I’ve submitted a grant proposal to the Zcash Foundation for funding a series of posters promoting Zcash and financial privacy:
But even if the Foundation does not fund the grant, I will commission the artists myself using funds out of my own pocket, albeit on a more limited scale. So either way, it’s happening!
The inspiration is World War II home front posters designed by numerous countries in the 1940s.
Post your poster ideas here.
The grant proposal was funded for the full amount of $2,500. I started working on the project this week. In this thread, I will post updates at the end of each month. Here is the update for January:
January 2019 Update
The goal of this Zcash Posters project is to create a series of posters that educate the public about the importance of financial privacy and promote Zcash as an important tool for achieving financial privacy in the future. 100% of the $2,500 grant will go to commissioning artists to design the posters, and all the posters will be available to download for free.
An inspiration for this project are all the great World War II home front posters developed in many different countries during that war.
Work on this project started this week. I have contacted three artists, and I plan on contacting several more within the next few days.
The target audience of these posters is not cybercoin aficionados. Rather, I am trying to target the general public. Someone seeing one of these posters hanging in a restaurant, dorm room, or bus stop should be motivated to learn more about Zcash; that is the goal.
To conclude this update, below is an excerpt of an email that I sent to one of the artists. The excerpt will give you a better sense of what I’m trying to accomplish with this project.
I’ve been thinking about those great WWII posters that encourage citizens to keep quiet:
Seymour R. Goff, “Loose LIPS might Sink Ships” (1941)
Glenn Grohe, “HE’S WATCHING YOU” (1942)
Frederick Siebel, “SOMEONE TALKED!” (1942)
Credit cards don’t respect our financial privacy. Our credit card purchases are used by marketers to target us. The original cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, respects financial privacy more than credit cards, but because all Bitcoin transactions are publicly available for anyone to see, Bitcoin still puts our financial privacy at risk. Payment systems like credit cards and Bitcoin are “talkative” about our finances.
Zcash, on the other hand, is more like paper cash: it is “quiet”.
Hello,
Woukd it be ok to propose your project to a local artist ?
This is a really great idea. It reminds me of NASA JPL’s space tourism posters:
@root, I love those NASA JPL posters too! I actually sent one of the artists a link to those posters earlier this week, as an exemplar of the quality that I’m expecting.
If you have a suggested artist for this project that you would like me to consider, feel free to send me their contact information. I would love to take a look at their work.
Of course, the local artist is free to design a Zcash poster completely separate from this project, so long as they abide by the Zcash Trademark Policy. (For the artists that I am working with, I’m making sure that they abide by the policy.)
@kek, you asked about the Zcash posters project and then you deleted your post while I was in the midst of responding.
I have put a lot of time and work into the poster project over the last five weeks. (As you know from the grant proposal, all the grant money is going to the artists. I’m donating my time and work for free.) Initially there was a delay because the artist that I thought was best for first series of posters was unavailable until the end of March. But since then, I have worked closely with him to develop a series of posters. The theme of the posters is “Pay with Zcash”.
The goal is to have the posters done by Zcon1. Five posters are finished, and he is working on a sixth this week. I hope to unveil them very soon, but we are still finalizing the trademark license with the ECC that will allow the artist to sell the prints of the poster on his website. Importantly, you’ll also be able to download the posters free of charge and print them on your own (probably under the terms of a Creative Commons license).
I’m confused. You asked for the grant, and you received the grant, not the artist, to produce the posters. You hired and paid the artist for these posters. Since this was money from a grant you should have had the artist transfer those rights to the person (You) / company(who gave you the grant) who provided the payment.
Due to this lack of foresight now VARA comes into play and what a FUBAR that can be.
Though if you want to through in conspiracy, how fortuitous that now 5 to 6 posters exist paid for by a Zcash grant than one can simply pay the artist a fee to modify their work.
Just out of curiousity, how much of value was the grant in USD?
Just out of curiousity, how much of value was the grant in USD?
It’s all published here: Issues · ZcashFoundation/GrantProposals-2018Q2 · GitHub
Well crap… doesn’t this just punch a hole in my entire post… However VARA still is in play. Because the artist has not given over full rights, if the foundation does something with the art the artist does not like or (so many or’s) they can petition to have it removed and or sue. I am not a lawyer; but even I know this.
Below is an excerpt from the grant request
Artists will be contacted and selected based on evaluations of their prior work related to poster art. Commission fees will be negotiated, along with contractual terms that ensure that the Foundation will be free to disseminate the posters as the Foundation sees fit. To reduce artist commission fees, the artists will be free to also sell prints of their commissioned work on their own websites.
the full amount requested was given, USD 2,500.00
I’am more than curious to see posters that are worth 2,500 in design …
I’ve seen some of the poster designs and they’re pretty cool. Can’t wait to see the final versions and print them to hang them up at Zcon1!
Btw, when commissioning artwork in the United States, $500 per poster is a decent price, particularly when the IP arrangement is more complicated than usual. Dealing with amateurs or low-end pros (think Fiverr) is usually more hassle than the savings would be worth, from sourcing to negotiating legal agreements to requesting revisions. And the quality of the results tends to be lower.
Consumer commissions are generally cheaper, whereas anything with commercial usage will be on par with these prices, and non-editorial graphic design is even spendier.
Don’t even get me started on how expensive it is to commission videos 
Yeah, it is really quite expensive(
Tomorrow is Zcash Poster Day! I’ll be releasing to the public the first seven posters.
Just a quick note about some posts on this thread. Apparently, some forum members are so upset about the mere existence of a dedicated Ycash thread on this forum that they can’t help but try to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about anything that I’m involved in, including a fun poster project funded by a small ($2,500!) grant from the Zcash Foundation. My goodness!
I didn’t read all the posts, but from skimming them, the authors seem to be concerned about how I’m spending the $2,500 and the intellectual property licensing issues surrounding the posters. Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!
To the authors of these posts: You are trying to bully me and it is not going to work. You are wasting your keystrokes. I am going to keep posting about Ycash and I am going to keep working on Zcash posters. I’m not going to respond to (or even read) posts peddling Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about a small project that was meant to be fun.
If you have questions or problems regarding how I’ve managed this grant money or the copyright licenses, you can take that up directly with the Zcash Foundation.
I’m looking forward to publishing the first seven posters tomorrow! (And more posters are planned for the future!)
I’m super excited for the poster release 
However, I don’t think the questions in this thread were illegitimate. Granted, I haven’t seen @kek’s deleted post. (I might be able to see it via admin tools — would that be a bad thing for a forum moderator to do? I’m unsure what the norms are when someone deletes their own comment not long after posting it.)
Personally, Howard, I think you’ve handled the grant well. Since no deadline was specified, I don’t have a problem with your decision to wait until the artist you wanted was available. Especially since you have a job and couldn’t focus on this project during work hours!
