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Hiring Artists for Open Source Projects?
MikeFM asks: "What is the best way for an Open Source developer to hire artists to provide graphics, music, and other artwork for Open Source projects? I need to hire such people and I'm not sure where to go or how best to spell out the terms of the contract so that it's okay to release the works for hire as Open Source. I'm willing to pay but can't afford to pay a lot. It seems to me that providing artwork for an Open Source project sounds like great exposure to art students and artists still early in their career but how do I find these people? I've posted ads in the local schools and art stores.. what else can I do?"
Hit the art colleges during open houses or design shows... take a look around and talk to the students... Don't count on anyone calling you from any adds you take out. Artists and designers want to know what is in it for them... The best thing to do as far as the contract is concerned is to offer to pay them, you retain rights to use and distribute anything they 'sell' to you, but they retain rights to use the 'work' they produce in their portfolio... you can also pro-offer to supply them with a free finished product, as well as liner or some form of hard copy with their name on it. Things like that go a long way to getting designers or artists to hand over work. As long as their 'signature' ends up somewhere in the finished product hard coded (read printed in a booklet somewhere), they are usually happy.
As for artistic freedom, that is a whole different kettle of fish... Try to let them do what they do best and stay out of their way only offering direction. Try to arrange work previews during the buildup and don't hit them with 'buts' use 'ands' to direct their work. You will find that you get much better end results that way
Best of luck.
flinging poop since 1969
You can start by browsing already "open sourced" works at opart.org and opsound.org. If you cannot find anything pre-existing to fit your needs, you will at least find a community of artisans who embrace open source principles. You'll also want to consult creative commons for the various free asin speech liscenses for the various mediums of art you'll be using.
I think you'll find that most open source artists, as with most open source developers are not seeking to be financially compensated directly, though are open for donations.
I myself am an "open source" musician and have contributed music to a few open source projects: SonarBuoyix and Tong.
Post want-ads on graphics Internet boards. Search the web to find graphics boards. Here are a few to get you started:
CGTalk
Polycount
And there are many others out there. Many have help-wanted boards.
Just use a standard work-for-hire type contract. That is, you will own the copyright. Then you can do whatever you want with it (like release under an open-source license). This is just standard practice for contract work of any type. There are lots of contract templates on the web and just about all of them assign copyright of created works to the person/company paying for it.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
There is a sort of "talent pool" at sourceforge.net called "Project Help Wanted". It's mostly for developers, but there's also a section for graphics artists/designers. If you are an artist and would like to help out a project, why not try and see if there is one that could use your talent.
I have tried it before (I'm working on a game called OpenMortal)... got zero response. Maybe others have been luckier.