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A Story About Professional Integrity

Many years ago I worked for a promotional products company in Los Angeles. It was back in the 80s and was just starting out as a designer, I was young and naive and the other designers in the department would tease me because I did everything “by the book”. I never took art supplies without asking. I always turned in my time sheets accurately and I didn’t use illegal copies of software or fonts when many others often did. When a client asked to copy someone else’s art for one of their projects I would refuse. The owner argued with me at first but after a while, they gave up and assigned it to one of the other designers. I know I was a pain in the ass, but even so, within 3 years I was promoted to Art Director and in charge of the team. It seems they trusted me…
 

One day the owner announced that there were supplies missing and that they had called the police department to help to find who was responsible for the theft. We were to go into the conference room one at a time to take a polygraph (lie detector tests). (intensivecarehotline.com) Everyone was really nervous and a lot of whispering and joking going around about who they thought did it. When it came time for my department, each person was called in one at a time by the owner and a police officer. Each took about 15 minutes but it felt like hours! When it was my turn, I got up but the owner shook his head, sat me down and said “I know it wasn’t Rick. He isn’t the one. Let’s go on to the next person.” So they took the next guy in the room. The art department went dead silent…

They eventually found the person that did it. Someone in the warehouse had stolen some materials and got caught. They handcuffed him and paraded him down the hallway for everyone to see. I was sad for him, but at the same time, I was proud of what the boss told the others in my department. I felt vindicated for all of the teasings. The owners had no doubt in their minds about my honesty.

At Creativeblox we work with many clients who give us full access to their company’s inner workings. Just like you, they trust us to care of their brands and their customers. They trust us to work diligently and quickly on their projects and only bill for actual hours we worked. They trust that we will not divulge their trade secrets to competitors. If something were to go wrong, I would hate for any one of them to question our intentions or integrity.

Skimming images from the web is illegal. If the client knew we did this it may cause them to question “if he is willing to do this, what other things is he capable of?” Its a slippery slope from there…
 
To be clear, I will not knowingly infringe on copyrights. This includes skimming images from the web for your projects, modifying copyrighted work, etc. When you send a project please make sure that you are providing assets that are owned by you or your clients or have been licensed (such as stock images, fonts etc). this will avoid any awkward moments as I try to explain why I can’t skim images. Another option is to use stock images that are free for commercial use. Click here to check out those great sites.
Jocelyn
Jocelyn