Working With Publishers and Creative Commons

Fred Benenson, January 13th, 2009

Artist, programmer, and now author Michael Mandiberg, has a fantastic post offering advice to authors interested in using CC licenses (and CC licensed work) for their books. Mandiberg’s recent book, Digital Foundations: an Intro to Media Design with the Adobe Creative Suite, is both licensed under Creative Commons and utilizes CC licensed media, so he speaks with authority on the subject. His first nugget of advice really demonstrates how progress authors have made while asking for the right to use CC:

1. Figure out what you want and ask for it
Every contract is negotiable. Choose what you want and ask for it. Do not be afraid to ask for it. In our case, we focused on getting Creative Commons licensing into the contract, but we also asked for and received other modifications, including a higher percentage of royalties after a certain number of books sold, a stipend to design the book and ownership of the book layout and design (which we licensed CC).

This is essential reading if you’re talking with your publisher about using CC, so don’t miss the 9 other suggestions.

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Digital Foundations, CC-Licensed Media Design Instruction

Cameron Parkins, December 22nd, 2008

Digital Foundations: Intro to Media Design with the Adobe Creative Suite is a new book that aims to teach the principles of Bauhaus design and its relation to modern software, Adobe’s Creative Suite in particular:

Digital Foundations uses formal exercises of the Bauhaus to teach the Adobe Creative Suite. All students of digital design and production—whether learning in a classroom or on their own—need to understand the basic principles of design in order to implement them using current software. Far too often design is left out of books that teach software for the trade and academic markets. Consequently, the design software training exercise is often a lost opportunity for visual learning. Digital Foundations reinvigorates software training by integrating Bauhaus formal design exercises inspired by the history of art and design into tutorials fusing design fundamentals and core Adobe Creative Suite methodologies. The result is a cohesive learning experience.

The book is being released under a CC BY-NC-SA license and is available for free in wiki format (also available for purchase here). This license choice not only keeps the content open and shareable, but is also a “first for AIGA Design Press, New Riders, and Peachpit, and the result of 9 months of negotiation” (via Boing Boing).

Digital Foundations‘ authors, xtine burrough and Michael Mandiberg, have posted their musings on copyright, the public domain, and Creative Commons on the Digital Founation’s blog through out the book’s creation. Similarly, we would be remiss if we failed to mention that while the book focuses on Adobe’s Creative Suite, the design principles taught therein are equally applicable to open-source design tools such as GIMP and Inkscape.

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