3c. Fonts and Dingbats

Text can provide a nice addition to an illustration, but if text is used at the primary subject, your artwork will most likely classed as a derivative work. The reason being is most fonts and dingbats (symbol or ornamental fonts) are protected by copyright, so using them as the main subject of an illustration is a copyright violation. Unless you created the font, or the font is in the public domain (you will need to prove it in your description metadata), any illustrations containing distinctive and recognisable characteristics of copyrighted fonts as the subject will be declined for copyright reasons.

Using Fonts

If you do use a font for text as a minor element within your design, it is vital that you convert the text to paths/curves/outlines as one of the last steps before saving to an EPS. If you don't, the font could default to a standard system font when it is opened on another computer that does not have the font installed. All illustration submissions that contain areas of live text, that have not been converted to paths, will be declined.

Do's and Don'ts

Things to do:
  • Do use text as a minor element within your illustration, if required;
  • Do convert all text to paths/curves/outlines before saving and uploading your file;
  • Do upload text as stock if you are the creator of the font used.
Things not to do:
  • Don't make text written in a copyrighted font the main subject of your illustration;
  • Don't leave live unconverted text boxes in your file;
  • Don't attempt to sell fonts or symbols as stock if you did not create them.

Published: 01/01/2007 | 294 View(s)


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