Practitioner analysis - Pascal Campion by Leah Goldschneider

Mads BERG Anna Bessenyei

James VICTORE Jude Gallais-Vincent

A N A LY S I S

Leah Goldschneider

PRACTITIONER

Pascal CAMPION

CONTENT

Pascal CAMPION

Mads BERG

James VICTORE Copyright laws Bibliography 2

8 10 13 3

PASCAL CAMPION Pascal Campion was born in New Jersey but grew up in the South of France. In 2000, he graduated from the Arts Decoratifs de Strasbourg with a diploma in Narrative Illustration. He started the ‘sketch of the day’ project in 2006, these sketches can be seen on sites like Instagram, Facebook and his blog. As a freelance artist, Campion has worked on book/ magazine covers, in conceptual design and visual development for feature films and television. He has also worked on creating commercial animations for big clients such as Chevron and Disney. Campion – who now lives in Los Angeles – is now the art director of a joint project called ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ from Netflix and Warner Bros. Campion once said in an interview with Chris Oatley (Oatley, C. 2014), that he got into art because his brother would only let Pascal read his comics if he could draw them in detail. He has continued to do his ‘Sketch of the day’ project because of the amount of popularity the sketches were gaining which bought him more clients and work. A director at DreamWorks saw his blog and asked if he would be interested in working on a feature project. After this, he started to get a lot more work in TV and films. Currently Campion is working on a range of book covers, advertising for a toy company and the visual development for two movies being made in L.A. He can’t tell anyone who most of his clients/ projects are because of non-disclosure agreements. Meaning that a contract has been made where he signed that he won’t share any information. Except for meetings, Campion is freelance so he does nearly all his work at home. When working on a project for a big company like Disney, Campion will only work on one or a few elements of a final product. For his illustrations, he starts on paper and then uploads it onto Adobe Flash. This is where he adds colour. Next, he transfers the image as a PDF in separate layers onto Photoshop. This is when he adds texture, shadow and lighter tones. Once he has done this, he usually likes to add warmth through colour unless the story calls for a colder finish. (Oatley, C. 2014) Pascal Campion’s work was brought to my attention a few years ago when I was told about the way that his comic stories often look at mental health. When creating his ‘Sketches of the day’ his choices of words plus simple but sweet illustrations is a powerful lesson for future artists. As someone with anxiety, it is great to see another artist being so honest about his anxiety and how it can affect his work process. He recently said in a podcast that artists often don’t seek help because they think that they should use their pain to influence their work but he states that actually seeking helping will help you to have a clearer mindset and help you to tackle tasks.

MADS BERG Mads Berg is a Danish illustrator specialized on poster illustrations, brand and editorial design, cover art and murals. He was born in 1975 in a family with a textile designer mother and a painter father, so he was surrounded by art since his childhood. He studied at the Danish Royal Academy of Arts and Design, where he graduated in 2001. Since then he works as an independent illustrator. Today his design studio is based in Copenhagen, which he shares with other 10 illustrators, some of whom he has been colleagues with for 20 years. His art is characterized by a vintage art deco touch that reminds of the classic poster art but the dynamic way he uses lines and curves gives his illustrations a modern and timeless look. His very simple, sometimes even geometric characters are often placed in beautiful landscapes. He uses soft colors combined with bold brushstrokes, geometric elements that deliberately fragment the image and present a simple and elegant combination of illustration, shape and type. His stylish posters deliver a very clear narrative message. He won awards like the Danish Design Award, the Best Danish Children`s Comic and his posters are exhibited at the Danish Arts and Crafts Museum. He participated several times as a jury for the Best Swedish and Norwegian Contemporary Illustration award. His name is well known and appreciated internationally and he works with clients like Coca Cola, Orangina, Wired, Legoland and Carlsberg. One very interesting field of illustration are park maps for amusement park, in which field he created the map for the San Diego Zoo. Mads Bergs artwork inspired me many times during my practice. His unique style brings old time advertisement posters into new context and I find them to be a perfect combination of old and contemporary. In his interview with the Novum Design Magazin (2015) he states that he takes his inspiration from all ages, including baroque and renaissance paintings, modernist artworks of cubism and fauvism as well as contemporary artists such as Juan Gris and Georges Braque. This confirms and reaffirms my opinion on the importance of constantly seeking inspiration from past time artists. This helps us to put the well-known actualities in a new context and through this, discover new, surprising design solutions. I am also amazed by the impressive color combinations he uses, especially in his travel destination posters. The contrast of vivid and soft colors, the light gradients within a shape to give a certain haptic and the combination of different shades makes these painterly illustrations so elegant and harmonic. In another interview with the Moov Magazine (madsberg,dk) he advises to young graphic designers and illustrators to have fun with what we do and be productive (make at least 3 images a day). I find this advice very inspiring and practical, as there is no shortcut to develop the necessary skills, but to be truly creative we also have to maintain the pleasure in creating.

