I need advice on commissioning an illustrator

I am a brand designer working with a brand that has a new global identity that is a bit too narrow for the communications they produce locally. I am helping develop a campaign specific brand book and I am thinking of exploring an illustrative style. However, they are a middle size charity and don't have endless budget (what charity does?).

It's been a while since I comissioned an illustrator and so I wanted advice on how the IP/copyright works now. Can I just get some elements illustrated that can then be pulled together to create layouts, could these be vectors, and probably the main question is it possible for the client to buy the rights fully, so their brand is secure from further usage costs. If so what sort of costs would that purchase incur do you think?

Many thanks in advance

Replies4

  • Hey Vanessa, you are correct - when you're comissioning an illustrator you are essentially paying for two things. 1 for them to make the work and 2 for your client to use it (the usage licensing), this is almost always packaged up into one fee for simplicity.

    You can of course commission an illustrator to create anything you need for you client, I've worked on projects as big as full packaging illustrations and also as small a individual spot illustrations for pdfs and web pages. It completely depends on what you need and most illustrators are happy to take on jobs of any size.

    For usage fees, the mainly come in lengths of years and inperpetuity (forever) so the paying for inifinite usage like you suggest is very common.

    Hope that helps, let me know if you have any follow up questions
  • Hi Vanessa, from my understanding you would have to pay quite a costly fee if you wanted to buy the rights fully outright which I am assuming wouldn't fit the charities budget.I think if you are looking for a logo design then that perhaps would have different rules around copyright but I am unsure myself. I would contact someone at the AOI as they have the most up to date information about how to handle commissions like this: https://theaoi.com/resources/helpdesk/
    I hope this helps :)

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