This is the last official article in this series unless I decide to crank it up to 11. The current mission statement of my company is organizing and securing your information with the most up-to-date portable media and web technologies. (I may change that slightly in the near future to say compelling content instead of the generic term, “information.”) One of the most overlooked or last things that come to mind in regards to design is preservation or in a broader term, security. Is the first thing that comes into your mind when you hear security someone stealing your assets? That is certainly a consideration but it’s important to remember all of the following;
- Preserving original files
- Backups
- Protection from theft
- Legal Precautions
Before you even consider official backups you need to consider if you are deleting or throwing away assets that should be saved. It’s tempting to throw away original material once a project is done in order to save space or even get rid of things you think are not worthy of being saved.
Backup media is cheap. If possible, save original files and even if you think something is junk it may have a use down the road. This goes beyond digital assets. If you are restoring an old photo that is scratched, yellowed, torn, etc. hold on to it! Yes, You may be able to restore it nicely in Photoshop but who knows what kind of technology advances in the future might be able to do an even better job? Scott Kelby has a great book out called the 7 Point System for Photoshop CS3. It’s amazing what can be done with seemingly mediocre files however a lot of the tips in the book require using the original file in the original RAW or at least the original image size. Look the the 7-Point Flickr group to see what people have done with images that otherwise may have been deleted.
How does one go about preserving and securing your designs or the creative assets of others? As far as digital assets go the most important thing you should be doing on a regular basis is creating frequent and dependable backups. I tell people over and over that insurance can cover and replace equipment but no amount of money will ever bring back data lost through natural disasters or more frequently, accidental over writes and deletions. While it’s important to have a good local backup to quickly retrieve data it’s even more crucial to store your backups “off-site.” This can be done by manually taking backups to another location or better yet using an online backup service.
Finally, theft can take many forms. The first thing that comes to mind is a sneaky individual coming into your home or office and running off with valuables like televisions, stereos, laptops, jewelry, wallet, etc. Of course the worst of those things to be stolen, in my personal opinion, is computers like laptops or wallets, because they contain valuable information that can lead it identity or intellectual property theft.
Yes, it’s important to protect yourself and company in such instances but the greatest danger doesn’t come from your typical crook. That sad and scary thing is most intellectual property that is stolen is actually “given away,” maybe not given away on purpose but it’s really easy to put things on the Internet without thinking of how it will be used.
I’ve told clients if they are concerned about someone accessing their creative works and using them then don’t put them on the Internet in the first place. Even by putting things in a password protected area is not a 100% guarantee your assets will be safe. A lot of people think that by just converting a document to the PDF format will make it non-editable. That’s not exactly true. Converting a document to PDF makes it harder to edit unless you take extra security procedures.
Are you taking the legal precautions by registering copyrights and trademarks, etc?
Look at your practices. Are you preserving assets for potential future work? Are you backing up to secure location, not only away from your computer but also away from your home or office. Are you taking legal precautions? and finally are you keeping thinks you don’t want people to access away from the Internet?
