Article by Martin Gibson – Twitter: @martingibson @embody3d – 25.06.2010

Attention all Industrial Designers!

I have a book that could save you thousands of dollars one day, a book that could reduce your business and legal risks and expenses, and will protect you IP-wise every time you to talk to a client or send them a sketch. Also a book that will save you dozens of hours (maybe even hundreds), and you just can’t put a price on that!

Have you ever wanted to find out how to do the perfect legal proof, non-disclosure agreement, employment contract, IP and trademark application, project status report, project time sheet for all you contractors our there, or a warning to a client who hasn’t paid you on time!

This is one book that will save you hiring a lawyer, will take no time but will last you a whole career. Time and time again I find myself scouring the internet in search for a great template for a form, and unfortunately being industrial designers we use these forms way more than we probably should! With every project comes administration and often when you develop your own forms there are often gaping legal loopholes at the end of every sentence. To my surprise I found a book called Business and Legal Forms for Industrial Designers, Published by Allworth Press (www.allworth.com) and have found it to be an absolute Godsend even after owning it just a week.

The book itself is endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America so it does have some substantial credibility behind the contents of the forms. The language used is professional enough to suggest that you are smart and know what you’re doing, but not so smart that it will have your responded perplexed as to what you’re trying to communicate. When it comes to legal forms it is all about content. You can sound smart by using abstract sentence structures and mystical words, but at the end of the day you can achieve stronger legal protection by the designation of clever words, contexts and scope. This book just takes all that hassel away and lets you concentrate on what you do best, which is hopefully designing!

At the start of each form there’s a thorough introduction as to the purpose of the form as well as the justification of headings and tables etc. This is helpful if you’re planning on customising a form heavily.

Thankfully the authors, Tad Crawford, Eva Doman Bruck and Carl W. Battle included a CD-ROM with all the forms in a digital copy. Without this CD-ROM the whole book is almost worthless as one would have to transcribe finger by finger the plain text of the book onto the computer and that would be a nightmare. The digital copies allow you to quickly create your own forms and documents in your favorite programs and templates like Microsoft Word and Indesign.

I never thought there would be such a specific resource on the legal side of industrial design especially considering the size of the market. So on this resolve I highly commend the book to you!