Magic Library Logo Project

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mintcollector
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Post by mintcollector » Wed Aug 24, 2005 6:10 pm

Dilligaf wrote:i dont have much.. im 24 with a rapidly failing car and i work in a comic shop.. but id be more than willing to donate $100 or more if i have it at the time.

i know it isnt much.. but id like to help as much as i can.
Thank you Dilligaf. so far that will put us up to $1600. I am really hoping some of our other 'wealthy' members can help out even more. For those of you that can even help out a little, there is strength in numbers.

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Post by dragsamou » Wed Aug 24, 2005 6:13 pm

mintcollector wrote:
Dilligaf wrote:i dont have much.. im 24 with a rapidly failing car and i work in a comic shop.. but id be more than willing to donate $100 or more if i have it at the time.

i know it isnt much.. but id like to help as much as i can.
Thank you Dilligaf. so far that will put us up to $1600. I am really hoping some of our other 'wealthy' members can help out even more. For those of you that can even help out a little, there is strength in numbers.
Hi Mike.
Technical question.When's the Deadline to pay John?
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Post by mintcollector » Wed Aug 24, 2005 6:37 pm

dragsamou wrote:
mintcollector wrote:
Dilligaf wrote:i dont have much.. im 24 with a rapidly failing car and i work in a comic shop.. but id be more than willing to donate $100 or more if i have it at the time.

i know it isnt much.. but id like to help as much as i can.
Thank you Dilligaf. so far that will put us up to $1600. I am really hoping some of our other 'wealthy' members can help out even more. For those of you that can even help out a little, there is strength in numbers.
Hi Mike.
Technical question.When's the Deadline to pay John?
Excellent question, but that was not discussed. John had simply replied back regarding cost estimations as he feels out his work for the next 3 months. I stated in my reply to him I would get back to him by the end of the week with a confirmation on the project...so my hopes will be to have commitments from members by the end of the week. I even offered John a upfront retainer until we can get all monies squared away, which he did not comment on. I'll post this question to him to get a better timeline to answer this. One would think we can effectively put a deposit down to retain his work and them as we get monies moved, make a final payment midway of the project, or on final delivery. I think the latest we could conceive would be his October date he mentioned, but my guess would be earlier to be 100% safe.

I had even thought to ask John for a sneak peak at one of his Ravnica Arena arts he did, or even a crop to show his work with buildings, but I felt this would be overstepping things as I am sure WOTC would be very upset over something like that since they own the rights. I thought this might help drum up support for the project.

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Post by mintcollector » Wed Aug 24, 2005 9:41 pm

I am scheduled to have a phone call with John tomorrow afternoon my time (night time for European members). Are there any questions besides Alexis' that anyone has for John I can ask regarding the project?

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Post by normalbrains » Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:17 pm

one question i have: what exactly does "full copyright" mean? i assume it means that magiclibrary would own the actual art piece and solely control any and all use of its image.

are there any other options that would bring down the total price, such as allowing the artist to keep the original piece (doesnt wotc do this?), or just leasing the final image? also, since the actual original piece isnt hypothetically the most important part of this project, what about selling it afterwards via an auction or ebay to recoup funds or fund new projects? these are not suggestion or optimal solutions, i am just throwing out ideas to possibly get the price down.

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Post by mintcollector » Thu Aug 25, 2005 1:26 am

normalbrains wrote:one question i have: what exactly does "full copyright" mean? i assume it means that magiclibrary would own the actual art piece and solely control any and all use of its image.

are there any other options that would bring down the total price, such as allowing the artist to keep the original piece (doesnt wotc do this?), or just leasing the final image? also, since the actual original piece isnt hypothetically the most important part of this project, what about selling it afterwards via an auction or ebay to recoup funds or fund new projects? these are not suggestion or optimal solutions, i am just throwing out ideas to possibly get the price down.
Another good point which I brought up to Ralph regarding full copyright. Yes full copyright means that we would own the art fully. I suggested shared ownership of the art to Ralph, to possibly help lower the cost, but he had preferred to own it completely.

WOTC used to not fully outright purchase the art from the artist. There were royalty clauses added early on, which had the artists paid for each subsequent reprint. This is a practice often used by early startup companies. The idea being that they can get lower cost art early on, and then deal with royalties later on if the art does well in what it was used in.

With the advent of the new art WOTC is using now, this practice has past. WOTC fully controls all new artwork. The original piece is maintained by the artist as well as the right to have a certain number of prints they can re-sell. WOTC in turn provides an artist proof set to the artist as part of the deal as well. The main difference about sharing the copyright versus fully owning it means that the boundaries of who can do what with the art needs to be defined contractually. Royalties and/or an outright cash payment are then agreed upon by the artist and the project lead.

