Plagiarism is an epidemic in the design world and most of the time people don’t even realize when they’re plagiarism something.

Think of every google image you’ve added to your power point presentation or downloaded a font to make a poster look the way you want. Chances are that photo and font are plagiarized.

When somebody creates something like a photo, a font, or a video they become the owners of that intellectual property. When you then use that image and fail to give them credit or use it all when it is not labeled as free to use you are technically breaking the law.

To make sure you’re safe to use a creative work make sure it’s labeled as free to use or free to use with editing. Often times the websites where you can download special fonts or search for photos will have an option for you to click that will automatically filter through which ones are free to use and which ones you’ll have to pay to use.

Plagiarism is so important in the design world because people’s livelihoods are at stake. Any time somebody looks at a font or a photo and decides that they want to donate to the person that made it or even hire them but no credit was given you’re putting the original artist at disadvantage. Crediting work is also a way to say that we value artists and their hard work. If we never credit them or thank them we never get to see any more of their great work again.