September is PRSA Ethics Month…
September 4, 2008 | by Shannon Hiller |… and as part of our recognition for the month’s theme, we will be posting different ethical scenarios that we may each encounter as PR practitioners. I invite you to comment on these situations and tell us what you would do if faced with something similar. Let’s get a dialogue going that will lead us right into our monthly luncheon with Christi Day, spokesperson for Southwest Airlines.
You work in a corporate communications division for a manufacturer. Management decides the company needs a new, fresh logo. As a member of the team assigned this task, you are asked to propose three concepts. You do research on the Internet and identify three promising ideas.
How can you ethically use research as inspiration for a creative idea?
When using research is plagiarism?
Guidance: Disclosure of Information
Most logos, names, design elements are adaptations of thoughts and ideas seen somewhere else.
Using any visual design element exactly as it exists elsewhere is not ethical or legal. Adapting a style or approach is generally acceptable as long as it is changed enough to be unique. For example, a type treatment, color application or illustrative style from an existing logo might be modified and adapted to stand as a unique identity for a business with a different name and mission. The end result must represent the client with its own unique identity.
Before the Internet existed, designers and “creatives” relied on the legal industry to do trademark checks when developing logos. Today, the Internet provides fast preliminary and comprehensive access to vast amounts of information and increases the success of generating original ideas.