On a side note, I will bring the question of shared copyright up with John to see what the difference may be if any just to see what a difference it may make. I am inclined to lean on what Ralph wants as he has the long term vision for what he wishes to do with the art.

Regarding the original art.... Depending on the piece and what format it is done in, I think as an added bonus that anyone who contributes...let's say at least $100 would have a shot in the end auction for the piece. If there are no takers then it can be made public to those outside of the funding group. This way the piece could be used to help fund future projects, but the piece is also used as an incentive for those who have helped make this a possibility to begin with.

All we are looking for is a commitment to contribute right now. As of tomorrow's call I will have much more information to post regarding when payment(s) will be due. I am hoping to have enough people commited to hit our needed goal so we can commit John to the project and get started. Without definite financial backing, I will not enter into any agreement with any artist. I don't want my or the site's rep sullied for being financially irresponsible and non-commital.

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Post by hammr7 » Thu Aug 25, 2005 1:35 am

I am a bit curious how the "original" will be sold or auctioned. Given that the artwork will be delivered as a file (since the artist only works in digital formats), are you going to order some sort of limited reprint? Just curious.

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Post by mintcollector » Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:55 pm

hammr7 wrote:I am a bit curious how the "original" will be sold or auctioned. Given that the artwork will be delivered as a file (since the artist only works in digital formats), are you going to order some sort of limited reprint? Just curious.
Hank: Even though John does only do digital art now and the file would be delivered electronically, an original art piece could be devised from such a work. For example, a really nice giclee on canvas could be made, that I am sure we could arrange to get John to sign and thereby get an original actually made.

I spent a little over 3 hours on the phone with Ralph last night over many things, but the main focus for the call was to talk about the logo project and questions to ask John for today as well as future projects down the road, siuch as the textless dual project. Expect a major post from Ralph within the next 24 hours or so. We are still severely lacking any community support on this project. Has everyone given up on the idea of doing this?
My hopes are that Ralph might rally members to help out.

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Post by Lasbrook » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:41 pm

I don't really see it as lack of community support or interest as i'm very interested in seeing this project through despite the fact that I am an almost non-existant member of this community and am in no position to financially contribute and i'm sure other members are interested too.
I was more under the impression that most things were on hold until this logo project developed further and some other issues pertaining to the proxies were taken care of.

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Post by mintcollector » Thu Aug 25, 2005 10:06 pm

Lasbrook: Well I am glad someone at least further responded on the subject.

After speaking with Ralph last night, he reinforced the idea that if any subsequent projects wanted to be a "Magic Library" product, that the logo needed to be developed first. So in summary, other projects that will be "Magic Library' products are on hold until the Logo project moves forward. Hope this clears any confusion up.

...Now getting onto the logo project moving forward. I just got off a 28 minute phone call with John Avon. Maybe if I break things down into ordered steps, people will see where things need to move:

Step 1: Project Commitment: John has his September schedules now filled as he took on some other projects as well as is being a guest of honor in Moscow for the premier of Russian M:TG. His next available window to start the project will be October 3rd, but this is assuming we can commit to the project soon. For us to commit to the project, we need to ensure we have the financial support to fund the project. John told me he gets so much work sent his way that he only can accept about half the projects that come his way. So our time table will continually be pushed back until we can get funds assembled so we can sign a work agreement with him without fear of being legally stuck without the money to back up the project. John did state he might be open to wanting the rights to make followup prints for the art and that the $1800 portion for copyrights might be negotiable, but when asked to exactly quantifiy what the reduciton might be, he got a little fuzzy on this topic. This will obviously require some negotiation, but I think we might be saving a few hundred dollars at the very best here.

Step 2: At the time of signing a drafted work agreement John had wanted to have a portion of the payment made, as we are new people to him and he has no prior working relationship with us. Completely understandable, since we are even in another country from him. The work agreement woud specify the terms for the project on both sides as well as place timelines down. Payment schedule is mentioned in the document as well as John being bound to deliver stages of the project by agreed on dates. This way both sides would be protected in their interests. After the work agrement is inked and signed and first payment is made to John, he would start roughs.

Step 3: Roughs: John had mentioned that this takes quite a few days to sketch out roughs. He said tha he learned something from his artisttic experience. He had asked for rough sketches to illustrate ideas we would have so that he is not completely going down the wrong path when he does his sketches. He asked us to agree upon what we would like to get done and then send an agreed upon set of sketches to him that he can work from. I'd like to open this idea up to all members interested in helping out in this idea. This way we can set up a poll to vote on the best artistic concepts John can work from. The second payment would be expected when roughs are delivered. As far as a timeline, expect a few days to a week.

