An illustration by Tim Bradford from ‘The Essential Guide to Business for Artists & Designers’ Revised and Updated. All Rights Reserved.

I venture out into the blogosphere with tentative tiny steps, please excuse the formatting, as I’ve just set up this account!

I launch with a recent post I wrote for Asos…just out 25th September 2013

A 7 Step Guide to Protecting Your Brand

When you start out as a fashion designer, maker or seller like all other creative enterprises you have to decide on what to call yourself. You might for example use your own personal name or trade under a business name. Some of you may have started trading using an eye-catching name, phrase or motif but what you might not realise is that without sufficient checks and seeking to register a trade mark, your brand isn’t safe in the commercial marketplace.

When you officially register as a sole-trader (aka self-employed) a partnership or a company, the following seven step guide helps you to avoid costly mistakes with your label name or logo often referred to in legalese as your ‘mark’.

When you see the â next to your favourite label or store name it means they have registered their name, possibly the graphic representation of their mark and logo as a registered trade mark. When you see ä this means that the business founders are stating this is our ‘trademark’ either before or whist waiting for official registration to come through. Trademarks are registered by ‘territory’ which usually means by country.

1.     Go out and check the world
You might not be aware but it is now a legal requirement for anyone setting up as self-employed, partnership or a limited company to make sure they’re not using the same business name as another enterprise. You might not have officially registered yourself as a business, by-the-way if you haven’t and you have started to make sales you need to get this done. So even if you’re using a name and you haven’t officially registered as a business you can still run into problems. The best thing to do is….(To read more please visit Asos)