JAMES VICTORE “Part Darth Vader, part Yoda” (Victore, 2010) is the description that is commonly used when defining James Victore. Designer, artist, educator, provocateur, author and activist, this long accolade of titles defines the career and works of one of New York finest, a creative innovator who brings both clarity and purpose to today’s world of visual communication. With clients ranging from Esquire Magazine, Moet Chandon to the City of New York itself, his work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Founder of James Victore Inc., his independent design studio “hell-bent on world domination” (jamesvictore. com, 2020) Victore has created a persona that is characterised by his application of a social and political commentary, from his early street posters to his more contemporary commercial and advertising output. Despite many seeing his work as just another form of graffiti, Victore for me has both influenced and addressed the creative need I look for in my work; the basic need to make a commentary. Growing up in upstate New York, Victore started off his art career by dropping out of several art colleges before finally beginning an apprentiship under the book-jacket designer Paul Bacon. His breakthrough moment came in 1992 when he created his Celebrate Columbus poster to denounce the five-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the Americas. These 5000 “dead Indian” posters he put up to question the legitimacy of this celebration in the light of the ensuing genocide, were quickly removed by the police. Yet, this left a lasting impression on him that the best design should surprise or shock the viewer, an idea that has influenced the way I try to approach the work I strive to create. The Shakespeare Project in New York is dedicated to performing Shakespeare in public spaces, and Victore became one of the leading contributors to their visual identity through his hand-rendered posters he offered for free. Influenced by the Atelier Populaire, the graphic wing of the 1968 Paris student uprising, Victore founded his own small alternative graphics collective with five other young designers, conceiving and producing some of the most topical and satirical commentaries of its time. Traditional Family Values attacked right-wing politics and their call for the return of so-called family values, and Double Justice, produced for the release of the NAACP documentary expostulating the racism inherent in the death penalty. What I find myself in admiration of is not only Victore’s political and polemical astuteness as demonstrated in his body of work, but the fact that he produced many of these works at his own expense and donated them to leading advocacy groups, stimulating contemporary visual iconography and visual commentaries to attempt to influence change in today’s world, one of the new facets of graphic design that I find myself drawn to. Recently imparting his words of wisdom and ideas on creative careers and creativity in general in his book “Feck Perfuction”, James Victore currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. And it is these ideas, and the way he has tackled some of the most controversial issues through visual imagery rendered in his distinctive hand scrawl that continues to influence the way I approach the grammar of graphic design, the field that I am still slowly deciphering with the help of some of its leading innovators, like James Victore.

Leah Goldschneider

Anna Bessenyei

To copyright a piece of creative work means that you have an exclusive legal right to the permit or veto of the product for a set time. This can apply to any media like art or photos. It’s a right recognised by national laws and international treaties. The rules of copyright belong as a segment of intellectual property rights. Owning an image itself, through the laws, you also own patents, the overall design and laws of confidence. (www.npg.org.uk) There are a number of Intellectual property offences that go against the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act (1988). These include: Making copies for sale and displaying the product.

As I am living and working in Germany I examined the German copyright law, as these rules and requirements are more relevant to my professional practice.

All these are an official offence, once done without the permission of the registered owner. The Copyright, Designs and Patent Act (1988) – under UK laws – covers original written work, playscripts, musical lyrics, musical scores, recordings, films, animations, TV shows, typography, illustrations, graphic design, broadcasts, podcasts and fine art. There are other creative aspects that have their own national laws. For example, fashion sits under a different law unless it is the initial illustration designs. Unless a unique timeframe has been given for when the copyright ends on a product, the copyright will usually last for the designer’s life and sometimes extended to after that. An example of this is Michael Jackson. Even though he no longer lives, there is still a lot of his work that is not free for the public to use and won’t be for a very long time. Being the creator of the product, does not always automatically mean ownership. For example, any work created by Pascal Campion for Disney cannot be sold or used freely by Campion. This is because the artwork will be owned by Disney. It is important that when working with multiple people on a project, it is clearly stated in a contract who owns what and what can be done with it. Often if ownership can’t be proven, then a case cannot be made. All copyright regulations mostly came into effect in 2008. They replaced numerous consumer protection legislations that were created previously and implement the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD). One of the laws replaced and updated was the Trade Descriptions Act (1968). (www.gov.uk) As a designer it is important to take note of the surrounding artworld. This could mean understanding what has already been created and should not be repeated and knowing if another person is trying to copy your designs. Failing to take the laws into consideration could meaning ending up in court trying to defend your work. Unfortunately, young/ new designers are often a target as larger companies have their own legal teams to deal with copyright issues. In 2016 an illustrator Tuesday Bassen was thrown into a legal battle when the fashion company Zara ripped off her designs without consent. The illustrator stated that the whole experience was “emotionally exhausting and disheartening”. The copyright laws were what protected Bassen and made it possible to get her designs back. (Cartwright, J. 2016)

According to the copyright law of Germany (Urheberrechtsgesetz – UrhG) works of literature, science and art in particular are subjects to copyright. This protection of intellectual property can extend to paintings as well as computer graphics. It is only important that the respective creation is characterized by sufficient creativity and individuality. What the “sufficient degree” means is not exactly described in the law so in each questionable case it might be necessary for the court to ask for the opinion of independent specialists. As a rule, however, the principle applies: the more complex a representation, the more likely that the law will protect the graphic. For example, a pictogram or icon for printed documents usually does not reach the necessary level of creation but a logo or brand concept does. In principle, the graphically represented processes of an instruction manual can also be protected by copyright. In such a case, however, the responsible graphic designer must have made a recognizable contribution to making the manual particularly understandable or clear. The assessment of this shows how much the application of the copyright law depends on the individual case. In case a designer creates graphics on assignment of a client, the copyright is usually still with the creator. The client, on the other hand, receives the usage rights for the graphic design in accordance with the contractual agreements and can include the logo created on his website, for example. What exactly the client can do with the graphic which is protected by copyright should be defined in a contract. For example, the use of online and offline advertising or the transfer of the original files must be regulated. If the graphic designer “only” implements a customer’s specific ideas or sketches, there is usually no copyright for the graphics, as it is rather a service than an individual creative work. However, the template or drawing may still be protected by copyright.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jude Gallais-Vincent

Leah Goldschneider:

