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Giving Away Vehicle Outlines
I just received the following request:-
Please can you provide a template for a new shape corsa, XXX is getting a new pool car for the office which will need to be wrapped so needs to forward this over to our marketing people to come up with a design. We will then send it back so you can provide a quote for the wrap. Let me know if you need anything else.
I replied as follows:-
I’m afraid the templates are not ours to give away. We pay a license fee to use these in our designs. Your designer needs to purchase their own license for permission to use these templates. The company we use to obtain our library is called xxxxxx
This is a fairly common request – I hope that others do the same and refuse to give away vehicle outlines to a third party
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31 Replies
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Amen to that Phill. Shame not everyone will agree with you. It’s getting harder to make a living each year as it is. Shame some folk think buying a disk gives them the right to share with anybody they feel like. In the medium to long term it will either put the prices up, or people like ourselves out of business.
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Or you get some tight fisted company who charge the world for a vehicle livery but won’t spend a few quid on a bloody update!
I won’t update my outlines till I have a need to, it pays for itself.
I helped out a company/friend with some artwork not even a thanks. 2nd request I just ignored it.
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Exactly the right thing to do.
Its not how things work.
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I hear you! I get the same problem with fonts regularly !
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Oh yeh phil youd get your profile back ok …so would everyone else . Theres no guarantee youd get the job .stuff that things are tight enough you did the right thing
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is it not possible to lock an eps like a pdf?
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got asked exactly the same thing last week Phill.
wanted wraps done and their designers would provide us with the artwork if we sent them the outline. we definitely do not give out outlines. so well done…
what you should say to the design house is send over the artwork in a working layers format and you will alter/move things to suit the wrap, if need be. 😀or do what i did with a design house that does design work for a company we do allot of work for. send them a link to Brians site to buy their own. 😉
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as long as u can buy outline individually in this case.. i dont see a problem
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paying the full disc price at under £100 or a single vehicle outline, there isnt a problem and shouldnt be Dave, people just always want something for nothing.
design houses make plenty, fair do to them. but why should we hand them over something for nothing that we have paid for? as i said, point them to Brian Site, its a polite way of telling them to f*&% off! 😉 -
i think outlines should be sold the same way as photo-stock, fonts, clip-art. On Cd’s per license, online by subscriptions and forcing someone to agree to a download and individually.
Some online stock sites charge £100-1000 per photo, depends how good they are I guess.
Outlines I see fit in same category. Down to the end user what and how they use them, whether they break the license or not.
I rather not have my clients "confused" by limitations of licenses, if i could send them a link of what to do to comply, then i would do that. I also would not expect them to part with lots of money for a library which only 1 outline is useful.
To be quite frank, a general car shape is really all they need isn’t it… when they transfer it back, then we put it on the real car outline.. so isn’t that the answer we need. Perhaps Brian could make a General vehicle outline based on mixture of cars/vans/trucks
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in my instances, its not the "customer" asking for the outline Dave. its the design house the "customer is paying" to do the design.
the design house then sees no issues in contacting us, asking us to provide them with an outline so they can do their job right / professionally?as for istock and the like… if a customer comes in looking for a "specific" picture to be used in their signage or whatever. we do the same thing, give them links to online stock photography. tell them to buy the image.
i have seen us sit for hours trawling online libraries, then coming up with a design to incorporate the image. then in walks the customer to see the visual and in an instant, say "hmmm yeh but not really what i had in mind, do you not have blah blah blah" they have no idea how long you spent finding the correct image and have no intention on paying you for the time taken in finding it.
there are polite ways of advising the customer of this and providing them the resource to browse them themselves to flick thru at home with a cuppa tea "Will save them money" than if you have to do it.this is an old argument, different type product. how many times has the topic come up "do you show the customer 10 fonts to pick from or give them the fonts disc with thousands on it?" then sit with them flicking thru it… of course you dont, picture images are the same thing, worse actually… :lol1:
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thing is when u send a customer a proof…. well are you not sending the outlines then? lol
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Very true Dave – but nowadays I render any artwork I am sending to prevent it being passed onto someone else to carry out the work. This also prevents the outline from being re-used.
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I tried Rasterising my proofs, trouble is that when sending JPEG using Mail on OSX it embedded’s it rather than attach and windows cannot display it.
Even with Send windows friendly attachments checked, it still does it.
