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Hello there LT! I am a new (potential) designer. I have a few questions before I start designing logos. My first, and biggest question, is this. I am not artistic in a physical sense. IE, i cannot draw, sketch, or paint to save my life. On a computer, though, I become a Di Vinci :P My question is, when designing a logo, is it legal/moral to use images found either online or in printed material as not just inspiration, but a basic layout? For instance, if a logo needed a house, and I cannot draw a house well, could I "deconstruct" a house from a web image/scanned image, use just the basic, basic outline of it, and redesign it? Or would I have to create the house "From the ground up" as the saying goes. I am thoroughly excited to try my hand at designing logos, but only if it is morally and legally ok for me to do it that way.

Thanks in advance,
Hurdlebeast

hello hurdle and welcome to LT!
i am actually the same as you, i hate drawing and i hate painting because i'm not very good at either of them lol.
when it comes to drawing these shapes (animals are the main one for me) of course you can google and collect a bunch of images to use as references, you are not breaking the rules until you are tracing or making exact replicas of images that you pulled off the internet. There is nothing wrong with having a bunch of images open while you draw them to make sure you get all the right bits in the right place though, again, as long as its not a trace or exact replica its fine =)

hope this helps!

bugy.

See that's the problem. usually what i do (and i make sure everyone knows i do it, too) is pull up an image, literally break it down to a black and white outline, tweak it to fit the project I'm using it for, then "rebuild" it from that outline, up. I've only done this for school projects, and I've always, always given full credit for the original work to the website that I got it from, but since this is a client/designer service, I do not want to be infringing on another person's work, even if it is a photo taken from a mom-and-pop point-and-click camera. I just want to make sure it's ok to deconstruct like that and call it your own.

i wouldnt have though so really because, at the end of the day there is still an element of your design that was created by someone else.
your much better off having the reference image open to one side and drawing your image from scratch =)

Agree with Bugy. I prefer to use a bunch of image from the internet only for references and brainstorming need. It would be embarrassing when I have to see my design entries has been removed by moderator because of an exact tracing from http://www.istockphoto... or kind like that. :)