Collaborating with another creator: splits, credit and who owns the file
A collaboration puts your work in front of someone else's audience and theirs in front of yours. Done well, both creators grow. Done casually, it is one of the quickest ways to lose a friend. The difference is almost always whether the money and the rights were agreed before the work started.
Agree the split first
Decide how money from each sale is divided before anything is made. Common approaches:
- An even split when both people contribute roughly equally
- A larger share to the designer, with the other creator paid for promotion
- A fixed fee for one person's contribution, and the rest to the other
Agree whether the split is of revenue or of profit. Revenue is simpler and causes fewer arguments, because nobody has to agree what counts as a cost.
Decide who owns the design
This is the question people forget. If one of you wants to sell the design again in a year, can they? Can either of you put it on a new product? Can one of you sell it in their own store without the other?
Write down one of these:
- The design belongs to both of you and is only sold as a collaboration
- It belongs to the person who drew it, who licenses it to the collaboration
- Each of you can use it alone after an agreed date
Credit on every listing
Agree how the collaboration is named and credited, and use it the same way everywhere: product titles, descriptions, social posts. Both creators should be visible on the listing. Being left off a credit causes more falling-outs than money does.
Who does what
Write a short list: who makes the artwork, who sets up the products, who writes the descriptions, who answers customer questions, who posts and when. Collaborations stall when each person assumes the other is doing the next step.
What happens when it ends
Agree an end date or a way to end it. When it ends, decide whether the products come down, who keeps selling them, and whether existing stock or orders still pay out at the agreed split.
Put it in writing
It does not need a lawyer. A short message or document that both of you confirm is enough to cover the split, ownership, credit, roles and ending. If either of you is uncomfortable writing it down, that is worth knowing before you start.
The five things
- How each sale is split, and whether it is revenue or profit
- Who owns the design and where it can be reused
- How both creators are credited
- Who does each part of the work
- What happens when the collaboration ends