When they use your artwork and don't pay

With the emergence of AI, the issue of creative rights has become topical. Everyone should receive recompense for their work, but it doesn't always happen. My first experience of having my creative work ‘stolen’ came early in life - the Debenhams ‘D’ logo used on the UK retail giant’s storefronts in the 1990s and 2000s.

The D was designed by me as a child

In 1988 (or 1989, I can’t remember which) I entered a children’s design a t-shirt competition held by Debenhams Plc; this was my design (reproduced from memory)

DESIGN

It included a boat sailing in the sea on a black background, where the sail doubled as a letter ‘D’ in three different coloured parts – pink, yellow and pale blue. Anything look familiar (if you’re old enough to remember 1990s high streets)?

I didn’t win any prize in the competition, nor hear from Debenhams again.

Then a strange thing… in the early 1990s when I was a teenager, I noticed the Debenhams stores update their signage and branding. I recognised the D, thought maybe it was a coincidence, if I thought of it at all.

SIGN PHOTOS

As I grew older I understood what must have happened; a filing cabinet of children’s drawings in a marketing design department somewhere… spread on a desk or pinned to a board, yellowing and curling at the edges while they gave away their content…

But I couldn’t prove that the D was mine, that it was the sail on my competition entry, as I only had the memory of my design.  Sail… Sale… It was the only logo in their history to have any pizzazz

DEBENHAMS LOGOS

In the 2000s Debenhams updated their branding again and my Ds gradually vanished from high streets. Then in 2019 Debenhams went into administration and the high street stores closed for good...

You could be forgiven for thinking this blog post is just a whinge from a ripped off artist wailing from their unloved studio. That’s right, it’s a whinge – except there’s more to this story, more I didn’t know then, read on…

In 2015 I was browsing some old family photos a relation had put online. A lot of photos with names and faces I didn’t recognise, some dating to the nineteenth century. One photo was of a posh young woman in late Victorian dress whose surname was Debenham. I didn’t think anything of it.

Then in 2025 I learnt about my ancestry. I found out the woman in the photo, Mary Debenham, was my Great great grandmother. ‘Debenham… that’s not that common a name is it… I wonder if it’s connected to the stores?’ I said to my cousin. To which she replied ‘yes’, then something about a William Debenham who was meant to have founded the stores.

PHOTO MARY WILLIAM?

I trawled online public records and ancestry listings. I found Mary’s father Samuel Debenham, my Great x 3 grandfather, and his father Robert Debenham, my Great x 4 grandfather. And then Robert’s brother, who was William Debenham – the William that founded the Debenhams stores – my Great x 5 uncle.

The Debenhams Wikipedia page describes how my ancestor William founded the Debenhams name, and passed it down to his sons William and Frank, they to Frank’s son Ernest. How 100 years ago the dynasty came to an abrupt end, when the family were compelled to sell their shares of the stores to investors. The Times published a letter written by Ernest Debenham about the sale and the loss of his chairmanship

A month ago I had no intention of retiring from the management of Debenhams Securities. Indeed, I had every reason to hope that the connection of myself and my family with that business would be indefinitely prolonged. When the offer was made to purchase all or any of the ordinary shares in Debenhams Securities, circumstances of no interest to the general investing public compelled me to accept the offer.

The Times, 8 December 1927, p. 25

A sadness in his words... Perhaps the universe had a plan. Perhaps Ernest would take some consolation from knowing a Debenhams logo was designed by one of his Grandfather’s Great gt gt gt gt neices.