[thelist] FW: Client Relations re: 'design by..' line

Liz Lawson lizlawson at charitycards.co.uk
Tue Jul 4 12:07:32 CDT 2000


>it seems to me somewhat like commissioning a piece of art work and =
>asking the artist not to sign it.=20


To me, it's like asking the designer not to sign a holiday brochure, like
asking the director not to put credits at the end of a tv advert, or asking
the copywriter not to put their name at the bottom of every slogan they
write. In other words, it's expecting us to behave like professionals in a
professional industry. The ad agencies, design agencies, even the printers,
have their own awards to recognise who's doing the best work, and potential
clients seem to manage to find out about it! ;)

For this question, as so many other, it's got to depend on how you want to
work. If your target market is the smaller, local business and organisations
put your link on and if your sites are good it'll probably gain you
business. If you want to attract bigger corporates (especially companies who
have spend a lot of money building their brands), leave it in the source
comments. You won't get their business if your portfolio is full of
"designed by" links. If you get subcontracted to build a site, don't put it
on. If you get contracted to build a site for a tech / software company,
they will be REALLY narked if you put a designed by link on!

If you do intend to put credits on the sites you build, make sure it's
agreed beforehand. It may be common in web design, but it is not the norm
outside it, and your customers may not be expecting it.

(having said that, somewhere i used to work got a lot of business from a
teeny credit on a couple of cdroms for a multinational...but BY GOD did we
have to fight to get it! I think we were allowed to include ourselves as
technical support for the disc or something...you might want to consider a
similar approach?)


my 2p

liz







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