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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?"
You could post on a site that gets a lot of geek exposure.
hey, how about slashdot?
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
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
I'm part designer, part 3D artist by day, and at night (when I have any energy left) I "just draw" on the old Wacom tablet, usually.
What grabs me? Well, money is nice but frankly, I don't need it. What I'd like to contribute to is a project I see value in. Something that will let me learn the ropes of what it's like to work with other people through the OSS model, because I never have before; I've only ever been a corporate monkey where the dynamics are presumably quite different.
That said, there aren't many projects that have grabbed me by the collar and said, "WE NEED YOU TO HELP US MAKE IT LOOK GOOD." The only apps that I've ever considered helping out with were Inkscape which shows a lot of promise for a vector graphics drawing package -- but isn't looking for designers as their road map is mostly replete with "stuff needs to be reprogrammed"; and Freevo, which blatently advertises that they're looking for (skin) designers. I think I'll be helping design a few skins for Freevo, because they look like they really want it, and I love the package and want to give something back to that community.
Since your project isn't done yet, selling on the basis of "giving back" because people like your project is pretty unlikely. That doesn't mean you might not gain a little interest by publicising what it's all about, though. Worst-case scenario, it's really dull and the requests are few -- at least the people that do volunteer will be in for the long haul, whereas signing up sight-unseen might result in a few people abandoning ship early on.
Yeah, this is exactly the response they always get from employers who discover their job offer is listed on FTJ. Usually it's some asshole offers minimum wage for a job involving design, programming, and sys engineering, and when called out on it, they ALWAYS reply "I've already got a whole bunch of people who applied and are happy to find work at $5.15/hr with no benefits. If that's too low for you then there's always someone who will do the work for the price I want to pay."
What you are failing to realize is that anyone who can do your art and design work does not need to practice, they already have the skills. Your offer is known in the business press as "the race to the bottom" or "walmartization," you're trying to convince people that their work is worth less because there's always some guy who will do it cheaper. So go find them. Hint: try free clip art.
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.
I beg to differ. You could level the same argument against computer programmers, yet there is a huge amount of free labor to be found from hobbyist programmers, even ones who are professionals and have loads of experience. Many people just like to be involved in fun projects, and some people feel a strong social commitment to "open source" or "free software" or even "free art."
Personally (as artist and programmer!) I prefer to work on my own projects, but if the project were cool enough, I wouldn't feel cheated to work on it for no pay.
Your attempt to deflect blame for your ridiculous offer isn't going to work. I am the only person in this whole discussion who has actually done work as you have described. Let me tell you how this works.
After working in graphics production for many years in LA, I went back to my old university to finish my art degree. I was disgusted at my old employer because they were charging $80/hour for my work but paying me about $10 (this was in the late 1980s), I figured I'd earn more if I finished my BFA.
So one day in the Art building I notice a flyer on the bulletin board. Some guy in the Theater department is doing a multimedia MFA thesis on CDROM, he wants someone to do the interface design and graphics to wrap around his videos and text. It was a groundbreaking project, nobody had ever done a thesis on CDROM before. So I decided, what the fuck, I need to keep up my skills, I'll help the guy out for free. Total time about 10 hours, it would have cost him a thou if he'd contracted with my old studio, but he got it for nothing, all I got was a credit.
So about a year later, I'm reading the newspaper about how a local theater student won a national award for his innovative interface design on his multimedia MFA thesis. Bastard didn't even acknowledge that I did the work, he took all the credit for himself.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to pitch my real artwork to the local galleries. I work in an antique photo process, I'm one of only about 3 people in the world who work in this particular process, it can take me a week to make a color print, it's very labor intensive, and the materials cost hundreds of bucks. I showed them one of my best prints, it cost me about $150 in materials alone to make. The gallery loves the work and wants to sell it, but they want to sell it for $200 and take a 55% cut, which would mean I'd lose money selling the prints. I inform them that prints of this type usually sell for about $2000 and tell them to take a hike.
It is obvious you really do not understand how artists work. They're always getting offers to do work for nothing. They're always doing hugely expensive projects of their own, they'd rather be doing their personal artwork at their own expense than doing someone else's drudgework at their own expense.