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quote Dave Rowland:thing is when u send a customer a proof…. well are you not sending the outlines then? lol
the argument isn’t about providing proofs, its about handing out blank templates you as a company has purchased to then be used by a design house or customer.
if the basic shape of the vehicle was all that was required, it would be simpler for the person to take a picture of their vehicle and they or their design house to over lay the graphic. but its not that they want, they want blank templates for them to create their own proofs.
anyway, proofs have our artwork already applied, they are also branded / water maked and so on.
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Is there such a thing as an outline disc for Excavators, diggers etc..?
BC
PS. If anyone has one, can i borrow it? only joking 😀
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i dont see what im looking for there Roy!
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quote Brian Carey:i dont see what im looking for there Roy!
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quote Brian Hays:Amen to that Phill. Shame not everyone will agree with you. It’s getting harder to make a living each year as it is. Shame some folk think buying a disk gives them the right to share with anybody they feel like. In the medium to long term it will either put the prices up, or people like ourselves out of business.even those on the boards are part of the problem
https://www.uksignboards.com/viewforum.php?f=18 -
Why do ‘we’ get all high-and-mighty over vehicle outlines yet as per the post preceding mine ‘we’ are more than happy to hand out, copy & use obviously copyrighted imagery in the form of clipart, logos etc. or join in with the disgust when a member has his artwork ‘stolen’ by another company decrying the copying yet will happily ask for or provide the ways and means for us to replicate logos & match fonts that were obviously somebody elses work.
Does it not seem a little hypocritical? Or is it just that we only care to protect ‘out own’ community but screw everybody else as being ‘fair game’.
As ‘part of the problem’, most of us are guilty of handing out or requesting the odd bit of artwork in probably the most frequented forum area on the site.
Would be interesting to know site policy…to protect some, but to provide an entire section to ‘file swapping’ of which a lot of the content nobody probably had any right to pass on.
Dave
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Who is getting all ‘high & mighty’ David? I as am entitled to protect something I have produced just the same as anybody else. I don’t see any favoritism.
I rarely visit the file swapping section, but as far as I can see font swapping is also frowned upon?
I think there are rules as to what can be posted in there. Can’t see them anywhere obvious though! maybe they should be highlighted in some way.
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We’re all guilty of swapping or helping each other on here with regards to artwork, fonts and the like. I asked for an outline last week and was put in my place straight away and quite rightly so. Looking back and reading Brians posts he has every right to be narked off. I shouldn’t have asked for an outline. This is Brians business being taken for a ride. Perhaps something should be put in place to stop this from happening in the future.
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Brian, I’m not saying you get all high & mighty about it…it’s YOUR business and YOUR right to be hacked off & protect your product…but what I’m highlighting is what might be seen as a double standard prevalent. Your outlines and those of other companies and paid for fonts are strictly off-limits as "if you are not entitled to use it…you can’t have it" and everybody will agree with you…but what of the company logos, clipart etc. that are freely passed around…just because their originator doesn’t have a membership on here and a voice to defend their property – does that make it fair game…it would seem so.
If you are doing some work for some big company or association they should be the source of the artwork shouldn’t they…any other source such as ‘Brands’ would be to acquire it without authorisation…theft…and the disclaimer they post I’m sure is largely ignored.
Hell, I’m guilty of it too so not trying to be holier than thou as I’ve asked for enough help / posted stuff over the years…I’m merely saying that one one hand file swapping is a no-no…and on the other it’s a free for all.
Can we get some clarification on this. Are any and all copyrighted images off limits…or just outlines & fonts?
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Uksignboards.com is reputably the most moderated sign forum on the web.
Uksignboards.com requires more information than any sign forum before even a free registered account is activated.Uksignboards.com has file swapping facilities “like any other” sign related forum I know of. However, unlike all others, access to ours is not free to anyone with a bogus name and email address. Full personal information as well as proof of ID, is required before access is given. Although not an out right solution, “providing proof of ID” is an immediate deterrent to illegal activity on this website.
Admittedly we do not know “what is and isn’t” royalty free content, unless blatantly obvious. In this case “Impacts vehicle outlines”. Of which, we have always given Brian Hays the originator of artwork and manufacturer of the software, full access to this forum to advise us if any material belonging to him exists. In turn, we will remove the content as quickly as possible. No questions asked.
