To My Insurance Company.

I've been engaged in a battle to renew my business insurance lately. It's gone on for an unbelievably long time, because I can't find anyone to insure us properly.

When asked about the reasons why companies are - I'm going to say 'scared' - to insure my business, it seems to boil down to two things. 

1) The majority of my work over the last ten years or so is for North American clients. This seems to terrify them.

2) The insurers seem hell bent on protecting the mythically vulnerable from me - rather than the other way round, in a system that protects other people from being copied by me.

As most illustrators will know, we are most at risk from being ripped off by a third party - including large companies and startlingly high-profile corporations who ought to know better (we all know who I'm talking about, insert your own anecdote here) than we are at risk of plotting to rip them off, or each other.

These things are new. Or maybe they only seem new; when I reflect on it, there's been a growing sense of anxiety in the voices of those I speak to every time I ring up for annual insurance. It explains why I've moved companies so often. It contextualises why I'm constantly getting new quotes, from fewer and fewer companies. And it reveals an increasingly protect-the-big-guys modus operandi; if a missed deadline means Acme PLC can't make their print date, if Josephine Bloggs thinks I've copied one of their images, if XYZ Corporation has to clean paint up off their floor on one of the astonishingly rare occasions I have to work on-site, they're protected - what I mean is, I'll get help from my insurance company to defend myself, as long as whoever I need to defend myself against is in the UK, of course.

But as the explicit and very focussed questioning of each company I've spoken with has revealed, if I see someone using or copying my work commercially, their insurance policy affords me no protection.

In a nut shell, they don't have my back.

This might seem like moaning, but it is not. This is my business, built up over almost 30 years, and heavily, deeply invested in, year on year, not only materially, but emotionally and spiritually, and with an incalculable amount of hard work. When I hand over money to protect that investment, I expect more than my iPad and my paper stacks to be protected.

The reason this issue creeps beyond the scope of the mere mathematical technicality of insuring a few Apple devices and a load of inks against fire or theft is because it speaks to the much larger issue of copyright theft, and image and style misappropriation, an article about which I've been sketching out for months. Why are insurers more nervous about me stealing a company's work? Why is there a chilly gaping hole where there should be a policy that kicks in to help me take action the moment a serious IP theft is discovered and the infringer decides, for once, to fight back?

No, really, it's OK; I've paid four figures for a 'comprehensive' insurance policy, but you sit back lads; I'll tackle that one myself, especially the new NFT 'company' who've decided to mint my work for their own profits (true story).

Now, of course it's my job and my responsibility to take all the available steps to make sure my work is 'protected', so that I don't need to take action against anyone. It's quite literally part of my job; reading the contracts; knowing what I'm signing; reading the NDAs. Use lo-res images online and watermark and make online images non-grabable if you must, but none of these things will protect an image from being misappropriated, whether that's reproduced through mimicry or used and applied wholesale. People who aren't so intimate with the subject will talk sympathetically but a little glibly about 'registering' the copyright of an image, but copyright is covered by the Berne Convention; the right to be identified as the creator of your own work at the point of creation, rather than as a result of 'registering' it in some way, is a human right.

One or two companies said they would insure me to make a claim - but only if, like me, the infringing party was based in the UK. To date, I've had infringements in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Germany - and just one or two in the UK. And those are the ones I know about.

So why isn't that taken into consideration when a company draws up an insurance policy for a creative business? Perhaps I'm being too picky; I can certainly be that. But it just feels like an absolute basic protection in the contemporary creative market.

Here's the email I sent to the most recent insurance company I spoke with at length. I was fed up with saying the same things, and I decided to write it down so they could actually address the problems within their policies.

Whether they read it or not I have no idea; the courtesy of a response wasn't forthcoming.

But I'm posting it here and sharing it in on order that other companies, who might actually offer positively evolved, customer-centric policies which are different from those I've dived into thus far, can talk to me if they see fit. 

And having learned during the course of my research that a great many illustrators have no insurance AT ALL, I'm hoping I'll hear from other creatives who have had the same problem, or are looking for insurance at the moment - and more helpfully, from people who have solved the issue with an appropriate policy.

If you have thoughts or experiences that resonate, I welcome them. In the meantime, I have my pens pencils and hardware covered, but for now, I feel that the industry is set to either put this issue even further at arm's length, as it decides it's too 'Wild West' an issue to successfully navigate/monetise, or it will be forced to evolve in a fast-moving world of NFTs, social media and visibility, and in doing so recognise what the dark matter, the heavyweight inner core of any creative business that needs protecting actually is - its creations.

