Craft Focus - October/November 2020 (Issue 81)

93 ASK THE EXPERTS Ask the experts I have a question about intellectual property (IP) is it true that if you change a design by just a percentage or several changes it becomes a new design and you need a new trademark? The question itself is actually in-accurate so I will deal with the two aspects separately. 1. Is it true that if you change a design by just a percentage or several changes it becomes a new design? It’s not the number or percentage of changes that somebody makes to your design but the importance of the elements which they have taken from your design which is important in deciding whether they have infringed your rights in your design. This will always vary from case to case. Protection for designs is either by registering your design at the Intellectual Property Office or by unregistered design protection which arises automatically. 2. A trade mark is a badge of origin and its role is to differentiate you from other people in the market space; your brand. Trade marks can be names, logos and in certain circumstances they can even be colours, © and sounds. You can use a TM next to your name if you’re relying on unregistered trade mark. Registration comes with a number of benefits over unregistered rights. Unregistered rights rely on something called goodwill in the business to give a claim for what’s known as ‘passing off’. With passing off you have to be able to demonstrate that you have goodwill and that it covers the area of the country that you or your competitor or infringer or counterfeiter is trading in. Goodwill is created by showing that you have significant turnover, that you have a significant presence and you do that by demonstrating marketing spend and not just Twitter or Instagram followers. A registered trade mark gives you the right to that name and in respect of that area of business that you have it registered for across the whole of the territory, in this case the UK. You can use the symbol ® beside the registered name. Our experts answer your craft and retail dilemmas JACQUIE LAWES Brand expert and designer, Jacquie Lawes from Bailey & Roo is a multi award winning designer and branding expert with over 15 years experience in product branding. Jacquie helps creative product- based business owners stand out and gain confidence with show stopping branding to attract their dream customers and make sales with ease. Jacquie is all about the customer experience and encourages her clients to think about each touchpoint in their customers journey in order to create a luxury brand experience. Specialising only brand identity designs, branded stationery and packaging design as well as product photography Jacquie is a product branding extraordinaire and the go to for anyone looking to start up a new business or transform their existing DIY logo into a luxury brand. I have had a lot of time to consider my branding over lockdown and it needs a refresh - where do I begin? As creatives, it’s so easy to jump straight into creating a logo and website for your business but how do you stand out from your competitors? Your branding is so much more than just your logo. It’s what sets you apart from your competitors, attracts the right customers to you and allows you to make more sales with ease. The essentials for your branding (or your brand identity) consists of your logo design, colour palette, graphics and brand fonts. These are the elements that you will use across all touchpoints in your customers journey with you. From your social media feeds, website, advertising campaigns, packaging, photography and even your product range. These should all be consistent and aligned in order to create a strong and recognisable brand for your business The most important thing to start with is to know who you are targeting. Who is your ideal customer? Having your ideal customer profile is a really important first step for creating a brand that is going to resonate with them and make it an easy decision for them to want to buy. As a brand designer this is key in order to be able to create a brand identity that’s the perfect fit for my clients and their business. Think about what colours and styles are going to resonate with your ideal customer and also reflect the style of your products. Start with a moodboard so you can create an overall look and feel for what your brand is all about. If you don’t know about branding, colour psychology or how to create a brand that will attract your dream clients I highly recommend investing in a brand designer who will do this for you! Getting your branding right can be the difference between someone wanting to buy from you or not even noticing you. DIDS MACDONALD ACID’s CEO Dids Macdonald was a successful product designer in the 1980’s producing hand painted decorative accessories for top interior designers. It was a great success. But it came with a huge problem: theft. Every new design was knocked off by larger companies without any hope of redress. Like the vast majority of Britain’s 350,000 design companies, they were a tiny outfit and not in a position to take on the unscrupulous thieves and copycats. So Dids and an IP lawyer who had helped her (Simon Clark) came up with another idea: to create a plan to help David fight Goliath. Today ACID represents thousands of designers. https://www.acid.uk.com/