Last year I witnessed the birth of a wonderful use for the creative force of the internet. During the presidential election, a page called Design for Obama emerged. You could participate as a designer or a user. Designers uploaded poster after poster for the Obama campaign, then, they and the users voted on them and downloaded them for use at campaign events and house parties. It had nothing to do with the DNC or Obama's campaign or staff, it was just a mass of people feeding off each other's inspiration. It was such a neat experience. I uploaded a couple posters, got involved in the election locally, and promptly forgot. Until April, when I got an email. It said that a big publisher was going to be releasing a collection of works from the website, in honor of the election, on the anniversary. And it said one of my posters had been selected. It had some instructions for how to transmit my file and a release, and when I went searching for information I found others who had gotten the same email. We congratulated each other and I was thrilled to be participating. I was also relieved that there was no further culling process, according to both the bloggers I found and my own queries to the publisher representative. We could start bragging immediately to our friends.

I submitted my file on time, as directed. We only had a few days to get our paperwork together before their deadline, but for an opportunity like that, I really would have done anything they asked. That's why, a week later, when they told me there were problems opening my file, I leaped into action. Even though I was on vacation with my parents in New York. My dad helped me out a lot. A few files flew back and forth, and eventually, they had a file they could use. I double-checked to make sure.

That is why I was so surprised to get this email a couple of months later:

"Thank you very much for contributing your poster   design to Design For Obama,   the book from *. Unfortunately, I must inform you that, due to   insufficient print quality, your poster was one of several not able to be   included in the book."

I wouldn't have been nearly as angry if I hadn't emailed over and over, "Are you sure this will work? Please let me know so I can supply a file you can use!" I've tried to remember who I told about this, so I can let them know it fell through, but I'm sure I'll still get a note or two wondering and that will still be painful.

Now, the reason I bring this up is to highlight a particular quirk in our copyright system. I had wanted to use the design in question for food drives with my MoveOn council, but they had balked, fearing copyright claims from... I don't know, but at any rate, they wouldn't touch this piece. So, you can imagine how tickled I was when a major publisher had decided to include it in a book that would actually be for sale. If anyone would check the legality or illegality of this work, it would be someone like that, right? Corporations don't just adopt works without checking for license snafus, right? Well, maybe they do, but they said my piece was rejected for quality reasons. And it's a shame that they never asked for a higher quality work. I still don't know what was wrong with it. One fundamental truth of working with volunteers is that they take exclusion extra hard, because the reward is serving the cause. It's not like they also got paid for their time and labor. At least a little feedback would have been nice.

At any rate, I am still proud of the piece, and obviously someone, somewhere wanted it in this book, right? So, here it is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43103096@N00/3003609570/

Feel free to download it and staple it into your copy, should you elect to seek one out. No hard feelings, but this is why I give my work away before anyone toys with my emotions like this. I would rather just see it out there, and that means I can't wait for large entities to show interest. It was a nice compliment, but it also confirmed that we've set up a very bad system for artists to inhabit. I would also like to point out the comment I got on one of the other designs I submitted:

"Just wanted you to be aware of someone trying to profit from your art. Did you give this person permission to sell your image? http://www.zazzle.com/weoffermore/gifts?cg=196918861616767696&pg=9"

If you ever see someone wearing this shirt or bag or whatever, PLEASE send me a picture. And for your enjoyment (one of these appearing for the first time ever (because I found DFO a little squirrelly)) here are a few more pieces of election art I did last year. And if you add any of these to any books you happen to buy... or anywhere else... I'd be thrilled to know. Permission is nice, but for the work, there is really no greater compliment than imitation and proliferation...