The best they can do is to wait for other people to come up with designs then they steal concepts or simply become copycats. Such individuals are an accident in this noble profession, and you need to protect your designs from them through all possible means. Discussed below are various ways you can employ to ensure that all your designs are protected from the copycats in the world-:

Watermark

Watermarking is the first and the most basic method you can use to protect your design from the copycats. Suppose you are working on a design project, and you need to present to your client some design inspirations, all you have to do to protect the design so that no one else can copy it is to simply watermark it.

Additionally, you can watermark the various designs you showcase in your portfolio online. Remember, with the world of internet, a simple Google search can make your designs vulnerable hence uploading onto your portfolio without any watermarks will make it a breeze for the copycats to take it away.

Small Size Design

There are unscrupulous clients who will try to get your design service for free or very cheaply. What these people do is request you to make for them design samples, and if you fail to watermark the samples, they will simply take them and trace them before sending them off to cheap designers in the freelance sites. The cheap designers will thus use your inspiration and concept to continue with the design.

This can be a very tricky situation, and you can only hope that you don’t land such clients. The best to protect your design in such a case is to send very small design samples that the client can’t copy and pass on to another designer.

Always stick to quality designs

Most of the designs which are easily copied are the ones of poor quality or those that have been presented in a reckless manner. If you can make unique and quality designs, sometimes it can be very hard for the copycats to steal it. This is because though they will see the entire design on the internet, they will not know how to make a similar one since most of them are less skilled, anyway. Therefore, strive as much as possible to create quality and distinct designs to give the copycats a run for their time and skills.

Only share your designs after selling them

Another way to protect your design is to avoid sharing them with others, either offline or online before you finally sell them or pass the rights to the client. You can wait until you have sold the designs before sharing them and indicating clearly while sharing that the design is already sold to another person. In this manner, the world gets to know about your designs after they have already been sold, and this makes them less prone to theft by the copycats.

Be careful with the sites you use

There has been a proliferation of websites where people share their designs and other kinds of inspirations. But these sites have become the favorite abodes for a lot of copycats in the world. They go to these sites to check if they can find something to copy or to steal. However, not all such sites are that vulnerable.

There are a few genuine ones who take adequate measure to ensure that user’s works are not copied or downloaded in any way. To protect your design when using such sites, therefore, it is imperative that you be selective and use only the legit ones. Check out their ratings and read their privacy policy to see if you designs will be safe should you decide to use the website. If you feel you will be vulnerable, and you won’t protect your design in the right manner, simply avoid such sites.

Get Copyrights

Getting trademarks or copyrights is another sure way to ensure that you protect your design from thieves and potential copycats. If you do this, you will have an option for legal redress should you discover that somebody somewhere is using your designs without your permission. The process of getting a trademark or copyrights for your design work may be long and tedious, but if you have a design you think is worth protecting at all costs, and then this would be the method.

Learn top lessons that you should take from the big brands in this article!

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The current graphics design industry is full of what many professional designers have termed as “noise”. Many designers, especially the newly inducted ones, are in a hurry to complete unique designs, even if it means breaking all the design principles. With the superfluity of readily available design tools and a lot of learning materials, most designers have gotten it all wrong and ended up with designs that are purely bizarre.

This is when they refuse to follow the already laid down principles and try to be unique in all the wrong ways. However, it is good to experiment with your designs, provided that you don’t go overboard and ruin the whole design. Here is how you can be unique in this turbulent industry without necessarily churning out weird designs-:

Always be simple

If you want to be unique without being bizarre, then you will always strive to achieve simplicity in your designs. A beautiful logo isn’t one that has used seven fonts, five styles, and nine colors. When creating any graphic, it is important to have the ultimate goal in mind. A good graphic should be clear and have the ability to pass the central marketing message effectively to the target audience.

A glance at all the world major brands will reveal to you that they have very simple logos and simple marketing graphics. To confirm this, have a look at Coca-cola, Apple, IBM, Google to mention just a few.

Don’t Always Follow Trends

Never be a trend follower in graphics design if you want to avoid coming up with bizarre designs. If you are fond of following trends, you may find yourself with very weird designs that you implemented trying to conform to a fad. Instead, stick to basic principles of design, since these never change and your logo will be relevant years after the trend is long gone.

Less is always more

The less is always more concept has proven to be such a strong pillar in all the great designs you will ever come across. With this concept, you don’t have to include everything on the design you are working on. It suggests that you stick only to the core components of the design and keep away from the things that are likely to divert the viewer’s attention. Remember, you have a very small window of opportunity to grab the attention of the user with the design, and the more complicated your design is, the faster they will get distracted and fail to get the message your design is conveying.

Don’t overdo with the colors

Wrong use of the color palettes will make you produce bizarre graphic designs. It is imperative that as a graphic designer, you have a thorough understanding of the graphic design color theory so that you know which colors to use, when and how to use them.

