Design Wales at Wrexham Business Week

If you want to get one step ahead of the fashion market, the next Design Wales event may be of interest to you. The event will take place during Wrexham Business Week and will focus on three key areas: Colour & Trends for Autumn/Winter 09/10, presented by Alison Hughes of Carlin International; Developing a fashion brand and promoting it off and online, presented by Victoria Jones of Design Wales; Intellectual property in fashion design, presented by Nicola Giles of Design Wales.

The event will take place on Thursday 23rd October, 2.00pm – 5.30pm at the Ramada Hotel, Wrexham. The event is free, but entry is by ticket only. If you would like to attend, please contact Design Wales (T: 0845 3031400).

Design Wales presented Blair Enns... but what next?

As widely anticipated Blair Enns came to Cardiff and spoke to the Welsh design community about his 'Win Without Pitching' campaign. DesignWales has been keen to have Blair come and speak as part of our ongoing research into the impact of free pitching and speculative work on design, particularly graphic design businesses.

The core of Blair's stance, is that in order for design businesses to flourish, they need to focus on specific business areas and become known as experts in that area. The examples he gave, were of a mobile telephone fascia company and a catalogue design company. In order to be perceived as expert, design companies must write about their expertise as well as demonstrate it. They must continually build on their knowledge and not become complacent. The idea being, that if you are considered an expert in your chosen field, then you don't have to look for clients... they look for you!

Operations Director of Design Wales, Gavin Cawood in conversation with Blair Enns








The baton has now been passed to the designers present at the talk... so tell us in the comments below, if Blair's talk has given you food for thought.

Design Wales Attends the Launch of the Cardiff Design Festival

Thursday the 2nd of October saw the launch of the Cardiff Design Festival at the Senedd building in Cardiff Bay. Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas AM hosted the event, with speeches from Olwen Mosely the director the festival, and Tom Bewick representing the Cultural Skills Council.

Olwen announced a series of interesting events occuring during the festival. Design Wales is pleased to support the festival by hosting some of these events. A full list of Design Wales events during the Cardiff Design Festival is on our site http://www.designwales.org

The launch event also featured a selection of the finalists' artwork for the Cardiff Design Festival Showcase...it was encouraging to see such a high standard of design work. During Tom Bewick's speech he made reference to a recent study which showed that a higher than average proportion of Welsh companies had design embedded into their businesses. This fact married with a vibrant design community, should make for an optimistic economy!!

The Cardiff Design Festival runs until the end of October.

Booking Open for Blair Enns Design Wales Visit in October

Design Wales is pleased to confirm that Blair Enns' talk on October 17th 'Win Without Pitching' is now open for booking. The event is open to Welsh design businesses only. Places are restricted to two per company and are allocated on a first come first served basis.



Click here for the booking form

Design Wales presents Blair Enns 17th October 2008

Booking is now open for Blair Enns' talk in Cardiff on the 17th of October 2008

Design Wales discusses the recent Barbie v Bratz case

Although this IP news item is a month old now, it’s such a good story from an IP ownership and employment contract perspective that we had to include it.

Most designers are aware that the work they create during the course of employment usually belongs to their employer; but what about the designs they create in their own time? Can their employer also claim ownership of these works? A Californian court hearing the Barbie (Mattel, Inc.) v Bratz (MGA Entertainment, Inc.) case believed that this is exactly what an employer could do.

Mattel ex-employee Carter Bryant claimed he created the Bratz doll whilst on a leave of absence from the toy giant. Bryant briefly returned to Mattel after this break, eventually leaving to go and work for MGA. Shortly after starting his employment there, MGA launched the Bratz range of dolls. Mattel took umbrage at this, insisting that Bryant was still an employee of Mattel when he created the drawings for the Bratz dolls. Mattel consequently initiated legal proceedings against both Bryant and MGA for breach of contract and copyright infringement.

Although it was a victory for Mattel, the case was not as straightforward as it first appeared. As reported by LexisNexis, Bryant was still under contract when he created the drawings of the Bratz dolls, even though he was on leave of absence. It also appears that he deleted computer files before submitting the computer as evidence.

From an employer’s perspective this is an interesting case because it emphasises the importance of including IP clauses in contracts.

The BBC’s report on the case can be found here.

Star Wars - Design Wales highlights the problems of relying on copyright to protect designs

We’re often asked how designs can be protected; unfortunately the answer to such a pertinent question is not always straightforward. A common misconception is that all designs can be protected by copyright; this isn’t the case as the recent Lucasfilm v Andrew Ainsworth case illustrates.

Andrew Ainsworth a prop designer based in Twickenham, was said to have infringed the copyright of Lucasfilm by selling replicas of the Imperial Stormtroopers’ armour and helmet. Ainsworth, who was commissioned by Lucasfilm to create the armour and helmet for the initial Star Wars film released in 1977, used the original moulds to make the alleged infringing articles. By making a replica of the helmet, Lucasfilm claimed that Ainsworth had infringed the copyright in the design drawings of the helmet. The judge hearing the case disagreed, explaining that if the helmet was to be protected by copyright, it would have to be regarded as a sculpture or a work of artistic craftsmanship and not as an artistic work which the design drawings would be considered as. The judge concluded that since the helmet was a prop, it could not be regarded as a sculpture or a work of artistic craftsmanship, ruling that copyright had not been infringed.

Admittedly this is a complicated case, but if there is a moral to this tale it is this - before taking legal action against a third party that you feel has infringed the copyright in your designs, make sure that copyright subsists; otherwise it could be a very expensive lesson in copyright law.