Step 4: Modifications: After we get the roughs, we might critic and ask for changes if something did not come out as envisioned. We would get new roughs.

Step 5: Final Draft: John would send us a lower rez image for final approval. At this time final payment would be made. We then would get a final his rez image sent on CD and from there we wll be free to do what we wished with the project.

I hope this ordered timeline will help clear up questions regarding where things are at and where they are hopefully heading. Now i'll go back and answer some prevous questions:

Alexis on payment: As mentioned in the above timeline, john had asked for a payment schedule since we are unknowns to him. Assuming the $3800 fee and 3 payments, we sould be looking at $1300 at signing of the work agreement, $1300 after delivery of roughs, and $1200 on final.

Hank on original: Yes John only does digital work/delivery. We would/could get an "original" or possibly even guranteed limited print run done like a number series of giclee on canvas and make these available to help recoup the costs.

Ralph on resolution: John said he does his work normally in 300dpi. He said he might be able to go up to 400dpi if his computer can handle it.

So in closing we need to get step 1 rolling and get funds committed so we can confidentially sign the work agreement. We need to als get going on artist sketches, so anyone interested in helping out here, start dooding and send me scans or digital pictures of your ideas. I will then get the images hosted and then we can vote on ideas. John also asked that if are going with my idea of the plateaued libray with the surrounding city in the 5 colors.....what style of buildings should be used. He had asked if any ideas were made, but did offer to create them competely on his own if needed. I did not have any ideas and I told John I personally would vote to give him creative license on the building designs. He said he wanted to avoid gothic archtiecture as this is strongly prevalent in his Ravnica art he had done. He wanted to offer us the advice to not get too close on M:TG art designs as we could have WOTC on us legally. I told him that I would not relish getting a cease and desist order from WOTC after inveting time and money into the project, so please take these facts into mind when sketching ideas. Even if you can't draw very well, a simple layout of what you might have in your mind's eye might really shed some light and get us the best art logo we can.

So get sketching and help out financially if you can. Ralph will follow soon after he catches up on some overdue sleep. He promised a nice post on all of this.

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Post by mahdishain » Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:39 am

mint collector

did you recieve my pm? i am willing to contribute.

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Post by mintcollector » Fri Aug 26, 2005 12:28 pm

mahdishain wrote:mint collector

did you recieve my pm? i am willing to contribute.
No I did not. I did get other messages recently. Could you please resend yor offer?

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Post by mintcollector » Fri Aug 26, 2005 12:31 pm

I did forget to mention one other important factor in closing. John Avon does has us penciled in for this project in his timeline, so this is pretty much a sure thing if we get the funds. Thank you for the couple of members who have responded so far. We have a bit to go.

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Post by Celebrindor » Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:57 pm

mintcollector wrote:I did forget to mention one other important factor in closing. John Avon does has us penciled in for this project in his timeline, so this is pretty much a sure thing if we get the funds. Thank you for the couple of members who have responded so far. We have a bit to go.
How soon do you need the money? If you dont need it for about 2 or 3 weeks, I can put in 100 or 2.

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Post by mintcollector » Fri Aug 26, 2005 2:19 pm

Celebrindor wrote:
mintcollector wrote:I did forget to mention one other important factor in closing. John Avon does has us penciled in for this project in his timeline, so this is pretty much a sure thing if we get the funds. Thank you for the couple of members who have responded so far. We have a bit to go.
How soon do you need the money? If you dont need it for about 2 or 3 weeks, I can put in 100 or 2.
Well my donation of $1500 will cover the first payment of $1300 in full at the signing of the work agreement, which is to be determined based on if we get enough donations to get this project commited. So since John will not start until Oct 3rd, we would need enough to cover the second payment when we get roughs, whcih will be a few days into October, so we would need to have a second $1300 by then. I will have $200 left from my donaition, so we would need an additional $1100 by then. The remaining $1200 would be needed by final product delivery, which I would guess by late October or going into November. So to specifically answer your question Evan, we will need need more money until October. Can you be specific to what you can commit to by the 3rd?

Please keep in mind that we will also have small external costs I plan to try to cover personally as well. Things like the cost to wire the money. Fees for delivering thins back and forth, like the work agreement, etc.

One thing to also note is that we will need to get money in one place to make a singular payment as well. so as people commit to what they can give, please factor in things like PayPal fees if this is how you will transfer money to me, or if someone prefers to do a check or money order, this would save money that would be charged otherwise.

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