Having a creative mindset, I can empathize with art directors not wanting to put legal copy on every piece of swag produced. Seriously, do you need to have copyright and trademark info regarding all the brands on a water bottle or web banner? 2pt font, people! At that point, it’s beyond illegible.

But my left brain knows that the legal departments for any client will have a field day if the legal verbiage isn’t acknowledged to some degree. Hell, even an asterisk will work in some instances.

So torn between the two forces, I still have to err on the side of too much legal is better than no legal. And what’s worse is having legal guidelines that change often enough to warrant division-wide emails being sent out by yours truly informing of the changes. Then, of course, there is the venture of verifying every in-house project follows the latest and greatest legal gospel, version 19.2. But I'm happy to do it.