It’s come to my attention that the terms of use for my artwork aren’t as obvious as I thought they’d be. Simply: You can download and use my artwork on your own devices. Do not republish or upload my artwork anywhere. Do not change, tweak, remix, or build upon my artwork. Do not use my artwork commercially.

Now for the long version in an effort to be perfectly clear:

The downloads that I offer on my website are to be used for personal use on your own devices only. Wallpapers can be used as wallpapers. Icons can be used as icons. If you want to use either for an avatar on a social network, that’s fine, but don’t try to confuse anyone into thinking its yours or that you’re me, okay?

If you’re an app developer for iPhone, Android, whatever… do me a favor and just contact me before you decide to use something you found on my website. You might have this amazingly awesome idea that involves my artwork, but it could be that it’s copyrighted material that I can’t license to you anyway. Whatever the case may be, just check with me first. I’m not an unreasonable guy.

Now, here’s why I’ve decided not to include the terms of use with every download: people don’t really like ZIP files. Many of my downloads are ZIP files, but this means you can’t download those swank wallpapers you found on your iPad or iPhone. I get that. It sucks.

The thing is, I like to make versions and variants of a certain piece of artwork because there’s either a thematic element I wanted to show or simply: people have preferences. So far, I haven’t discovered a perfect solution to offer a quick download and show all the versions of a single design without cluttering up my gallery pages.

Watermarks. Yeah, it seems obvious. “Why not just put a watermark on your designs to prevent people from stealing them?” Bluntly, this sucks. No one wants watermarks. I don’t like watermarks or signatures on my own artwork, and I know that people dislike them when they want to use a wallpaper on their computer. With UI being translucent on desktops and home screens these days, it’s difficult to find a spot where watermarks wouldn’t be seen. Mac OS X and Windows 7 both have translucent bars. OS X has a translucent Dock on the bottom of the screen. iOS has translucent black bars on the lock screen. Besides that, at the point where the artwork gets sampled down, a watermark wouldn’t necessarily be noticeable.

Anyway, the bottom line is: don’t take something that isn’t yours. I’m sure you worked really hard gathering up resources on the internet to create your app/theme/whatever, but frankly, it just makes people confused when they see my artwork with your name on it. Even if you credit me, it’s not cool to take something and say “oh, but I mentioned that he made it!” Let’s be honest here, you know that’s not okay.

All I want is for people to be able to enjoy what I’ve made. Don’t confuse people or ruin it by republishing/reposting/reuploading my artwork somewhere else. If you want to do something cool with something I’ve made, just ask. I’ll try to work something out or tell you why it’s inappropriate to use it. Trust me, asking me will be better than someone finding out what you did, asking me about it, and me contacting you asking you to remove it.