12 Image making and visual communication can be traced back to humanity’s early beginnings, and with it came the need for individuals to protect themselves from the artistic borrowing of others. The British Statute of Anne of 1710 became the world’s first copyright law, and was followed by a Copyright Act passed in the United States in 1790 which would be defined as a first attempt to harmonise international practices within the world of writers and artist-engravers. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is the current form of copyright law covering the UK, allowing and entitling creative practitioners to not only own the product of their efforts but also have a voice in how these works can be used by others, be it copying, printing, their inclusion in film, and more and more in our current times, posting online. Copyright, or intellectual property, comes about when an original work exhibiting an amount of skill, judgement and labour, be it literary, artistic or musical, is created by an individual or an organisation. Copyright thus gives these creators the right to control how their materials is then used by others. With a seventy-years duration of rights for most artistic works with the exception of a fifty-year duration for broadcasts and sound recordings and twenty-fiveyears for typographical arrangements of published editions, reproducing this artistic work during this duration time without the permission of the copyright owner amounts to an infringement of copyright. It is important to stress that it is not the idea for a work which is protected, but the actual work itself. The UK’ Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 thus outlines the exceptions under which use under certain circumstances would be legally permitted. As creative practitioners, it is important to be aware of these common exceptions in order not to infringe on copyright law and develop our own creative practices. The term “fair dealing” encompasses many of the most common exceptions that apply to artistic works, or in other words, the way in which the work used is considered fair and used for a specific purpose, ranging from its use in criticism or reviews, as a quotation, to report current events, as a parody, caricature or pastiche, used for research or study with non-commercial ends, to replace or preserve copies, in education for both teaching and examinations, and data/text mining for once again, non-commercial ends. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 refers to the term “sufficient acknowledgment” in all of these above cases, which means that the artist’s name and the title (or description of the work) must accompany the use of the work (apart from in parodies, caricatures or pastiches where their dictionary definitions becomes the legal exceptions). Accidental, or unplanned use are also covered by an exception, but as long as the artistic work is not integral to the image, broadcast or film, as are sculptural works, buildings and works on public display which can be filmed, photographed or broadcasted with impunity. Recent times have seen the emergence of new non-governmental organisations pushing for IP protection within different artistic fields. Anti-Copying in Design, or ACID is the UK’s leading design and intellectual property campaigning organisation, not only providing guidelines and advice to help its members to protect their intellectual property, but strengthening links to governmental bodies, whether in Westminster or Brussels, and IP lawyers. Many designers now use the ACID logo to deter thieves and copycats, and creating a growing design community who was successful in pushing for intentional infringement to become a criminal offence in the Intellectual Property Act 2014. With the UK leaving the EU, ACID is trying to make sure that UK designers don’t lose any IP protection currently enjoyed under EU law and sets guidelines, thus allowing creative practitioners or design students starting in their respective fields to clearly understand what is permitted or not, what infringes or not and an essential part in any professional development.

(2017). Intellectual property offences. [Online] available at: https:// www.gov.uk/government/publications/intellectual-property-offences/intellectual-property-offences#copyright-designs-and-patent-act-1988 [accessed 19.2.20] An introduction to copyright. [Online] available at: https://www. npg.org.uk/about/creators/copyright [accessed 19.2.20] Campion, P. Gallery Pascal. [Online] available at: https://gallerypascal.com/ [accessed 18.2.20] Oatley, C. (2014). Interview with Pascal Campion (Part 1). [Podcast] available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv7a-VlpXQ0&app=desktop [accessed 19.2.20] Shannon. (2019). Pascal Champion. [Online] available at: https:// www.shannonassociates.com/pascalcampion#url=17261 [accessed 19.2.20] Anna Bessenyei: Berg, M. (2019) [online] Available at: https://madsberg.dk/about Central Illustration Agency (year of publication unknown) Mads Berg [online] Available at: https://centralillustration.com/illustration/mads-berg Muller, G. (2019) A Window to the Past: Amazing Art Deco Posters by Mads Berg, Abduzeedo [online] Available at: https://abduzeedo.com/node/85017 Fulleylove, R. (2015) Mads Berg`s fantastic illustrations are a modern take on classic poster art, It`s Nice That [online] Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/mads-berg Urheberrecht.de (2020) Urheberrecht bei einer Grafik: Wissenwertes für Designer, Urheberrechtsgesetz [online] Available at: https://www.urheberrecht.de/grafik/ Jude Gallais-Vincent: Victore, J. (2010). Victore or, who died and made boss?. New York: Abrams Books. Victore, J. (2019), Feck Perfuction: Dangerous Ideas on the Business of Life. San Francisco: Chronicle Books LLC. Victore, J. Have a Damn Opinion. (2020) [online]. Available at: https://www.jamesvictore.com [Accessed 8th March 2020]. Eye Magazine. Writing on the wall: The Posters of James Victore by Steven Heller. (1998) [online]. Available at: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/writing-on-the-wall [Accessed 8th March 2020].