It is Tuesday the 22nd of September 2020 and we’re waiting for a briefing from the Prime Minister on the latest pandemic developments and rules. Whatever our supreme leader Pfeffel Johnson has to announce today and indeed whatever your feelings on the direction the country is taking regarding coronavirus measures, I think we can all agree on one thing: 

people deserve credit for their work

Whether that’s the government needing to own the ‘credit’ for the decisions they’ve made or artists being given credit for their work which satirises it- either way- credit where credit is due. The following images show what have been plaguing me over the last few days.

 I designed the card above on the 9th of September for Thortful (you can see it and buy it here ) Subsequently, a photograph of the front of the card has been shared, doctored and spread around the internet without credit. Now I’m not naive enough to expect everyone to consider the creator of every single thing they share online, but when it’s clearly someone’s work, which you’ve enjoyed enough to share, it’s good etiquette to make a mention of where you found it and who made it. (Also, if you’ve got time to add an emoji sticker, you’ve got time to add the artist’s name.)

I was pretty sanguine about it when the first few people alerted me to the greyed out, rather poor quality snap. But my cool facade was tested once I saw that it had been shared thousands of times with, of course, no credit to me. 

As I type, the shares I’m aware of amount to 24k+. I KNOW IT DOESN’T MATTER IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS but in this case, had the original post had a simple link to the card, I could have earned some pennies from it. I get 30p for every card sold. Had even a fraction of the shares translated to sales, I’d have had a weekly shop covered. 

I have been told that I should be flattered that so many people loved the design. I will pass that flattery on to the NatWest and see how content they are with that as our mortgage payment.

Now that I’ve finished munching on my sour grapes (I highly recommend the excellent Teen Titans Go sing-a-long above to lift your spirits) I am going to treat this as a learning experience.

Firstly, I will make sure that if I design a Thortful card that I think will get some traction, I’ll do a social media post about with my logo and watermark all over it, in case people want to share the image.

Secondly, when I find content that I want to share I’ll make sure I credit the creator.
If you can’t find who made the image, you can use the reverse image search site to see where it was originally posted online. If that doesn’t work, you can put your query into your post, for example,

“Does anyone know who did this amazing parody which combines the confusing government strategy on pandemic response with a popular children’s party song?”

you know, just for example.

I do want to say a massive, massive thank you to all the very many people who have alerted me, tagged me, told people that this is my work, shared links to my social media and, most importantly the card link HERE It has reminded me what a lovely, thoughtful bunch of beauts there are in my immediate and online community.

And on that note, whatever the next few weeks and months bring, I’m going to try to double down on kindness and respect for people and their views. I’m going to remember that it’s a weird and tough time for everyone and we’re all just human.

And THAT’S what it’s all about.

xx

R