Topic awaiting preservation: Site designed by.....

Question:

While working for a professional web design company, you build websites for clients. Is it in good taste to add in "page designed by (your comapny name & link go here)" somewhere on that page? (phrase may be worded differently). What about adding in a small graphic on the client page advertising your web design company?

What is your take on this?

and if you can, can you provide some sort of research on this topic.

Thanks

I think that is up to your client. I've seen sites with a small "Design by Whoever" at the bottom of the main page. I've also seen credits on seperate pages. I really doubt you want something on every single page. Someone might think you're an attention whore.

In the end I would image it will be up to your client as to whether or not they allow you to do something like that.

:::11oh1:::

ok.. but what if you haven't asked the client.... lemme explain.

my boss just found out that I had not been putting a footer on client's pages that advertise our company. He's not happy about that. I want to try to explain to him that I think it's not the best practice on a professional level. (this is why I ask here, maybe I am wrong for thinking this way.) I am not sure how to approch this situation without putting my head on a chopping block. I suppose we would have to contact every client and ask, as I disagree with just adding this to their pages. Anyway.. I'll just do what he tells me to do and let him deal with the repercussions, BUT, I need to make a stand in my defense and explain why I didnt do this..

a_random_human: Its a tricky one - you are essentially getting free advertising so it might be calculated into the cost of the site (you might do a job slightly cheaper if you got a credit on a site that got a lot of eyeballs and could generate more work). I would imagine a client might be a little miffed if you did this without it being explicit in your brief and that might harm you in the long run.

___________________
Emps

The Emperor dot org

I also thinkt that if it isn't written into a contract somewhere or wasn't brought up during negotiations then your company really doesn't have any right to add something like that on.

:::11oh1:::

I second Emperor. In my former company we usually put a mention in the contract that there will be a tiny link in the footer ( already including the legal disclaimer, the copyrights, trademarks and all other things that can fit there ) to either our own company's website or to a credits page.

One time the marketing people forgot to mention that in a contract, fortunatelly the client had given us a lot of extra work ( e.g. ~300 pictures of products supposed to be directly usable turned ou to be ~3Gb of EPS files in CMYK with no mask nor extraction path ). That client could have brought us some other clients and had a design far better that all what we add already done so we asked no financial compensation for the unexpected work due to the client but a credit page with the names of all the person involved in the project.

Mathieu "POÏ" HENRI

I agree with the above, it's up to the client. I personally think it's kind of tacky looking as well.

What I would do (and I'm suprised most people don't) is put who designed the page in HTML comments within the page. That way it's not visible but someone could find out who designed the page.



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

Also when talking to them about the possible designed by in the footer or credits page, you will want to discuss them allowing their site into your portfollio page on your own site. Usually it's understood that you will be able to do so, but I wouldn't just assume that so it's always good to cover all that stuff before any sale/contract is finished

Synthetic's Chess Player Page

If you are going to ditch the name at the bottom of the page you might want to consider linking a small, transparent gif back to yourself anyway. Name the gif your company name, google's spider indexes .gif file names as usable content. a_random_human_web_design.gif, linked back to the appropriate source would serve you nicely if you have to go about it that way. Nearly every site I have designed has linked back to my own pages with a few exceptions based on client needs. Regardless of client needs I credit myself in the meta and link a transparent gif back to myself.

It's interesting to see that people seem to have a different idea about this in regards to web design in comparison to print work or art. An artist will always be credited when their work is printed or shown in any form, as will the illustrators, publishers and writers of a book. Why is a web site to be any different?

I'd argue that the designer has a right to put a stamp on their work, even if they don't own the rights to it a website is a document, and documents of any kind should clearly display who they were made by in some form or another. I don't necessarily agree with a "designed by" link at the bottom of every page, nor does the concept of a "credits" page apply to the majority of web sites being more of a document or publication than a movie or a game. I'd say the best place for this kind of acknowledgement is on the "contact details" page, as this is usually the page people visit when looking for further information about the company or the website itself.

Actually that's not entirely true.

Commercial work is rarely credited in this form. Ads, brochures, branding, packaging etc is never credited. Commercial web design falls much more into these catagories than the artistic endevors you mention.



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

^ excatly.

When you see an ad in a magazine, do you see the designers name?

When you have a big CG television ad, do you see the studio's name stamped on it?

Never. (ok, very rarely)

Unless the client explicitly allows you to do so, it would be pure folly to start tagging your company onto the bottom of web pages.



[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 12-07-2003).]

True, and when they do put credit on an ad, it actually looks really unprofessional imho.

I was reading one of my fav magazines, when i saw at the back a Stigam (white brandy) ad, being a crappy bw photo of a guy(with a horrible photoshopped Stigma logo in the chest) with two girls, and at the top right the "Photo by Howard Schatz. New York".

Rather than considering hiring him (if i were a bizzness person), i thought "Not only this guy thinks he is a great photgrapher, but also needs to give himself credit fpor such crapiness...ugh".

__________________________________


Sexy Demoness cel

If ever I've done sub-contract work for another design firm, I've never even dared ask to put my link in. However, any work I've done for other company's becomes their possession.

As far as direct [small business] clients, I've never had a problem getting a client to approve a small link at the bottom. Wrap that link with a good keyword phrase and reuse it to help boost your site in search engines. I think it should be something discussed before undertaking however. In [favorable] circumstances, your client will be so pleased with your work - he won't even question the prospect.

Perhaps you could consider offering a small price kickback for getting your credit listed when you have a client that doesn't approve. If he still does not budge, forget about it - if he likes your work, this could be even more valuable than the listed credit anyway (word of mouth).

I don't make it a requirement with my clients to add the credit link. That's usually enough for them to say "Yes."

Most of the sites I've done have a credit link at the bottom with other legal/contact items. I've never asked to put it there, all the sites I've put it on the my clients have told me I should put it there, some because they know I gave them a good deal(or did for free), others not sure why. I always make it as unobtrusive as possible. A recent client that I'm doing database coding, and converting a table based layout to css gave me the layout with a link to my site in it already.

I dunno... but I've always considered it tacky as well. However, apon clear reflection, it's unclear to me as to why I feel this way... perhaps something about it being 'their' page and having the clear message be on them...

However (and this makes no sense, I know), I've always considered the source of a page and what's displayed on the screen to be two separate things. I guess I figure that when viewing the source, you're serving an entirely different audience. As such, the source should be 'yours' in an 'I made this and I can support it if you should have any troubles' sense which, I guess also means 'I made this, would you like one?' sense..

Short answer (as I see the views are split on this issue)- what *I* do is put myself in the <meta name="AUTHOR" content="Petskull's HTML Sweatshop"> and leave the client's page to his own (and his customers') eyes..


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