Give Credit History

The History of Give Credit

Give Credit is the brainchild of Cathy Madsen who started showcasing designer sets in 1998 to get across the idea exactly what giving credit to the linkware community meant and why. When she first started the campaign, it showcased a designer every single week of the year.

Give Credit took off throughout the designing community. To be asked to allow GC to showcase one of your creations was a highly coveted honour. To be able to place her graphic award on your site and set was something every designer was hoping for every time they created a new set.

As GC's popularity grew, a Swedish version was created and maintained by Åsa Gilbertson (now maintained by Maria Stomne) and later translated into French by Lucie Grenier who maintained it for a number of years. She has now passed the site onto Anessa.

In early 2000, Cathy passed on the responsibilites of GC onto a group of individuals and as hosting and registrar fees came down, the domain name www.give-credit.com was purchased in June 2000. In March 2001, GC was then transferred to the care of Trish Moody of In A Mood Designs and co-managed with Kathleen Farber of N.E.W WebSolutions.

The site was then redesigned with the help of PHP in hopes of making the showcasing of sets every week a very easy task. However, it was then realized that it wasn't the uploading and showcasing of the actual sets that was hard. It was finding designers that followed netiquette and copyright laws on a weekly basis and sometimes weeks would be missed because of a fruitless search.

It was then decided to showcase sets on a bi-monthly period instead. Although sometimes still hard to find a new set (not that there aren't copyright abiding designers out there but showcasing a different designer each time is also a goal when looking for a new set) GC has been running smoothly ever since.

Since then, GC has changed hands a couple of time's from soley to Trish, then to Julie Booth of The Design Booth and once again and finally back to Trish.

As the years have passed, the internet and it's users have changed. Now, most people can afford their own personal domain name (in fact many have quite a few, it's an addiction of sorts, lol), and hosting and are not using freebie websites. Graphics that are used are a lot smaller in size and so too are the sizes of a web page. Let's not forget the rise of highspeed internet! So, in 2004, it was felt that although Giving Credit was still something that should be done, that the message had and should change. To keep up with the times, GC changed it's message.

Instead of an interactive tutorial showcasing linkware graphic designers to teach other's about linking back (on the same page), the message was rewritten to help teach those to Give Credit Where Credit is Due when using any medium to create their webpages, be it graphics, software, code snippets, fonts, etc.

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The History of Give Credit Give Credit is the brainchild of Cathy Madsen who started showcasing designer sets in 1998 to get across the idea exactly what giving credit to the linkware community meant and why. When she first started the campaign, it showcased a designer every single week of the year. Give Credit took off throughout the designing community. To be asked to allow GC to showcase one of your creations was a highly coveted honour. To be able to place her graphic award on your site and set was something every designer was hoping for every time they created a new set. As GC's popularity grew, a Swedish version was created and maintained by Åsa Gilbertson (now maintained by Maria Stomne) and later translated into French by Lucie Grenier who maintained it for a number of years. She has now passed the site onto Anessa. In early 2000, Cathy passed on the responsibilites of GC onto a group of individuals and as hosting and registrar fees came down, the domain name www.give-credit.com was purchased in June 2000. In March 2001, GC was then transferred to the care of Trish Moody of In A Mood Designs and co-managed with Kathleen Farber of N.E.W WebSolutions. The site was then redesigned with the help of PHP in hopes of making the showcasing of sets every week a very easy task. However, it was then realized that it wasn't the uploading and showcasing of the actual sets that was hard. It was finding designers that followed netiquette and copyright laws on a weekly basis and sometimes weeks would be missed because of a fruitless search. It was then decided to showcase sets on a bi-monthly period instead. Although sometimes still hard to find a new set (not that there aren't copyright abiding designers out there but showcasing a different designer each time is also a goal when looking for a new set) GC has been running smoothly ever since. Since then, GC has changed hands a couple of time's from soley to Trish, then to Julie Booth of The Design Booth and once again and finally back to Trish. As the years have passed, the internet and it's users have changed. Now, most people can afford their own personal domain name (in fact many have quite a few, it's an addiction of sorts, lol), and hosting and are not using freebie websites. Graphics that are used are a lot smaller in size and so too are the sizes of a web page. Let's not forget the rise of highspeed internet! So, in 2004, it was felt that although Giving Credit was still something that should be done, that the message had and should change. To keep up with the times, GC changed it's message. Instead of an interactive tutorial showcasing linkware graphic designers to teach other's about linking back (on the same page), the message was rewritten to help teach those to Give Credit Where Credit is Due when using any medium to create their webpages, be it graphics, software, code snippets, fonts, etc.	Main Page GC History Related Links GC International Linking Logos
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