If you were sitting in my living room last night you would have heard many random bee-based invectives issuing forth from betwixt my clenched lips. “Fucken bees,” you would have heard; I muttered that or some derivation thereof enough times that my poor Twitter followers, I fear, began to fret about the state of my mental health.
You see, when I began work on Beyond the Birds and the Bees, I did a quick search for free graphics to use in the site design. Somewhere, somehow I found a sweet little hand-drawn bee that seemed perfect. I double-checked to make sure that it was free for the taking, because the last thing I wanted to do was use someone else’s work without the proper payment or credit.
That bee was free, I’d swear it. I wrangled it onto my hard-drive, where over the next several days I manipulated it for use on the site and in various other locations where an icon was required. As you might imagine, in some cases I needed to crop or resize my little bee. In other cases it needed to be transformed from JPEG to GIF or ICO or PNG or WTFever. It’s no exaggeration to say that I devoted several hours to the cause of the bee.
Then last night I went searching for the original bee file. The purpose was two-fold: I’d managed to lose the one I downloaded before, and I wanted to make absolutely sure that my bee was indeed a free bee. Can you guess what I found? Or rather, what I didn’t find? I could no longer find my free bee. Whatever site it had been on before no longer existed in the digital realm. Or perhaps I’d dreamed it the first time, dreamed it and downloaded it and sweated over it in a state of delusional fantasy.
Because now the only place hosting the insect wanted a fee for the bee. A large fee. A fee that I couldn’t afford and even if I could would be scandalized by paying. Over $350 for a sketch my artistic friend said she could duplicate in minutes? Inconceivable!
Thus began the search for a suitable replacement bee. Hundreds — yes, hundreds — were auditioned and rejected for reasons diverse as “too cute,” “too angry,” “too weird,” “too sexy,” or, um, “just wrong.” It seemed that no bee would ever match the fantastic perfection of my previous bee.
Crankily I removed that bee from the handful of places where it lived. I muttered as I clicked through all the tabs open in my browser, each demanding the satisfaction of a replacement bee. But every one I found lacked some essential quality of bee-ness absolutely necessary for inclusion in my life.
Fucken bees.
Exhausted and befuddled (don’t even go there), finally I pulled out a small swarm of contenders. One by one I discarded them for transgressions until I was left with but one last bee. I declared him the winner, even though I felt nothing but despondency when I compared him, weak shadow of a bee, with my pricey original selection. Nevertheless, I bought him. I downloaded him. I cropped him, resized him, flipped him, edited him, converted him, uploaded him; finally, four hours after the original beetastrophe broke, I declared the crisis solved.
There. I hope y’all are happy. Want to make me happy, to help pull me from the lingering depression over the loss of my original bee? Read what we’ve posted so far. There are some brilliant pieces up already. Get in on the continued excellence by sharing your story right here. The bee and I would be ever so very grateful.
I’m sure it’s not necessary to mention this to you, but I will, in case any of your readers don’t understand (so many people don’t). The artist who created the perfect bee had as much right to expect to be paid for HER work as YOU did, in expecting to be paid for YOUR work on the evil sex toy site. An artist/designer/writer/musician can’t feed her family if she gives her work away for free. You get what you pay for.
Amen to what misterprecedent said. I understand your frustration, but those of us who earn our living as artists deserve to be paid for our creativity and our work. The fact that the bee you liked was so utterly perfect that nothing else could make you feel quite the same way should speak towards the creativity and talent of the artist. So doesn’t he or she deserve to be paid for creating such a unique vision?
It’s just like people who contact me about my photography and say “I like your work so much better, but the guy down the street charges half as much.” Well, um, maybe there’s a REASON I charge more – and that you like what I offer more. Maybe .. just maybe … I’m worth it?
Oh I know…but $359 seemed way out of line in comparison to the other prices I was finding. By a factor of 10 or 20.
I liked the bee but did I like it 20 times more than the bee I ended up with? Sorry, no.
I have musician and artist friends. I pay full price for music and CDs (though I think DRM is stupid and avoid it) as well as original artwork. But having looked at the link, I’m with aag. Not worth $359. It’s not exactly “exclusive rights!!” material. In fact it seems so – for lack of a better word – generic, that I’m surprised similar ones haven’t been easy to find (not, I’m sure, for lack of trying!)
I’m surprised by that site in general. Their products seem absurdly pricey in comparison to iStock.
I’m with aag and etre that bee is too generic to cost that much, I’m all for paying a person for their work but people also have to be realistic. I like the final bee much better and the site itself is very helpful. I like your honesty.
Oh good you replied! Now I can add my comment (without looking like I’m talking to myself) that BB&B.com isn’t working for me in FireFox or IE – all I see is the template, and a note that says “Not Found – Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.” And it takes forever just to give me that one line. Help, anyone?
Sorry to hear about your bee-headache. Maybe this is projecting, but I’m reading into this post that you’re sort-of-but-not-really-apologizing for Cutesy Bee :) And you got a story out of it! So no harm done. Except hallucinating bee clip-art for the next few days.
Hm, it’s working fine for me in both IE and Firefox. I’m getting normal load times too. But it’s very very late and I need sleep. If there’s an issue I’ll deal with it in the am. :)
I actually like this bee better =)
(Though I think this bee does not go as well with the background of the site).
On a side note, I do graphic design especially logos and would be happy to do a free, unique bee logo that made you happy and a tile-able background to go with it. Though I’m guessing you’re all bee’d out right now, it might come in handy some day.
I agree with Lilly: better bee, doesn’t match background though. You should take her up on her offer. I think the site as it stands looks dated, but the content is amazing.
Dated? OMG! Sigh. Now I feel sad. :)
Thank you for the honesty, RubySlippers.
Don’t feel sad at all. It’s *much* better than the reverse problem: a fresh-looking site with shitty content. ;)
Well true. Nevertheless, I’d like both fresh design and awesome content. And billions of readers. And a big house on the beach in Hawaii. And kids who listened every time. And…
:)
Thank you. I may take you up on this!
The new bee is cute. That does seem a high price for the other bee. Even as an artist I don’t think I’d price a fairly simple drawing that high.
Personally, I’m way more impressed with the content of the site than the logo. The submissions so far have been brilliant!
You are right. I’ve been so impressed, as well as moved.
Finals are calling so I haven’t had time to peruse the site yet, but the new bee is very cute. I think it’s just one of those internet things where someone else got smart all of sudden about their own work, know what I mean? The price does seem a bit hefty, I’m not sure what rights they think you’re getting with the bee.
I’m looking forward to reading the site though, whatever the bee may be…
Aag you could just invite treatment submissions.
I am sure that you have a load of lurking designers who would jump at the chance for a credit on a site with the most amazing content.
Norby I can so relate to your comment and I am only in the second year.
1. the bee you ended up using is definitely better.
2. bb&b is AMAZING. I love reading these stories!
Thank you so much, ms cinnamon. Now getcher butt over there and contribute!
Late to this. Well covered more than 100 years ago:
With the aim of further condemning the style of Whistler, they called Edward Burne-Jones as a witness. Burne-Jones described the painting as one of thousands of failures to represent night, and therefore not worth 200 guineas. However, in cross-examination he was forced to admit that “Whistler had an almost unrivalled appreciation of atmosphere, and his colour was beautiful, especially in moonlight scenes.”46 When Whistler was on the stand, Sir Holker questioned him on the amount of time it took to finish one of the paintings. When Whistler replied that it took only a couple of days, the defense asked if two days of work was worth the 200-guinea price of the piece. Whistler replied, “No. I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.”
The rest here:
http://chn.loyno.edu/history/journal/Landry.htm