Ethical Images and Where to Find Them

Have you ever been annoyed with copyright? Maybe you've been doing an assignment for school and have to scour the depths of a source to find the proper procedure for using a picture or a quote. Or maybe you worked tirelessly to post a creative and funny video on YouTube only to have it ripped down thanks to a company or business who feels like you violated their copyright. 

Wouldn't life be easier if we could all just use whatever academic or creative work we wanted when we wanted it? Actually no, that would be awful.

Copyright exists for a reason. It protects the authors intellectual property. Without this, authors would have a very hard time making a living off there work. It would be like cooking dinner every night only to have complete strangers barge into your house and eat all your food.

Regardless, Copyright isn't going anywhere so we'd better learn to deal with it. But fret not, Copyright laws are fair and there are plenty of ways to use many different classes of work without stepping on any toes. What I'm talking about is, of course, Creative Commons.

 As their website states,"Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools." by using creative commons and other similar search engines you can find a smorgasbord of free images, music, and videos that have very limited copyright restrictions. The only catch is you generally have to mention who the original author is.

For example, check out the following images I found on Google Images using Creative Commons. These are all images I plan to use later for a project.

When determining whether or not you can use a work it's best to ask yourself four questions.

1. Why are you using it?
2. What is the nature of it? Is it a fact or an idea or more of a creative piece. 
3. How much of it do you plan to use?
4. Will you harm the potential market for the author?  

When I used Google images, I filtered for images release to the public for "noncommercial reuse." This mean's that I am permitted to use these images as is as long I do not intend to make any money off of them. Given that all the above images will be placed into this private blog, which will likely not circulate outside of my classroom, and later be modified for use in a slidecast, I am in no way violating copyright. Besides the fact that I am using them for educational purposes, which warrants a certain amount of fair use to begin with, all these images were listed in creative commons as available for reuse.

Hopefully you found some of this information helpful. Thanks for reading!

Fill your powerpoints with CRAP

Powerpoints. 

If you're like me, you've been making them since middle school, but what if I told you that you've likely been doing them wrong for years. Most powerpoints, or slidecasts as their often called, throw visual design principles out the window. They are loaded down with redundant bullet points and are nearly impossible to read without someone narrating along with it. 

Slidecasts to be truly effective should be able to be read comprehensibly without a presenter; summarizing only the most important details the author wants to get across to his audience. In general, It would be wise to remember these key points:

• Each slide should use only one point, or main idea.
• Text should be used only for emphasis.
• Any images should serve a rhetorical purpose and be relevant and engaging; avoid clip art.
• Put CRAP in your slidecast!

Set off by that last point? Don't be, CRAP is an acronym for general principles of visual design. It is all about visual contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. I could tell you what this looks like, but it would be easier to show you. 

If you click the following link you'll be taken to a slidecast by Mark Johnstone on creative adverting, in which Mark makes use of all the above pricnples. 

http://www.slideshare.net/MarkJohnstone2/how-toproducebettercontentideasmarkjohnstone?ref=http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/inspiring-slideshare-presentations-for-marketers-list

For starters, notice the CRAP layout (the good kind of CRAP). The entire presentation tends to be in black and white or a shade of gray, which shows a clear contrast between the text and background. The font he uses is an all lowercase, simple typewriter-esque serif font. These same basic feautres repeat throughout his document. Everything on his slides, his type, images, graphs, are in a center alignment. When called for, the individual pieces follow a logical order, with text on the top and bottom of each slide and an image in the middle, thus creating proximity.

Everything has a purpose. Individually, the black and white color scheme, pain typeface and center alignment are typically seen as over simple tools of design that many creating a slidecast would seek to avoid. However, Mark takes these individual facets and uses them to create a slidecast that is interesting and appealing to his audience.

Visual designs aside, mark also makes use of other points as well. He has only one main idea on each slide, his text is only ever used for emphasis, and when he does use images, they are to illustrate his point more clearly to the viewer. Above all, the presentation is entirely comprehensive without mark having to lecture us.  I don't know about y'all, but I could think of a few lecture-heavy professors who could take some design tips from Mark.



**Addendum**

To experiment with CRAP myself (pun not intended). I created a single slidecast from some research I used in one of my previous school projects, a white paper on how nonprofits use social media.

Both the text and image are aligned to the center. The color of the text and background are in contrast with one another, with the background being a very pale blue. The background also matches with the blue in the image. Lastly, all aspects of this design repeat and are in close proximity with each other. I use the same fonts and colors to portray a crisp presentation. It's by no means perfect, but I would definitely consider it a start. 

**fair use edit** to my my knowledge, the image I used in no way violates copyright. While it is an image used by an academic party to explain better a piece of an academic research,  citing the author bellow should be enough to register my use of it for noncommercial educational purposes. I came to this conclusion by working through the 4 legal factors  of copyright. 

Firstly, my use for the above image is for educational purposes only. I in no way profit financially for using this image. Secondly, while I use creative aspects to get my point across, it is still a piece of a fact based slidecast Third, I used far less of the original work then the typically accepted "10%" of legal use. Lastly, There is no way for me to harm the market or competition of the authors. Given that this pot liekly wont see the outside of this classroom, there is no danger of encroaching on possible profits of the author.