Some details in this email have been slightly changed for purposes of making the scenarios easily understood by the recipients who are outside the illustration industry, and to avoid identifying individuals. 

If at times it sounds like I'm explaining what an illustrator is or does, it's because that's exactly what I've had to do. Many times over.

~ † ~

Dear Insurance Company Person,

Thank you for forwarding the documents for the policy you propose for my business, after speaking with me on the phone for forty minutes yesterday. I'm unable to accept it, because it does not cover my needs.

What’s quite bewildering at the moment is that, after almost 30 years in this trade - and I mean, wholeheartedly, professionally immersed in nothing but this trade, on a worldwide scale - I’m finding an increasing reluctance to insure me and my business. For over 20 of those years I’ve worked with American and Canadian clients, and clients elsewhere in the world, and historically it’s never been ‘a problem’ nor subject to any additional questioning or clauses.

Over the last 4-5 years I’ve seen a creeping nervousness around that, and I do not see a reason why this would be. I don’t know of a single case of an illustrator being sued - for any reason - other than by another illustrator  in cases of blatant copying. This happens - there was a case a few years ago of two American illustrators fighting it out over alleged copying, but it was eventually resolved without resort to legal means, which remains the preferred way of resolving such things. 

What I don’t see reflected in your policy, but do see happening around me frequently, is cases of the illustrator having to fight a case of having their own work infringed by companies - both small and large.

To cite one example, a couple of years ago the large high street chain **redacted but named in the email** copied a colleague’s very distinctive work; that colleague had to fight that case of (very blatant) copying, and that colleague 'dealt with it satisfactorily' and got the work withdrawn. It was 'cut and dried’. 

There are myriad examples of large clothing companies helping themselves to artists’ work online, without permission.

I myself have had to deal with over 60 copyright infringements of my work by other people to date - and I have dealt with them, successfully, without ever having to resort to legal means, because I know the business inside out and I know copyright - as it applies to my trade - inside out.

The only recent example I know of which speaks to the kind of scenario that form the basis of this particular fear from insurance companies, is this. A very, very well-known British high street chain hired a design agency (standard practice) for a campaign that involved an illustrator creating a ‘friendly monster’ for a Christmas campaign. They would have briefed the illustrator closely for such a high profile campaign, and the resulting monster, once it hit the internet, was immediately recognised as a close copy of a long-existing famous character illustrated by an equally famous illustrator.

The illustrator whose work had been copied, although within his rights to pursue the case, was maturely philosophical, resolving the issue with humour and grace:

 "Talk of legal action has flooded my Facebook feeds, but I won’t be pursuing that. Instead, I hope that advertising agencies and the big companies they work for, take care to credit creative people whose work they might reference. We have the finest children’s book writers and illustrators in the world – their work should be cherished and credited properly." 

The key issue though is even if legal action had been taken, it would have been the design agency hired by the company who was challenged, NOT the illustrator, as the design agency was responsible for the creative direction taken.

(In this case the illustrator, who was relatively inexperienced and no doubt very excited to have received the commission, was unlikely to have questioned their commissioner’s art direction.)

But if that illustrator had chosen to pursue a legal route (and presuming he has insured his business) he should surely have been able to do that with the backing and confidence of his insurers, to whom he had paid money to protect that business, the IP in which forms the substance of the business in a far more meaningful way than his easily-replaced pens and pencils.

Such cases are not common. But my point is that what I am way, way more at risk of having MY copyright infringed, than I am at risk of infringing someone else’s - my job is to create original images, and I have created thousands of them.

The other scenario an insurer might be fearful of, and one that has been posited to me many times now, is an illustrator delivering work late, and thus triggering a sequence of damaging events such as missed print deadlines. But I have never heard of this happening; when deadlines are running close, they are modified, or the work is adapted to suit the timescale, or, in some cases, a client can choose to go with an other artist or buy stock imagery to meet their deadline - there is always a way forward, and I know because I have been involved in some extremely high profile jobs with their attendant deadlines, budgets and pressures, and successfully carried out every one of them.

I’m not suggesting that legal challenges never come up, but the emphasis on a client suing an illustrator suggests a fundamental lack of understanding of the job of an illustrator and the industry at large. And this fear of legal challenges seems to be infiltrating the insurance industry, even those pitching themselves as specialists to the creative industries.

I can’t go with your policy as it’s not right for me, but I welcome the opportunity to highlight why that is, and why the thinking underpinning the policy feels flawed, and outdated.

All the best,

Sarah.

~ † ~

Interview With The Vampire

I received this email yesterday and it confounded me. How should I reply? Should I reply?

