Are you a scientist gathering data and generating new knowledge through scholarly outputs and public engagement? Are you intrigued by the possibility of collaborating with a creative in the task of communicating your findings, but you’re not sure where to start?
Here are some questions that can assist in thinking about the role that visual creativity plays in the communication of your research:
Finally, when in doubt, reach out to a creative person and have a chat. Before any commissions can be undertaken, it is always helpful to have an exploratory conversation. Great ideas come up through exchange!
By commissioning a creative to help with visual communications, or some other aspect of your research project, you are investing in the local creative economy.
Many creatives are freelance, and rely on commissioned projects to make a living. Therefore, it is important that you treat their work with respect, pay them market-related fees, and set up a clear expectation of deliverables and working arrangements from the outset.
Commissioning agents must observe the requirements in relation to the practitioner’s legal rights such as copyright and moral rights over their work. Download the VANSA Best Practice Guide for the Visual Arts in South Africa 2016.
Countries around the world rely on the creative economy to produce jobs and growth, stimulate innovation, fuel tourism, and promote culture. Now you can explore the potential of visual language for science.
Commissioned artworks are works produced under a commission arrangement where the practitioner functions as an independent contractor in producing the work or project. This arrangement is distinct from an employee relationship. Under a commission relationship, the commissioner and the practitioner agree on the nature, form, and content of artwork or project to be produced, the commissioner pays a fee to the practitioner for the production of the work, and the practitioner produces the work or project to the specifications previously agreed on between the parties.
In the case of a buyer commissioning a work directly from a practitioner, a commissioning contract should be drawn up based on a flowchart. The agreement should describe what the commissioning process entails, and a schedule of how and when payments are to be made during the process. The contract should include the following details:
