Artwork & Licensing
In the World Wide Web, digital copyright laws are SUPER important to be mindful of. As digital publishers of artwork ourselves, we don't want anyone stealing our designs. So, we created this page to tell you how we work and operate, how we protect ourselves and our designs, and how we legally license and utilize our digital assets.
Fonts
There are dozens of free and premium fonts out there. We make regular use of Google Fonts in our designs. Their fonts are available for personal and commercial use, and are published open source, so we never have to worry about using any of their fonts for our projects.
Read More About Licensing for Google Fonts.
When we need a font that's not available on Google Fonts, we use Typekit. Typekit is owned by Adobe, and comes with both free and paid plans to get access to premium fonts.
Read More About Licensing for Typekit.
In general, we don't buy fonts individually. Buying individual licenses can add up to be a hefty expense. Don't get me wrong, it's worth it to buy a font individually from time to time. Especially since those fonts aren't likely to be seen anywhere else. However, if we have a news article that goes viral, or a design that sells really well, we'd have to go back to the fonts used in those designs and upgrade the license. We may have to purchase more "views per month" if we're using it as a web font. It's kinda, sort of a pain to keep track of it all, so we just stay with Google Fonts and Typekit. It makes our lives a little easier.
If we don't use Google Fonts or Typekit, WE PURCHASE LICENSES FOR ANY FONT WE USE.
Icons
For the majority of our icons, we use Font Awesome 5 Pro. Our company has purchased an unlimited, lifetime use of the icons.
For any other icons, we either make the icons ourselves with in house graphic designers, or we purchase the license to use the icon(s).
For example, our queen bee icon we use for our Seabee Wives artwork is a compilation of custom work from inspiration we've found on the internet, plus a crown icon we purchased the license for on vecteezy.com.
Licensing Logos
Licensing Logos is an entirely different ballgame then fonts and icons. Logos represent an organization and a brand. If I sell a Seabee Sweatshirt with a Seabee logo on it, then my business telling the world that I sell "Official Seabee Gear". As such, my gear, my cups, my everything that is sold with the Seabee logo needs to own up to a standard of quality that the Seabees demand. Anything less is unacceptable.
American Pride Spot is a shop dedicated to our amazing public servants and the friends, families, and supporters of our military, police, and fire. These are government organizations and we would never be stupid enough to publish a government logo on our products without explicit permission, either by paying a licensing fee and/or obtaining a written letter with permissions to use the logo.
We're not stupid. We're not going to steal government property.
Why does Icon, Font, and Logo Licensing matter?
The theft of any icon, font, logo or artwork is just that... it's theft. Plain and simple. Just because it's "digital" doesn't mean it doesn't have value. Also, there are laws in place that protect digital assets. I'll just drop a link here to Wikipedia's Digital Millennium Copyright Act if you're interested in learning more.
The designers that create these fonts and icons have spend their time and energy creating their art. They deserve to be given credit or paid for their product. That's why we NEVER steal.
Ethically speaking, we never steal. Stealing is wrong (duh).
Legally speaking, we never steal. Getting lawyers involved requires time, energy, and effort that we'd rather spend focusing on our awesome customers. It's 100x cheaper to purchase a license then it is to hire a lawyer. Common sense says to purchase the license.
Got Questions?
If you are the font, icon, or logo owner of anything we've published on our site and have questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@americanpridespot.com. Please use "I have a license question" in your subject line. Thank you.