It's polite enough, and spelled correctly with proper punctuation; he knows my name, and my work very well (which all help ensure I make time to give an enquirer a reply).

But this is the email, and it stumped me. (Im)pertinent info has been removed.

I am a cartoonist and creative entrepreneur based out of *** (home/school). This week and next I will be making a hand drawn calligraphic website banner for ***'s new *** creative magazine The ***. 

During my research phase I came across your poster for ***. I really enjoy the *** and plan to use the lettering for "***" as a template for my own lettering. If you have a minute, I want to ask you some questions regarding your experience with the poster: 

1. What did you use as a reference to come up with the lettering for "***"? 

2. What was the format and medium for the poster design?

3. Which inking tools did you use? Pens, brushes, digital?

4. Did you use any stencils to render the letters?

5. Anything else that you would like to share about the creative process behind this poster. 

I have attached a copy of the poster to let you know which one I am talking about. 

Now, these are the kinds of questions I get when someone's writing a thesis. A PhD, a dissertation. I've received, and fulsomely replied to, countless emails from students and still-learning illustrators about just about everything over the years - promotion, methods, working practice, fees and so on. I'm usually happy to reply, and use my two and a half decades of experience to lend my opinion to those already offered to a student by their tutors and peers. After all these students are the future of the industry - well, some of them will be, I'm always aware not all will pursue their chosen subject - and mine will be only one of several voices chiming in. I won't tell you how to make your work - only you can do that - but I can suggest how you market it, promote it, refine it, sell it and so on.

But this was an email from someone referring to themselves as a CEO, essentially i) telling me they are going to copy my lettering for their own piece of work - work they intend to take to market, and ii) asking me how to do it, implying in the process that I copied it in the first place.

Was I wrong to interpret this as a politely-written request for a set of instructions on how to re-create the work they want to mimic? Sure, I pulled on all sorts of specific historical references for the work in question - four A3 sheets full of clippings, sketches, photos; my old books and their ornate spines, type books by the likes of Louise Fili, Steven Heller, my Letraset catalogues from the 70s - did they really not have access to the same stuff as me? Maybe they just don't know what to Google, what typographic books to dig into.

I didn't know where to start with it. My first thought was bemusement, then I was a little breathtaken by their cheek, then cross. Then the opposite. I started to think 'OK; just a student, they're learning, and that includes learning protocol and etiquette, I'll just talk to them about their approach'.

But then I saw their website and that as well as being a student, that they're calling themselves a CEO - "the position of the most senior corporate officer, executive, leader or administrator in charge of managing an organization". 

That bothered me. I'm a Company Director, but I don't call myself that day to day - you'll find it on legal paperwork but that's about it. It's a legal status regarding how our company's set up - it doesn't give me any special hierarchy or status. And yes, I guess it's technically possible to be a CEO and be  student - many people go back to study after first careers, or set up fully operational companies while they're still undergraduates.

So what was it about that that bothered me so much?

My thoughts moved onto wondering whether this is 'Just How People Learn Now'. I thought about this for ages - all afternoon in fact, as I did my work. Work that was original, on paper, created afresh, without anyone else's work in front of me, just some references of the particular ancient ethnic henna tattoo style I was taking as influence for the very specific content of this book.

Hang on - how was what I was doing any different from what this person wanted to do?

I recalled a colleague recently talking about an email he'd had from another, presumably newish, illustrator wanting to know his short cuts, what software effects he used and how he could make work like his. My colleague was very cross with the enquirer, as they'd implied that Bob* (not his real name) used some kind of filter, software effect or short cut, when in fact he hand-draws individual elements by hand in hundreds of layers to build up very complex illustrations. Bob was happy to tell the enquirer this, in what we shall call a Firmly Worded Reply. The essence of his reply was, There Is No Short Cut.

As much as I can understand a student's eagerness to just bloody well know how to do it, and quickly please because I live in a world where everything happens NOW, I can also understand my colleague's umbrage. One day you find yourself ten years into a career, and you've built up certain skills through years of trial and error, you're working long days, longer nights. Then you find yourself 15 years into the same career, a little more confident, faster maybe, but still learning, and you're a bit more knackered, the days seem longer. One day you hit 20 years, which you can't believe because only yesterday it was new Year's Eve 1999, and you're adept, busy, confident (ish), and, possibly, well established and well known. Maybe a bit less tired, because some things might have become easier, and still learning. Nobody who reaches any of these chronological landmarks, nor any in between, having spent the entire time working in their craft, likes to believe that anyone thinks their work's just 'knocked out' using filters or effects. We might love our largely anonymous existences as creators of images 'behind the scenes' - we don't get into this to be pop stars - but we are just as vulnerable to pride, fear of eclipse and puffed-out-chests. So we do time-lapses, GIFs, step-by-steps, BTS and WIP Instas to show how we do it; to prove we have skills and what that unique set of skills comprises. We might, as I did in the middle years of my career, share and teach the very thing that's making us unique and marketable at that time - in my case, my lettering work. As early as 2000, I was showing students how to use myriad pens and nibs, create styles like mine, and explore how lettering can be a standalone thing, its enormous creative potential.