Most of the weird designs are usually as a result of the designers trying to be overly creative with the colors. Hence, be careful with your use of colors if you want to be unique without being bizarre. Exercise a lot of moderation when dealing with the colors.

Never Copy

It goes without saying that your logo will always be bizarre if you become a copy cat and decide to imitate other designer’s works. Originality is one of the things that will make you as well as your designs unique. There are a plethora of places to get inspiration from and copying other people’s work should never cross your mind. It is not only unethical but also, it raises serious questions about your competency as a graphics designer. Therefore, stick to being original at all times and you will always end up with unique designs without producing bizarre designs.

Customized Designs

Every design project you undertake should always be customized to meet specific goals and also directed to a particular audience. By offering customized designs, you eliminate all chances of not being unique, which in most cases leads to unusual designs.

Understand the meaning of the design

If you are unable to explain in simple terms what the logo is all about, then there is no way you will avoid making bizarre designs. As the designer, you need to have a clear thought process in coming up with the design, so that you understand all symbols and their meanings. In this manner, you stand a better chance of bringing out the marketing message without causing any confusion to those who will be using or seeing the logo.

Use special effects sparingly

Overusing special effects is another reason many designers come up with bizarre designs. As much as you want to use the special effects to create a unique design, you must exercise sobriety, or else you end up ruining everything. As a rule of thumb, if you feel that your design must have special effects to be complete, then you have failed in the design. A good logo should look great without the addition of any special effects. However, if you must use such effects, then remember to use them sparingly.

Check out the basics of branding for designers. 

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Fonts play a huge role in graphics design. With a plethora of fonts to choose from, designers have the liberty to use fonts to their advantage and bring out a wide range of effects. But just as it pays to know the best fonts to use in your designs, it pays even much better to know the worst fonts to use.

Wrong font choice has the potential of not just ruining your design but also putting to doubt your prowess as a graphic designer. It is why it’s crucial to know which fonts to use for which project and the ones you should always avoid like plague and never use in any of your graphic design projects. Listed here are the 5 worst fonts to use when designing. Take keen note of them.

Comic Sans MS

This is the basic Windows font installed in your computer when you are booting up Windows. It was designed by Vincent Cornare in 1994, and it was intended as a child oriented font. Its inspiration came from comic books in his office back then and he thought that the font would be ideal for writing speech bubbles but not general communication. However, many people have fallen in love with this font until its use has now become a cliché. But this is not the reason why it is one of the worst fonts to use.

The main reason why you should never use this font is that it is childish. It doesn’t have any formality, though you will see it being used in formal events and some formal letters. Restrict its use only when you are working on a children website or designing kid’s birthday invitation. It will be a gross mistake to use it in for business sites or when working on warning signs or on other official forms of communication.

Papyrus

Papyrus font came into existence in 1983 as a result of Chris Costello’s work. Its inspiration came from the pre-modern writings on the leaves of the papyrus trees. It is true that the design and the subsequent use of this font were noble, but now it is considered as one of the worst to use in your designs.

The passionate hate on this font comes from that it has been duly overused, until its now saturated and very boring to look at. It has been the signature font for signboards, advertisements, captchas, books, banners and whole lot of other typographical designs.

As one of the worst fonts to use in your designs, you must stop using the papyrus font forthwith or else your designs will be generic, boring and will show that no life at all.

Curlz MT

The Curlz MT is another font considered as the worst fonts to use in design during this time and age. This loathsome font was the creation of Steve Matteson and Carl Corssgrove in 1995 and it was primarily intended to be used for party invitations. After its introduction and adoption, it took the same path as comic sans font in the sense that it became the mainstream font, until it reached a level that people were sick and tired of it.

Besides, it lacks formality and authority hence you can never use it where coat-and-tie events are involved. Again using it in designs like warning signs makes it appear like some kind of a sick joke and no one will ever take such a warning seriously.

Since the font has been overused and it appears virtually in most of the designs, you should designate it as one of the worst fonts in design and use better alternative even if you have a special love for it.

Courier New

Courier New is another font that makes it to the list of the worst fonts to use in design. It is one of the oldest fonts in the world, having been designed and sold to IBM way back in 1955. It was used for typewriter print and this why it was sold to IBM since IBM was manufacturing typewriters by that time. Other than being almost in a state of deprecation, the font lack dignity and prestige and since typewriters are no longer in use, it deserves to remain in the bin of worst fonts to use in design.

Bradel Hand ITC

Bradel Hand ITC font was designed by Richard Bradley and it was intended be a font for non-formal communication. However, the font makes it as one of the worst fonts to use in design due to the fact that it is readily available hence it’s being massively abused. It features heavily in designs such as school announcements, posters, bulletin boards, story books, invitation cards, etc. Due to the need for freshness and originality, this font no longer appeals to many designers since no one wants to be a copycat.

This is not exhaustive in any way but it gives an indication of some of the worst fonts to use in design. Do your own research to uncover more so that you can stay fresh and pragmatic in your designs.

Use these royalty fonts instead!

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