible language, imagery and tonality to communicate most effectively with the target consumers.
• Through her experience with this job Gail has found it most effective if you involve the clients heavily in the research, so they have a sense of ownership about the research and can really appreciate the value of this type of work.
• Gail still does some I.A. work because you always need a plan before you start building.
• She says that if your a designer with great I.A skills you will always be in demand. Noted. Thanks for the tip :)

Kim Welch
kwelch@sapient.com
Kim's LinkedIn Page

• Kim's title as Studio manager doesn't seem to do her justice for all the jobs she actually does. She is in charge of staffing the interactive team for the Toronto, Chicago and Detroit offices as well as keep everyone busy with billable hours and keep everyone on time for client deadlines. She likes to think of her job as a big game of Tetris, trying to get all the pieces in optimal use of space and time.
• Some of Kim's past jobs are:
•     Director PMO at dthree
•     eBusiness Manager at Maritz
•     Director of Project Management at March Networks
•     Sr. Project Manager at March Networks
• Kim spoke to us about attributes they look for in potential candidates. She says she tries to be at all the interviews for all the candidates. Kim told us that it doesn't matter how amazing your portfolio is, they look for culture and fit. They want people that look for and embrace feedback, have a commitment to ongoing learning and who are flexible about things as they change drastically in this business. They also look for people who are open to mentor ship.
• Sapient is what she calls a "self-serve" company, in that you are in charge of your career. You can even choose your supervisor. If you can prove yourself you will get promotions, Sapient tries to set all of their candidates up for success. They don't have just one spot open for senior designers, but everyone follows their own path, so if you prove yourself completely capable of being an Sr. Designer then you will be promoted.
• Sapient also has a "boot camp" for their new employees, where they will fly you to one of their offices that has the most hires and give you a week long seminar in Sapient lingo and culture. This really shows their investment in you as an employee and how many they value the culture they set.

Sonja Janovjak
sjanovjak@sapient.com

• Sonja is the Creative Recruiter for Sapient, which ensures requires a lot of research on her part to really make sure they are hiring the right people for the job. If she wants you at Sapient, she will do everything in her power to get you there.
• Oddly enough, she started out her career in package and print design, and now loves her job doing interviews and hiring.

Expectations of you as a candidate:

• Forward thinking design - innovative
• Fluency in the digital channels
• Typography - always the first thing the hiring designers will look at
• Presentation skills - your work needs an interpreter, it needs someone to sell
• Eagerness - desire to learn
• Compassion & Drive - holding your work to the highest standards and having passion for what you do

     
Thanks for the intriguing presentation ladies!

Vitamin C December 16th 2011

Genco & Jon Cebecioglu, brothers & founders of Vitamin C Studio.


ABOUT VITAMIN C STUDIO
http://www.studiovitaminc.com/

•  About five or six years ago Genco completed the Sheridan Web Design program and decided to partner up with his graphic designer brother Jon to start their own boutique studio, which is now called Vitamin C Studio.
• Their philosophy is that it's important to communicate with clients about their business objectives. This will provide design direction that will result in the proper visual solutions.
• They believe that every stage of the project is a direct representation of their studio and the clients company.
• Vitamin C concentrates on design for devices and branding. They create websites, mobile app designs and branding as well as some print design. Their company has really taken off despite the fact they haven't done any marketing, but word of mouth has spread across Toronto and their studio is booming.
• They almost never use Flash, except for projects for their designer father who still thinks it's best practice...both their parents are designers, guess it's in the blood!
• They are still just working as a team of two, but there were thoughts of hiring someone on to help with the busy work loads. 
• They agree its rewarding having your business be a success, but also requires a ton of extra hours to put in to make sure you meet your deadlines, sacrifices must be made to be your own boss, but they couldn't be happier.

PROCESS

• Process is an important part of delivering the right work to meet the clients expectations at Vitamin C.
• They begin by sending out a questionnaire of various questions pertaining to their business objectives. They discuss the objectives with the clients, come up with three concepts and then create mood boards to establish a visual design language the clients can interact with...even if they don't quite understand the purpose of a mood board they can at least usually gauge what they absolutely don't like, then they know to stay away from those design features in the next part of the process.
• They then begin designing with various stages of client approvals. If it is a mobile app or websites that require advanced coding they are designing they will send the psd files to their contracted developers. And that's how things get done around their studio.

WEB WORK
http://www.studiovitaminc.com/portfolio/web/

• Jon and Genco took us through a few web and mobile designs.
• The project that really stood out was for a company called Jumping fish. They created a brand and a one page site for this company. It was a simple but complicated project, because minimal content was provided and they had to make it interesting and engaging to look at. They solved this problem by creating graphics that explained complex information in a fun and simple way. Also, I love the colour scheme...orange is my favourite. Take a look at the final piece: http://www.studiovitaminc.com/portfolio/web/detail5.php

ADVICE

• Start thinking about the end of year show now! Industry folks will be there to hire. Be prepared.
• Work somewhere to learn the robes before starting your own business, it's about networking.
• Network. Go to events. They go to Start-up company events because they know that that is their client market, so they pass out business cards to get their company some work and to help companies just starting out. Smart thinking.