So you've got to watch yourself. The industry and how it is both taught and learned has changed radically in the time since my own graduation. Hours are shorter. Expectation is higher. Software must be learned, or the course risks being seen as not delivering. Courses are paid for - grants in the UK at least are no more than a wistful look in an over-40-year-old's tired eyeball - so skills must be handed out, quickly. How do we know what these learners are being taught? Maybe they're encouraged to contact their favourite illustrators directly with exactly these enquiries, rather than waste time experimenting or playing about with materials. After all, a full time course is no longer a full time course - my own experience of teaching degree level has illuminated the squeeze on teachable, on-site hours.

So back to my confusion. This person was only asking me things that a student might have done, face to face, in a workshop. They just 'need to know'. They have a deadline. There had to be something else behind my initial discomfort.

I've thought about this email a LOT since it came in, and my conclusion about my own reaction to it is this. Their email was polite, kind, well-worded, and correct. What they are asking is, technically, and perhaps even morally, perfectly reasonable. What I realised is at the root of my discomfort is the sense of laziness, and my judgement about that. From a position of wanting to have it both ways - being taken seriously as a CEO but wanting to be shown the patience and insights a student would be given - there's a waft of entitlement in the email that suggests I'm expected to hand out easy answers, solutions and instructions to cut out all of the exploration, experimentation, cock ups, embarrassing went-wrongs, wonderful went-rights and messy playfulness that go with working it out for yourself. That's the GOOD STUFF. It's the gritty, awkward, painful side of this work that's hard to engage with, that takes time, and which ultimately makes for a better, more original, more authentic product. I still struggle with that myself. Daily. But to jump that bit and go straight to Go is to do yourself a creative disservice. And I'm not even sure it's possible, if longevity is something you desire.

I'm a professional and I'm experienced, but this makes me neither The Expert nor immune to the struggle to create something new. Maybe that's why it rankled. I want that person to go through what I did - perhaps borne from a misplaced sense of 'fairness', and 'earning' your position...earning that CEO title. They didn't mean, I'm quite sure, to come across as rude. I'm pretty confident they think there's nothing at all wrong with their email; and maybe there isn't. Maybe the difference here is simply that he told me what he was going to do, instead of just doing it without me knowing. My work is copied all the time - as is that of my colleagues - we see it, you know. We just accept it if it's in the context of exploration and learning as we expect that learners will move on and evolve, like we feel we did.

I want CEO Cheeky to go ahead and try the poster without my help. They'll probably do a damn fine job. I hope it doesn't look like mine. I hope it looks like theirs, for better or for worse. In the end, we can only ever do our own thing, and I'm all occupied keeping that fresh and alive. Lord knows that takes enough energy all by itself.

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources" - Einstein

Yes, those are spud prints.

Addendum:

I replied to the CEP today. here's my email. I'm really hoping he'll be as willing to share his work with me as he hoped I would be with my process.

Hi *****

Thanks for your email. I hope by now you’ve got the piece of work done and handed in for the deadline, and you enjoyed the process of creating it. I’ve spent many years helping students with their progress - through Masters and Degree level lecturing, through workshops and seminars, talks, through judging competitions, one-to-one sessions, in further education and by email, and yours was a most politely worded and well written email.

I am flattered that you sought to base your work on mine; I actually wrote a blog about the process of making this poster, which you would probably have found if you’d spent a bit of time on my website and blog. (I’m not sure where you found this piece of work, as you didn’t mention that).

Your email got me thinking about a few things. I’ve had plenty of people copy my work, but never had anyone tell me they’re going to copy my work, and then ask me how to do that. So I spent some time thinking about my own response to that - it’s very unusual - and put all my thoughts in a blog which you can read if you want to ('names have been changed', of course).

Your email presented me with an opportunity to ruminate on a few topics, and I’m grateful for that (there’s no sarscasm there).

And I would be interested to see the work you did, if you are willing to share it? I would be happy to give feedback, if you still want my input.

Best regards

Sarah.