Author: Foundation

The Artists behind the Meme: Crediting Common Memes

The Artists behind the Meme: Crediting Common Memes over a bunch of washed out memes.
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Any artist will tell you how positively irritating it is that everything on the internet seems to be “fair game” for the average internet user. Because images, text, and video show up on Google search, for example, the average person seems to believe these images came from nowhere and are free to use for whatever they see fit. This is, of course, not the case. Improperly using images, whether for profit or otherwise, can see you quickly in hot water with at best a bill for licensing/royalties but at worst with a copyright infringement lawsuit.

But what happens when a work becomes a meme? Does that somehow change things? The answer is: no, no it does not. While chasing down every single uncredited and/or used-without-permission instance of your work can eat up all of your waking hours and is not feasible, there are real consequences for those who want to monetize said works without first getting the proper clearance.

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I looked at 200+ artist portfolios. Here’s what I learned

I looked at 200+ artist portfolios. Here's what I learned
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As some of you may know, I recently started up HireHumanArtists.com, a directory spreadsheet of artists who have pledged to never use gen AI while creating their works. This comes with a small caveat: someone has to review all of the submissions to see if any immediately identifiable gen AI is present in the artist portfolios. Thankfully, I have help. There’s a small group of us going through the “slush pile” of artist portfolios submitted. Still, to keep confidence in artists on the list high, we ask for a voting consensus of four people to approve each applicant at the least. Currently, there are 344 artists on the list (and growing). I’ve looked at the vast majority of the portfolios sent in, and I thought I’d note what I’ve learned, what I’ve seen, and what you may want to take away from all of these portfolios I saw.

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Cool Things for Cool People: February 2026

Cool Things for Cool People: February 2026
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Hey folks! If you’re here in the northeastern part of the US, you’re probably like me and waiting for things to thaw out. Problem is, we keep getting dumped on with more snow! This week the temperatures are warming up a teeny tiny bit – just enough for mapling season to start – but not enough to melt the three feet of snow on the ground.

Ever wondered how maple syrup is made? It’s pretty neat and it’s easy to do if you have a maple tree in your own backyard!

Don’t forget – Valentine’s day is just a couple of days away. Send your Valentine some of these cool things… I’m sure they’ll appreciate it. Hope you enjoy!

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Decluttering your marketing to make better sales

Decluttering your marketing to make better sales
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As a creative myself, I tend to work with a lot of creatives. They’re some of the best people – big ideas, great thoughts, unique offerings. Yet, there is an issue I see cropping up with creatives again and again, and we really need to talk about it.

I don’t have a term for it, but I think for the purpose of this article, I’m going to call it service and marketing cannibalization.

Oh, that sounds dreary. Horrible, frankly. But it’s accurate! The short form is: when you put out so much marketing efforts that actually conflict with your other marketing efforts, that you confuse your audience and leave with no money/sales/what-have-you when you could be landing those sales.

Let’s take a look at what I mean and how you can avoid falling victim to this.

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