The same applies for any other software originator who has any concerns their software is being openly distributed. At their request, they will be given full access and can make a formal complaint about individuals continually sharing their copyright content, “if” any such activity exists. This being the case, the member may loose their access to this area if UKSB.
In ten years, we have removed 4 individuals from uksignboards.com for illegally sharing and or selling copyright software, such as Signlab, Flexisign, Impact Vehicle Library, Mr Clip-art and more. But please “note” this was never done via our File Swapping facilities. It was done using email, in-turn, we were notified by members that had been contacted.
To date, at least 3 of them use other sign forums daily and have done for some years now. These same forums promote the fact they have almost zero moderating on their website. Yet here we have UKSB’s Integrity being questioned?This does NOT now mean anyone spotting someone posting a file can now publically jump on them, or become some sort of moderator, not at all.
If someone sees a post that they have “Credible Belief” that the content posted is of illegal content then they should use the “contact us” form provided, and provide us with a direct URL link to the post as well as information relating to the originator of the artwork. In turn, we will look into this at the earliest convenience and or remove the content.As for clarification… There are actually two posts outlining this.
This one, but there is a newer one that is a bit more long winded.
I made the updated version and when I did I removed the “Announcement Tag” to the Original. Dropping it into the history of posts. By the looks of it, “I may” not have made the newer post with an “Announcement tag” which keeps it at the top of the pile. So it’s basically amongst the hundreds of pages within this forum… anyway, I have located the older one for now and re-tagged it an Announcement. As you can see from the "views" it has had, it has had plenty folk reading it.At the end of the day nobody needs to be told what is and isnt allowed within this section of UKSB. If it doesn’t belong to you and is not royalty free
you know fine well requesting it or downloading it is illegal. So lets not play naive & try and pass blame to a "facility" when it is "your personal choice of use" that determines any illegal activity..
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I can recall asking for 1 outline, simply because is wasn’t on my Impact CD. It was an old VW Convertible. Probably an Import.
I have asked for Font ID’s, once I have the name I can source the font easily, it’s getting the name which proves difficult sometimes.
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While the vehicle outlines are OK there’s no substitute for a scaled photo.
I’ve been caught out too often with the vehicle outlines, and yes I agree that the Impact library are good they aren’t good enough for me to rely on for anything expensive like a wrap.
So I’d just tell the designers to go out and photograph the customers car like I have to.Steve
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Wavering off the subject a little but Stephen, but recently I had a customer that wanted to print a panel for the most recent shape Astravan. And you are right it that generally outlines are not accurate enough to cut an exact panel shape.
I took a photo of an Astravan, scaled it up & the side panel was massively out of proportion. I think about 6 inches on height when the length was scaled as I recall. So I went back to the outline & adjusted that so I could cut & exact panel. The vehicle is now in our downloads section for all to use. And time permitting I hope to do many more. To achieve this, for me photos won’t be the answer.
Correct me if I am wrong but is it not far easier to produce a customer wrap visual from an outline than it is from a Photo? I know it is for me with my limited use of Photoshop & the like!
And imo it wouldn’t be wise to rely on a Photo, Outline, Manufacturer spec sheet, customer measurement or anything else when producing an expensive wrap. It’s imperative to take some of your own measurements before committing material, ink & time.
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Definitely easier to use the outline Brian and I do use them all the time for quick customer layouts.
To make it clear, I wasn’t saying they have no use, I’ve bought them for the last 2 years and used them regularly, just that I wouldn’t trust them for final design work and I can imagine the design company in question doing the design based on the layout and handing Phill the "finished" design saying he had nothing else to do but print it 😉But as you said we’re getting off topic
I also only give the customer a jpg of the design now as it’s so easy to unlock a pdf now that it’s not even worth doing.
Steve
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Fair enough Stephen. 😎
On the subject of logos I can’t really see the problem most times.
If somebody is doing a job for a Vauxhall dealership that requires their logo, then I can’t see the harm in asking here. I assume Vauxhall would supply artwork if necessary. But often it would be quicker to ask in the file swapping section for somebody that has it already.
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I don’t see a problem with Logo usage.
They’re not going to have a massive problem with people sticking a sticker on their car, to make them feel like a rally driver stuck in traffic on the M6.
It’s a different ball game sticking it on a sign for back street garage, giving the impression they’re authorised by Vauxhall.
I think common sense still has a place in society.
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