When Google representatives recently invited dozens of prominent artists to contribute work to be featured on its new Web browser, the company enthusiastically sold the idea as an opportunity to have artwork shown to millions.
But some, like Gary Taxali, were not impressed. Taxali, an illustrator based in Toronto whose work has appeared in publications like Time, Newsweek and Fortune, received a call in April from a member of Google’s marketing department. According to Taxali, the Google representative explained that the project will let users customize Google Chrome pages with artist-designed “skins” in their borders.
“The first question I asked,” Taxali said in a recent interview, “is ‘What’s the fee?’”
Taxali said that when he was told Google would pay nothing, he declined.
In the ensuing weeks, a tide of indignation toward Google swelled among illustrators, who stay connected through Drawger, a Web site.
In a posting to Drawger on April 28, Taxali bemoaned the Google request — and that some struggling publications were reducing fees to illustrators by nearly half.
“So for you, I give you a special salute that I hope will keep you away because I don’t need your work,” Taxali wrote, followed by his own drawing of a hand gesture popular with impatient motorists.
The posting drew more than 200 responses, many from other illustrators who also had rejected Google’s offer, including Joe Ciardiello, of New Jersey, whose pen drawings of authors appear frequently on the cover of the New York Times Book Review.
“You’d think that if anyone can afford to pay artists and designers it would be a company that is making millions of [US] dollars,” Ciardiello said in an interview.
In the first quarter of this year alone, Google reported profits of US$1.42 billion, an increase of 8 percent over the same period last year.
In a statement responding to questions, Google said that the project was modeled after a similar one last year for iGoogle, a personalized home page, where artists and companies (including Jeff Koons, Bob Dylan and Gucci) contributed images to be used as skins.
“While we don’t typically offer monetary compensation for these projects,” the statement said, “through the positive feedback that we have heard thus far we believe these projects provide a unique and exciting opportunity for artists to display their work in front of millions of people.”
But exposure often is a given for illustrators, who are rankled that Google is asking them to work for exposure alone.
“I have done gift cards for Target that are in stores nationwide and animations for Nickelodeon that run 24 hours a day worldwide on cable TV,” Melinda Beck, an illustrator who is based in Brooklyn, wrote in an e-mail message to Google rejecting its offer. “Both of these jobs were high-profile and gave my work great exposure, but both clients still paid me.”
In an interview, Beck estimated it would take her a week to create original artwork to Google’s specifications. (A Google spokesman countered that the company was amenable to reusing work from artists’ portfolios.)
While some online publications, like Salon and Slate, hire illustrators, many rely on free or cheap stock illustrations, so illustrators are on tenterhooks about making a living online.
The fact that print publications are shrinking or folding also troubles illustrators.
“There’s a lot of concern that newspapers and all of print is becoming a bit of an endangered species,” said Brian Stauffer, an illustrator based in Miami whose work has appeared in publications including Rolling Stone, Esquire and Entertainment Weekly, and who also rejected Google’s offer. “When a company like Google comes out very publicly and expects that the market would just give them free artwork, it sets a very dangerous precedent.”
Google, though rebuffed by more than a dozen illustrators, said in its statement that it had plenty of takers.
“We don’t feel comfortable releasing the names of artists who are participating in the project before it launches,” stated the company, which also declined to give a date when artwork from the program would appear on Google Chrome. “However, we are currently working with dozens of artists who are excited about the opportunity to be involved in this project.”
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