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arunmenon1975
Participating Frequently
April 22, 2018
Answered

Use of Adobe product logos in personal website

  • April 22, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 2965 views

Can anybody please let me know the guidelines for using Adobe product logos in personal websites. My plan is to use the distinctive product logo in a skills section/page that i have on my website.

For example, i list a few products like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver etc in individual card blocks with the logo and text(in case the images doesn't load for some reason). These Adobe logos would be part of an extended list including logos of other techs (like say HTML5 or Javascript etc etc). A user taps on some of these skills to make a selection and i list out projects completed using these selected skills. Most of the other logos are open source technologies and thus do not normally have binding clauses around logo usage like corporate driven products and services like Adobe's offerings(and other corporate organisations as well).

While i can have it just as text, a logo allows for quicker recognition and basically adds a splash of color and design to an otherwise drab page.

I do have a disclaimer on the page, and its relatively in a prominent position as well:

Disclaimer: All logos are respective trademarks of the associated owner organization or overseeing entity or person(s)

The official document at

https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/legal/documents/Adobe_Trademark_Guidelines_11012014.pdf

has this information(on page 8):

You may not use any Adobe logo, such as the Adobe corporate logo or the triple-looped Adobe PDF or Acrobat logo, an Adobe product name in stylized form (i.e. logotype) or a company tagline, unless you have a specific license or other written permission from Adobe to use it — unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

My interpretation(duh) is that i just cannot use these logos with getting prior written permission. So basically all those logos that i encounter on various websites have been added after express written permission had been provided or, perhaps, there is some leeway in usage cases like mine.

I thought id ask here before evaluating whether to request permission via any available official channels. Since it can be a hassle (its a large company and i suspect they get tons of emails many of which with much more important content than what my communication would have, and  i expect the official response to be something on the lines of entering into a partnership program or something like that) i just may decide not to have it at all.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer P.M.B

Not speaking in any official capacity at all & possibly even with incorrect understanding:

I believe earning one of many possible official certifications from Adobe is one way to gain the right to use their logo (or a specialized version thereof) on your web page.  And even then you cannot just grab an image off the web, you have to get it directly from Adobe.

Think of it this way.  In order to use their logo you would first have to obtain an image of it, which there is no legal way to do outside of getting it directly from Adobe.   Any image you grab off the internet or anyplace other than directly from Adobe would be an illegally obtained image.

I would take a guess that the only exception would be the normal US copyright/trademark exceptions of using certain images for educational or journalistic purposes but even that is "iffy" and it's likely any organization who would qualify for those exceptions probably have an entire legal department to advise and defend them.

Having said all that I would not believe anything you hear from anybody unless that anybody is a representative of Adobe who is authorized to say boo.

2 replies

T
Test Screen Name
Legend
April 23, 2018

You're probably already on this, but consider a careful (maybe explicit) division between "CV" and "portfolio". For some jobs you need both, but they do different jobs.

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arunmenon1975Author
Participating Frequently
April 23, 2018

Actually i do have a Portfolio section that is distinct even at the DB level. My original thought was to link projects(a section in my CV) to the portfolio data( that would exist within the same table) since i assumed they would be connected directly.  Luckily i finally decided to have them separated, mostly so as to showcase anything that need not necessarily have to be tied with any of my published skills. It did go with my original intention of having a CV-centric site but with ample space for non job related showcasing of artefacts if required. The decision was some cause for concern early on as i wondered about the additional code that would be required to get things tied up proper.

An example for artefacts published to the portfolio but not tied to a published skill could perhaps be a hand-drawn sketch (which in actuality is a stretch considering that my best sketches haven't improved from the first-grade tree sketching attempts, but who knows maybe it can suddenly improve out of the blue) or maybe a link to a short story or something like that.

At a later stage, while developing the UI, it turned out that it was a good decision after all. I just had to link to the relevant portfolio data from within my more tightly controlled CV sections while i was free to add more to it independently without disturbing the flow.

Going by your earlier suggestion, I just managed to make the early changes to the skills section so that now there is a bracketing to the skills - a skill type.  Suddenly i notice opportunities for a more intuitive UI in this section and don't miss the logos as much.

P.M.B
P.M.BCorrect answer
Legend
April 22, 2018

Not speaking in any official capacity at all & possibly even with incorrect understanding:

I believe earning one of many possible official certifications from Adobe is one way to gain the right to use their logo (or a specialized version thereof) on your web page.  And even then you cannot just grab an image off the web, you have to get it directly from Adobe.

Think of it this way.  In order to use their logo you would first have to obtain an image of it, which there is no legal way to do outside of getting it directly from Adobe.   Any image you grab off the internet or anyplace other than directly from Adobe would be an illegally obtained image.

I would take a guess that the only exception would be the normal US copyright/trademark exceptions of using certain images for educational or journalistic purposes but even that is "iffy" and it's likely any organization who would qualify for those exceptions probably have an entire legal department to advise and defend them.

Having said all that I would not believe anything you hear from anybody unless that anybody is a representative of Adobe who is authorized to say boo.

~Gutterfish
    A
    arunmenon1975Author
    Participating Frequently
    April 22, 2018

    Thanks for the response. Its as good an answer as i might get from official channels so i am marking it as answered.

    My exact thoughts (though i didn't think about the possibility of an Adobe certification perhaps allowing for some easing in usage rights though, like you said, even thats a remote possibility if at all possible) and I just tried my luck in the off-chance that perhaps there was something that i missed. Having worked with corporate guidelines for a few clients -implementing solutions that had to pass through some rather sizeable guidelines and scrutinised to the pixel-  i definitely get it.

    My best bet would be the non-logo approach since requesting permission and the ensuing mail-chain would essentially be a waste of the Adobe representative's time for something as minor as a personal website.

    Nancy OShea
    Community Expert
    Nancy OSheaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 22, 2018

    What difference does it make which tools you use?   I can honestly say no client has ever asked me which products I use to create print, images, animations, videos, or web development projects.   The fact is I use many tools -- some from Adobe and some from competitors.  

    Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert
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