You must own images or have the right to reuse them for commercial purposes.

When promoting your business, you need to take into consideration many things:

 
• The message
• Branding consistency
• Medium on which to print
• Content
• Images to use to best represent your business

WARNING: Do not just pluck images from the internet.

Why?

1. Firstly, the quality may not be good enough for printing
2. Secondly, if the image is not yours you may not have permission to reuse it
3. And thirdly, even with permission to use, you need to check the rights – can you reuse with modifications? Can you use it for commercial purposes? Do you need to credit the creator?

There are plenty of sites where you can pay to access images and have rights to reuse.

You can access free images through sites such as Pexels. BUT ensure you filter for images marked CC0 so you can reuse, modify and not have to credit the creator.

Alternatively, when searching images on Google, use the search tools and select the usage right option ‘Labeled for reuse with modification’.

Not worried about using other images without correct permissions?

Here’s why you should be worried:

Seymour Sign and Print have been successful in court for breach of their copyright.

They took another company to court when they became aware that they were using Seymour Sign and Print images online to promote themselves.

The Directors of Seymour Sign and Print, David and Paul Hammond, say that the matter was not a financial victory but more a moral one. They were awarded damages.

As creatives ourselves, we strongly support the value of design and copyright.

So we need to ensure that anything we print for clients has the correct usage rights. Or, we happily design something for you to ensure the correct copyright is obtained.