As an artist myself, I care deeply about ensuring that other artists — painters, writers, dancers, musicians, etc. — get the proper credit they deserve.
In the digital era, it’s become incredibly easy to share artwork without credit. But either by good intentions or by passing it off as your own, you are stealing away the recognition an artist deserves for hours and hours of hard work.
Some may not actually know how to do the research needed to find the source of artwork or what artwork-sharing etiquette looks like. But lucky for you, it’s easy!
Tips for finding and crediting artists (every single time)
- Any time you share art, credit the creator. Always. Saying “Let me know if you know who the artist is” or “If you are the artist and want this removed, DM me.” Do due diligence to find the artist, and if you can’t, don’t post the image. No matter how much you appreciate the work.
- Again, in all cases, on all media, credit and tag the artist. On Instagram, tag them both in the image and include their handle in the comments; on Twitter, tag them or share their website — and the same on Facebook, etc. Don’t guess at their social media handles: find and confirm them. If need be, google the artist, check out their website, and see what social media they list. If you can’t find social media accounts for them, link to their website. If they don’t have a website, share their full name. If you need help finding the original artist, see the next step.
- If you spot an image you like and need to find the original source, use Google image search. Google has a reverse image search that easily helps identify photo sources. Go to images.google.com and upload or drag and drop an image to search.
- Pinterest is not a source! Pinterest unfortunately allows users to upload photos or to save images that are linked to a site from another site from another site. Often, Pinterest will also flood Google searches and make it difficult to find the original source of an image. To eliminate Pinterest results from a Google search, use the phrase “-Pinterest”. This also works in Google image search (and the minus sign can be used before any word you want to eliminate in a google search, incidentally).
- If in doubt, err on the side of overcrediting.
- I said it before but it warrants repeating: do not post artists’ work if you can’t find and credit the original artist. Period.
- Lastly, if you follow me and I see that you are reposting artists without any credit, I will block you. #SorryNotSorry