designer vs company
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- ukit
Most freelancers show from agencies they've worked at in their portfolio. But if you started your own "design studio," it starts to become questionable whether you can show that work.
But where is the line where that happens? Many freelancers have their own company in a legal sense, many also subcontract to or employ people. At what point does it become "wrong" to use stuff from a previous job?
- ********0
when somebody threatens you with legal action?
- ********0
If it's work that you did yourself, and it demonstrates your skills - I don't think there should be a problem.
- version30
i do work for my company as well as other agencies, my duties are in the description
- Pupsipu0
it's only "wrong" because of competition to get clients, not morally. Everyone can put the project in their portfolio then explain to whoever cares which part they did.
- Scotch_Roman0
I think it gets problematic if you've been in business as a studio vs. a hired gun for agencies for several years or more. Studios that are brand new have only two choices in showing work: either don't show the work online, or show work done for previous employers, while giving clear credit. But I think anyone will agree that it's best for studios to eventually replace the old stuff with work done for their own clients as soon as possible.
My website is branded ambiguously right now (it says it's my portfolio, not my company), because when skt and I made the site, I wasn't LLC yet, and I wasn't even sure if I'd take another full time studio job or go solo. Now that I'm a one-man studio, rather than a freelancer looking for a job, I can't really position myself online as a studio until I can replace much of the work that's up there right now, because it was done for some other firm's clients.
So: within the next few years I plan to replace those projects—because the next time I change my site, it will be made very clear that I'm a design company, not just another portfolio. If I show any work at all done for former employers, I'll have a subsection that's called pre-Metagramme or something. I saw a firm from NYC's site recently who does exactly that, but you have to dig down a bit to find that old work.
- Scotch_Roman0
...But at the end of the day, the most important thing is to be clear about the role you played on each project.
- ukit0
Thanks Scotch_Roman, that was kind of the thinking I had on it as well. It seems like it's more of a semantic difference in terms of "this is work I did myself" vs. "this is work that ukit, inc or Metagramme" or whatever did.
- formed0
It depends on what your contract states when you started working for the agency.
Most of the time you'll just need to have permission and give credit to the agency (as in "done while at such and such").
Asking and giving credit to the agency is the best approach. I think it is very, very important that you give the company credit, though, both from a legal and moral view point.